ARES

Ares, son of Zeus and Hera, was the god of war. His children from his adulterous affair with Aphrodite, the wife of Hephaistos, included Harmonia (who later wed Cadmos, the founder of Thebes) and his companions in battle, Phobos and Deimos (embodiments of fear and dread, respectively). In contrast with his sister Athena, who represented protection of cities and strategy, Ares was associated with the blind brutality of war. This explains why he was not popular with the Greeks, who – despite their frequent wars and high regard for military valour – were not a bellicose people. Even his own father, Zeus, in the Iliad calls him the most loathsome of the Olympian gods because of his belligerent nature. Very few temples were devoted to Ares in the Greek world (in Troizina, Geronthrai and Alikarnassos). As for the Temple of Ares in the ancient agora of Athens, it had originally been erected in some other community of Attica, in honour perhaps of another god, before being moved to the centre of Athens and rededicated to Ares during the reign of Augustus, probably in connection with the Roman cult of Mars Ultor.