Greek God Ares

All ancient polytheistic societies of people who waged war or fought battles to survive had a deity that they turned to for assistance during those battles or times of war. For the Romans it was the god Mars who they turned to for guidance, while the ancient Greeks had their god of war by the name of Ares. Ares was usualy depicted in the artwork of ancient Greece as being in his early twenties, handsome with a muscular build and dressed in a suit of armor while wielding a spear.

When this god traversed the heavens the ancient Greeks pictured him doing so in a four wheeled wagon called a quadriga that was pulled by four immortal fire breathing stallions, hitched with solid gold bridles. Ares was the god that Greek warriors would pay tribute to prior to going into battle and while researchers have claimed that Ares was a minor Greek deity it can be safely assumed that during times of war and particularly prior to battle the status of this Greek god spiked up considerably.

The Spartans also recognized and worshiped this Greek deity and in fact had a statue of him wrapped in chains and kept in Sparta to symbolize that his warrior spirit should never exit the city of Sparta. Ares' mythical consort was Aphrodite, with whom he fathered two male offspring with by the names of Phobos and Deimos. The ancient Greeks saw these two progeny of Ares and Aphrodite as being the spirits of terror and fear and may have evoked them also during pre battle ceremony and rites to be sent against the enemy.

Surprisingly there are very few myths or legends of this Greek gods exploits such that there are for other important Greek deity's and of the few that there are none speak to his prowess as a warrior. On the contrary, in one obscure myth of Ares it was told that two giants named Otus and Ephialtes overpowered him, bound him in chains and encased him in an urn for thirteen months in an attempt to contain his appetite for war.

However, he was freed by the god Hermes when he learned of his predicament. In yet another more commonly related myth, Ares and Aphrodite were discovered in a compromising private moment by the god Helios who subsequently told Aphrodite's consort Hephaestus. Hephaestus constructed a net that he then used to ensnare Ares and Aphrodite after which he brought all the gods of the Olympiad to view and ridicule them in the awkward and embarrassing situation that they were in.