Ares: The Ruthless Greek God Of War — World Tomorrow

5 min readMay 21, 2020

Plato, Voltaire, Albert Einstein — Can you tell me, what do these all 3 revolutionary great minds have in common? Even though they belong from distinctively different eras they all have expressed their philosophical perspective on WAR. What is War? It is a relentless brutal event that has never done anybody any good. Even when a war takes place for the sake of Freedom and Justice, it ends with great losses to both ends.

War has been an extensive reality of our history and can be found documented in multiple ancient texts across different mythologies. Do you know what that means? that means Be it Mayan be it Egyptian or be it Ancient greek civilization, civilizations after civilizations got destroyed but the war has always been a persistent part of every human civilization.

Today we are going to talk about the Greek take on the war from a mythological point of view. According to Greek Mythology, Ares is the Greek god of war. He is relentless and brutal and we can also call him the personification of War symbolizing Destruction.

Who is Ares? What does the name Ares mean?

The word Ares comes from the Greek word Ἄρης” which literally means “ruin, bane”. According to the Greek legends, Ares is the Greek god of war. He is ruthless and is rather feared than loved as he is infamous for his merciless brutality. He is one of the 12 Olympians that are worshipped as main deities across the vast Greek nation. This relentless greek god of war is the son of Zeus and Hera. Now, there is a very interesting story behind the birth of Ares.

Origin of Ares

If you look at Greek Mythology, you will find Ares, the Greek god of war got a female counterpart who happens to be her elder sister. Yes you are right we are talking about none other than the Greek god of Wisdom, Athena. She happens to be equally fearsome as a warrior. If anything she is wittier than Ares, and because of that reason she is fancied as an idol and worshipped across the whole greek nation as the warrior goddess.

Legend says — because of Athena’s rare combination of fascinating beauty, wisdom, and war strategizing might she became the favorite child of Zeus. Hera, the wife of Zeus did not like the fact of so, so she wished for an equally brave child who would grow up into a fearsome brutal god and replace Zeus as the next ruler of Olympus. Her wishes got answered as soon she conceived a beautiful baby boy who would grow up into a fearsome brutal warrior with unparalleled physical attributes. We know him today as Ares, the Greek god of War.

Genealogy of Ares

Parents: Zeus and Hera
Siblings: Aeacus, Angelos, Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Dionysus, Eileithyia, Enyo, Eris, Ersa, Hebe, Helen of Troy, Hephaestus, Heracles, Hermes, Minos, Pandia, Persephone, Perseus, Rhadamanthus, the Graces, the Horae, the Litae, the Muses, the Moirai
Consort: Aphrodite and various others
Children: Erotes (Eros and Anteros), Phobos, Deimos, Phlegyas, Harmonia, Enyalios, Thrax, Oenomaus, and Amazons
Roman Equivalent: Mars
Norse Equivalent: Týr
Hinduism Equivalent: Kartikeya

Symbols of Ares

Sword
Spear
Shield
Helmet
Chariot
Flaming torch
Dog
Boar
Vulture

What is Ares known for?

The Greek god of War is best known for his resilience, physical strength, and unmatchable military intelligence. I mean he is not called the Greek god of War just like that. Honestly, the whole of Greece prefers Athena over him, except Sparta. Spartans saw him as their role model and history is the witness as most of his temples could be found in Sparta. The famous golden Spartan Helmet and armor is inspired by the look of the greek god of War himself.

Furthermore Ares is known for his unquenchable thirst for quarrel and battles even among his fellow gods. But again, looking at Greek Mythology one can say that’s pretty much story of every other Greek god, fighting with each other throughout the mythology.

Ares is also known for his leading participation at the battle of Troy, siding the Trojans against the Greeks. What’s funny is even being the Greek god of war, Ares sided the Trojans and couldn’t even win the battle. I guess the famous saying “Pen is mightier than the sword” goes for gods too as Athena won the battle of Troy with her unparalleled Wisdom and militia strategies. In his book, Homer(author of Illyad) described how Athena injured Ares and the scream of him agonizing in pain sounded like 10,000 men screaming.

Who hated Ares? Is Ares an evil god?

If you look at Greek Mythology, you will find Ares being hated by almost everybody for his unnecessary thirst for breaking the peace with war as an answer to every problem. But if you ask about his most worthy mentionable rival, then it got to be his elder sister, Athena. As at multiple occasions, across different greek texts and epithets one can find Ares and Athena getting into futility.

The battle of Troy is a glorifying example of so as neither of the two siblings left any stones unturned to hurt each other. Unfortunately for the Greek god of war Athena came out victorious in the battle. Now, with being said that we will leave it up to you to decide whether the greek god of war was benevolent or evil.

Who killed Ares? Can Ares die?

Technically Ares, the Greek god of war can never die. He is a god and he is immortal. According to ancient Greek texts, the life of gods depends upon the worship of the mortals.
So as long as he or any of his personifying symbols such as the Sword, spear, shield, helmet, chariot, flaming torch, dog, boar, vulture are worshipped he can never die.

Originally published at https://world-tomorrow.com on May 21, 2020.