Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video,
we’re going to discuss Ares, the god of War,
Zeus’ least favourite child, and perhaps the least respected god in the Greek pantheon.
Let’s get into it.
Most of Zeus’ children were bastards, meaning they were conceived out of wedlock,
which is to say that Zeus had a penchant for philandery, gallivanting around and employing
all the tricks and tools at his disposal - from cajoling to coaxing to coercing - siring
a plethora of illegitimate children, thereby defiling the sanctity of his marriage
at every possible opportunity. But it has to be conceded that, despite his many, many offences,
he did have some legitimate children that came from his marriage to Hera.
Together they had Ares, the god of war, Hebe, a personification of vigor and youthful beauty,
described as being a sort of handmaiden to the other Olympians, and Hephaestus, the god
of the forge and volcanic fire, though in some versions he was independently produced by Hera,
who made him in response to Zeus birthing Athena out the side of his skull.
Almost always portrayed clad in armour, battle ready, sword, spear, and shield equipped,
Ares, known as Mars to the Romans, was one of the 12 Olympians and the Greek god of war,
but perhaps saying that he was a Greek god of war would be more accurate,
for certain aspects of warfare - its defensive and strategic aspects, for
example - more so fell beneath Athena’s purview, subsumed into her own sphere of influence,
though Ares is likely the first name that comes to mind when the phrase Greek god of war is said.
Ares was associated with the brutality of war. He was the patron of aggressors and instigators.
Invaders, conquerors, people and armies who attacked with or without provocation - these
were the sort he would champion when invoked. Wanton violence, slaughter, bloodlust,
fear and panic, the screams of the dying, so many deathrattles that carried through the ranks of
embattled armies - this was his symphony. And the routing of armies and the sacking
of cities were the crescendos he conducted. Two of Ares’ children, Phobos, meaning Fear, and
Deimos, meaning Dread, were always in his train, constantly attending him. As sons of Aphrodite,
they embodied more than just fear and dread over the prospect of life and limb being taken;
they also embodied fear of a loss, especially as it pertained to the
irrevocable severing of connections between people, whether friend, family, or lover.
Ares and Aphrodite had other children together, too. They had Harmonia, Harmony, Anteros,
Requited Love, and in some versions, Eros, Sexual Desire, though other version had
Eros as one of the first primordial deities to come into existence in the Greek creation myth.
He fathered many children with many partners, but his most famous relationship was with the goddess
Aphrodite while she was married to Hephaestus, making the smith god a cuckold by the hands -
perhaps by the loins would be more appropriate - of his own brother. Hephaestus did exact
revenge against them: using all of his skill and subtlety as a smith, he wrought an indestructible
chain link net so fine that it was virtually imperceptible to the eye. He came upon them
mid-passion while they embraced in bed, ensnaring them in a trap they could neither break nor escape
from. He then hauled them before the other gods, putting them on display in humiliating fashion.
Ares found himself fighting against the Greeks during the Trojan war. This was because his lover,
Aphrodite, supported the Trojans, her allegiances won by Paris, a prince of Troy,
when he acted as arbiter, judging her to be the most beautiful over Hera and Athena.
But it should be said that this decision also made Troy two very powerful enemies,
as both Hera and Athena, inadvertently scorned by Paris, would support the Greeks.
The Iliad doesn’t paint a very flattering portrait of Ares. It features Zeus unleashing a diatribe
of vitriol at him in which he says that Ares, of all the Olympians, is the god he hates the most.
And it features two instances in which Athena dominates him on the battlefield.
The first has Athena ride with Diomedes in his chariot, allowing the Greek hero to bury
his spear’s tip in Ares’ bowels. The second has Athena and Ares square off against each other.
Athena dodges Ares’ attack, then responds by picking up a boulder off the ground
and hurling it at her brother. She scores a direct hit,
smashing Ares in the head, who crumples to the ground in a heap of limbs and armour.
And, I suppose, since Ares’ reputation is being tarnished by us bringing up his
unflattering moments in the Iliad, we might as well kick him while he’s down,
and wrap this video up with a brief summary of his abduction and imprisonment as a child. When
Ares was but a fledgling, still a boy, he was kidnapped by the Aloads, Otus and Ephialtes,
a pair of giant demi-god twins. Without food or drink, they kept him in a bronze jar for months,
13 months to be precise. It was said that, were it not for Hermes rescuing him,
that he would have withered away and died, isolated and emaciated.
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