Ares
The god of the savage violence of battle — feared, hated, and necessary, embodying the bloodlust that the Greeks recognised but did not admire.
The Myth of Ares
Ares was the Olympian god of war, but where Athena represented strategy and disciplined combat, Ares embodied raw, murderous violence — the berserker rage, the chaos of the battlefield, the screaming and the slaughter. Homer makes him despicable: Zeus tells him he is the most hateful of all the gods. He fights on the Trojan side but is humiliated repeatedly — Diomedes wounds him with Athena's help, and he flees howling to Olympus. Athena defeats him in divine combat during the Iliad's Theomachy. His affair with Aphrodite, exposed by Hephaestus who trapped the lovers in an unbreakable net, made him a figure of ridicule. Yet Ares was necessary. The Greeks understood that war requires both strategy and savagery, and that refusing to acknowledge the beast in combat is a dangerous delusion. In Sparta, Ares was honoured more than in most Greek states — the Spartans understood what Athens preferred to deny, that victory sometimes requires the red god.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Ares
⚡ godGod of war, violence, bloodshed
God of the brutal, savage side of war. Unlike Athena's strategic warfare, Ares represented the raw violence and chaos of battle.
Enyo
⚡ godGoddess of war and destruction
Enyo was a goddess of war who delighted in bloodshed and the destruction of cities — she accompanied Ares and Eris into battle.
Phobos
⚡ godGod of fear and panic in battle
Phobos was the god of fear who accompanied his father Ares into battle, spreading terror before the armies.
Alecto
⚡ godUnderworld
One of the three Erinyes whose name means "Unceasing" and who embodies relentless anger
Bellona
⚡ godWar, destruction, battlefield fury
Roman goddess of war and destruction, companion or sister of Mars, equivalent to the Greek Enyo
Hysminai
⚡ godCombat, fray, hand-to-hand fighting
The daimones of close combat and the chaotic violence of the battlefield melee
Lyssa
⚡ godMadness and frenzy
Goddess of mad rage and rabid frenzy who drove Heracles to murder his own children
Deimos
⚡ godGod of terror and dread
Deimos was the personification of dread and terror — the brother of Phobos who accompanied Ares into war.
Makhai
🐉 creaturepersonifications
Daimones of battle and combat, born from Eris, who haunted every battlefield in the Greek world
Diomedes
🗡 heroKing of Argos who wounded gods
Diomedes was the only mortal in the Iliad to wound two Olympian gods in a single day.
Apollo
⚡ godGod of light, music, prophecy, and plague
Apollo was the most complex Olympian — god of light, music, poetry, prophecy, healing, plague, and rational thought, the divine embodiment of Greek civilisation.
Giants
🐉 creatureearth-born, warfare
Enormous earth-born warriors who waged the Gigantomachy against the Olympian gods and were defeated only with the help of a mortal hero.