Bringing Ares into Hellenismos...

When researching Ancient sources regarding Ares, a few things become clear:

1) Ares was not very liked by his family and fellow Olympians: His father, Zeus, is said to have made some harsh remarks about his son, calling out his blood and battle lust as disgusting. 

2) Worship of Ares seems very general and no large cult following really stands out: Ares can be difficult to identify in Classical art. Whether he was left out intentionally or for lack of distinctive physical attributes, is debated. Ares was called upon in times when the nation needed defending, but not generally at any other time. 

3) He had a great love affair with the Goddess of Love herself, Aphrodite: They had at least five confirmed children together. Even after Aphrodite was wed to Hephaistos, the two continued their love affair. 


Now, let's look at things from a modern approach:

Ares, as a male god of war, was definitely needed in Ancient Culture. We're talking about a time period when human migration was happening on a large scale. New lands were beginning discovered and people were fighting constantly. War may not have been a well liked event, but it was necessary. 

At this time in history, only men were really allowed to fight in wars. You have legends of the female warriors training in Sparta and the Amazon women, but your average Ancient Greek woman stayed at home and tended to the house and community while the men went off and fought. 

Between Ares and Athena, Athena is definitely held to a higher level and is more liked than Ares.  Athena embodies the thought, strategy, and planning of war. Ares embodies the rage, blood lust and pounding adrenaline of the fight. Athena looks at the bigger picture; Ares goes in for the kill, blinded by excitement. Athena can be related to the General, Ares the Soldier. While Athena was given a seat in the main temple in Athens, the Acropolis, Ares was in some ways, pushed aside. But no matter how you view it, war would not happen with out the soldiers. 

It's easy to classify Ares as the God of War and leave it at that. But Ares is so much more. 

Ares is also the embodiment of masculine energy, power and strength. He is the Man's Man, the great symbol of what men should look like. Unlike Apollon who is also credited for being viewed as divine male, Ares is rarely ever pictured as a youth, and never androgynous.  Almost always Ares is described as being an adult male, bearded, and muscular. There are the odd times he is pictured in his youth, with spear and shield, but this is taken as a young Ares, and not as an aspect of himself. 

Then, there is also the important fact of his love affair with Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, Lust, and Sex. What would it take to capture the heart of the Love Goddess? What would Ares look like today? The jokes of women always wanting the bad boys are endless. 

There is something alluring and tantalizing about the thought of the tall, dark, and handsome man who will pick you up off your feet, throw you over his shoulder, and ravish you in bed... 

A physically strong man with a tender heart. A deep, penetrating gaze...

Who is this God who brought the Love Goddess on her knees?

I've been working with Aphrodite for a while now, and the deeper our relationship grows, the more I find myself being pulled towards Ares. Many modern magical practitioners tend to view Ares with fear and avoid him. They focus only on the aspect of war and battle. No one wants more stress in their lives, and they seem to think that working with Ares will do just that. 

As much as Ares delights in these sorts of things, he can also teach us to acknowledge our stressors and stand up and fight them, instead of trying to "love and light" them away, as is the popular New Age notion. Ares doesn't sit back and wish things to get better; He putts on his battle gear, goes out and makes things better. 

I encourage everyone to explore all these different aspects of Ares. Whether you evoke or invoke the God, meditate, trance, or study him, try to look beyond the brutal aspects of this war god and see how he connects with you. 

Hail Ares!

Ares, God of War

With the hot, dry heat of August in Manitoba, the HoM takes this time to celebrate and honour Ares, Greek God of war, courage, and battle-lust.

Ares is the god of war, and one of the great Olympian gods of the Greeks. He is commonly credited as being the son of Zeus and Hera. 

The character of Ares in Greek mythology is best understood if compared with that of other divinities who are likewise in some way connected with war. 

Athena represents thoughtfulness and wisdom in the affairs of war, and protects men and their habitations during its ravages. Ares, on the other hand, is nothing but the personification of bold force and strength, and not so much the god of war as of its tumult, confusion, and horrors. His sister Eris (Strife) calls forth war, Zeus directs its course, but Ares loves war for its own sake, and delights in the din and roar of battles, in the slaughter of men, and the destruction of towns. He is not even influenced by party-spirit, but sometimes assists the one and sometimes the other side, just as his inclination may dictate.

The destructive hand of this god was even believed to be active in the ravages made by plagues and epidemics. This savage and sanguinary character of Ares makes him hated by the other gods and his own parents. In the Iliad, he appears surrounded by the personifications of all the fearful phenomena and effects of war; but in the Odyssey his character is somewhat softened down.

It was contrary to the spirit which animated the Greeks to represent a being like Ares, with all his overwhelming physical strength, as always victorious; and when he comes in contact with higher powers, he is usually conquered. He was wounded by Diomedes, who was assisted by Athena, and in his fall he roared like nine or ten thousand other warriors together. When the gods began to take an active part in the war of the mortals, Athena opposed Ares, and threw him on the ground by hurling at him a mighty stone; and when he lay stretched on the earth, his huge body covered the space of seven plethra.

This fierce and gigantic, but withal handsome god loved and was beloved by Aphrodite. He interfered on her behalf with Zeus, and lent her his war-chariot. When Aphrodite loved Adonis, Ares in his jealonsy metamorphosed himself into a boar, and killed his rival.

The warlike character of the tribes of Thrace led to the belief that the god's residence was in that country, and here and in Scythia were the principal seats of his worship. In Scythia he was worshipped in the form of a sword, to which not only horses and other cattle, but men also were sacrificed. 

He was further worshipped in Colchis, where the golden fleece was suspended on an oak-tree in a grove sacred to him. From thence the Dioscuri were believed to have brought to Laconia the ancient statue of Ares which was preserved in the temple of Ares Thareitas, on the road from Sparta to Therapnae.  

In Greece itself the worship of Ares was not very general. At Athens he had a temple containing a statue; at Geronthrae in Laconia he had a temple with a grove, where an annual festival was celebrated, during which no woman was allowed to approach the temple.  He was also worshipped near Tegea, and in the town, at Olympia, near Thebes, and at Sparta, where there was an ancient statue, representing the god in chains, to indicate that the martial spirit and victory were never to leave the city of Sparta. At Sparta human sacrifices were offered to Ares.  The temples of this god were usually built outside the towns, probably to suggest the idea that he was to prevent enemies from approaching them.

All the stories about Ares and his worship in the countries north of Greece seem to indicate that his worship was introduced in the latter country from Thrace; and the whole character of the god, as described by the most ancient poets of Greece, seems to have been thought little suited to be represented in works of art : in fact, we hear of no artistic representation of Ares previous to the time of Alcamenes, who appears to have created the ideal of Ares. There are few Greek monuments now extant with representations of the god; he appears principally on coins, reliefs, and gems. The Romans identified their god Mars with the Greek Ares.

Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.