Ares
Ares has no single emblem: he is the armed warrior of Greek art, with helmet, spear and shield. The Homeric Hymn to Ares calls him “golden-helmed”, “shield-bearer” and “mighty with the spear”, and the Romans knew him as Mars.
Meaning
Ares was the Greek god of war, a son of Zeus and Hera. Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1849) draws the line between him and Athena: she stands for thoughtfulness and wisdom in war, while he is “the personification of bold force and strength, and not so much the god of war as of its tumult, confusion, and horrors”. The Homeric Hymn to Ares piles up his warrior’s epithets: chariot-rider, golden-helmed, shield-bearer, harnessed in bronze, mighty with the spear. Homer was harsher. In the Iliad, when the wounded Ares complains to Zeus, his father answers: “Most hateful to me art thou of all gods that hold Olympus, for ever is strife dear to thee and wars and fightings.” The Romans identified their god Mars with Ares. Ares is among the gods of the Hellenic religion kept today by the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes, which the Greek state recognised as a known religion in 2017.
Origin and history
Ares was slow to become a figure of art. Smith writes that his character, as the oldest poets describe it, seemed little suited to sculpture, and that no artistic image of Ares is recorded before the sculptor Alcamenes, who created the ideal of the god; few Greek monuments with Ares survive, mostly coins, reliefs and gems. Pausanias saw Alcamenes’ statue in the sanctuary of Ares in Athens, near the statue of Demosthenes, alongside images of Aphrodite, Athena and Enyo. On the east frieze of the Parthenon the Acropolis Museum identifies Ares as the first of the seated gods on the right of block IV, beside Demeter.
At Sparta one of his images was kept in chains. Opposite a temple there, Pausanias saw “an old image of Enyalius in fetters”, and Smith, citing the passage, calls it an ancient statue of Ares in chains. The Spartans meant, Pausanias writes, that Enyalius would never run away from them while he was bound, the same idea the Athenians expressed with their Wingless Victory, who could never fly away. Smith reads it the same way: the chains showed that the martial spirit and victory were never to leave Sparta. Smith also notes Ares’ grove in Colchis, where the golden fleece hung on an oak tree sacred to him.
Ares among the planets
One Homeric Hymn treats Ares as a star as well as a warrior. The hymn to him asks the god “who whirl your fiery sphere among the planets in their sevenfold courses through the aether” to shed a kindly ray on the singer’s life and to give him boldness to keep the laws of peace.
Ares or Athena?
Both are armed, so a helmet, a spear and a shield do not decide which god a figure is. Athena’s marks are the aegis with the Gorgon’s head, the owl and the olive; Ares has none of them. Smith puts the difference in character: Athena protects men and their homes in war, while Ares loves war for its own sake and delights in the slaughter of men and the destruction of towns, and when he meets higher powers he is usually beaten.
Read next
- Next in Greek gods and their symbolsAphroditeThe Greek goddess of love and desire, whom Hesiod has rising from the foam of the sea. Greek artists showed her with her son Eros beside her; the scallop shell she stands on and her doves are best known from Roman poets, a fresco at Pompeii and Botticelli.
- The same shape in Adinkra symbolsAnanse Ntontan (spider’s web)Ananse Ntontan, “spider’s web”, is the adinkra symbol of wisdom and creativity, after Ananse, the spider of Akan stories.
See also
Athena, Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo.
Sources
- Homeric Hymn 8, To Ares 1–17 (tr. Evelyn-White), The Homeric Hymns, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914), Homeric Hymn 8, To Ares, lines 1–17, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, lines 1–17
- Iliad 5.889–891 (Homer, tr. A. T. Murray), Homer, The Iliad, translated by A. T. Murray (1924), 5.889–891, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, book 5, lines 889–891
- Ares (William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology), William Smith (ed.), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1849), s.v. “Ares”, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, entry text
- Greek Gods and Religious Practices (Colette and Seán Hemingway, The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Colette Hemingway and Seán Hemingway, “Greek Gods and Religious Practices”, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2003), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, essay text
- Description of Greece 1.8.4 (Pausanias, tr. Jones and Ormerod), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (1918), 1.8.4, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, book 1, chapter 8, section 4
- Description of Greece 3.15.7 (Pausanias, tr. Jones and Ormerod), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (1918), 3.15.7, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, book 3, chapter 15, section 7
- Parthenon. East frieze. Block 4 (IV). Replica (Acropolis Museum), Acropolis Museum, collection entry “Parthenon. East frieze. Block 4 (IV). Replica”, Acropolis Museum, description
- What is the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE)? (YSEE, frequently asked questions), Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE), “Frequently asked questions”, Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE), first and second answers
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from circles or lines.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 8, 2026. How we research
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