
Enyalios was sometimes identified with Ares and sometimes differentiated from him as another war god with separate cult even in the same town Burkert describes them as "doubles almost". One epithet of Ares in the Classical period is Enyalios, a name which seems to appear on the Mycenaean KN V 52 tablet as 𐀁𐀝𐀷𐀪𐀍, e-nu-wa-ri-jo.

In the Iliad, the word ares is used as a common noun synonymous with "battle." The warlike, fully armoured and armed Aphrodite Areia was partnered with Ares in Sparta and was represented at Kythira's temple to Aphrodite Urania. The adjectival epithet, Areios ("warlike") was frequently appended to the names of other gods when they took on a warrior aspect or became involved in warfare: Zeus Areios, Athena Areia, even Aphrodite Areia. The earliest attested form of the name is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀀𐀩, a-re, written in the Linear B syllabic script. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name. Walter Burkert notes that "Ares is apparently an ancient abstract noun meaning throng of battle, war." R. The etymology of the name Ares is traditionally connected with the Greek word ἀρή ( arē), the Ionic form of the Doric ἀρά ( ara), "bane, ruin, curse, imprecation".

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.
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Other traditions again relate, that Athena sprang from the head of Zeus in full armor, a statement for which Stesichorus is said to have been the most ancient authority.Ares ( / ˈ ɛər iː z/ Ancient Greek: Ἄρης, Árēs ) is the Greek god of war and courage. Others relate, that Prometheus or Hermes or Palamaon assisted Zeus in giving birth to Athena, and mentioned the river Triton as the place where the event took place.

Pindar adds, that Hephaestus split the head of Zeus with his axe, and that Athena sprang forth with a mighty war-shout. According to Hesiod, Metis, the first wife of Zeus, was the mother of Athena, but when Metis was pregnant with her, Zeus, on the advice of Gaea and Uranus, swallowed Metis up, and afterwards gave birth himself to Athena, who sprang from his head. Homer calls her a daughter of Zeus, without any allusion to her mother or to the manner in which she was called into existence, while most of the later traditions agree in stating that she was born from the head of Zeus. Added by archaeologs One of the great divinities of the Greeks.
