When he does appear, he is often humiliated. Though there are many literary allusions to Ares' love affairs and children, he has a limited role in Greek mythology. The later belief that ancient Spartans had offered human sacrifice to Ares may owe more to mythical prehistory, misunderstandings, and reputation than to reality. Still further away from Greece, the Scythians were said to ritually kill one in a hundred prisoners of war as an offering to their equivalent of Ares. In parts of Asia Minor, he was an oracular deity. Some cities in Greece and several in Asia Minor held annual festivals to bind and detain him as their protector.
An association with Ares endows places, objects, and other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality.Īlthough Ares' name shows his origins as Mycenaean, his reputation for savagery was thought by some to reflect his likely origins as a Thracian deity.
He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister, the armored Athena, whose martial functions include military strategy and generalship. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. Ares ( / ˈ ɛər iː z/ Ancient Greek: Ἄρης, Árēs ) is the Greek god of war and courage.
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