Ares (/ˈɛəriːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἄρης, Árēs [árɛːs]) is the Greek god of war and courage.

He is one of
the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were generally ambivalent
towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify
sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister, the armored Athena, whose martial functions
include military strategy and generalship. An association with Ares endows places, objects, and
other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality.
Although Ares' name shows his origins as Mycenaean, his reputation for savagery was thought by
some to reflect his likely origins as a Thracian deity. Some cities in Greece and several in Asia Minor
held annual festivals to bind and detain him as their protector. In parts of Asia Minor, he was an
oracular deity. Still further away from Greece, the Scythians were said to ritually kill one in a hundred
prisoners of war as an offering to their equivalent of Ares. The later belief that ancient Spartans had
offered human sacrifice to Ares may owe more to mythical prehistory, misunderstandings, and
reputation than to reality.
Though there are many literary allusions to Ares' love affairs and children, he has a limited role
in Greek mythology. When he does appear, he is often humiliated. In the Trojan War, Aphrodite,
protector of Troy, persuades Ares to take the Trojans' side. The Trojans lose, while Ares' sister
Athena helps the Greeks to victory. Most famously, when the craftsman-god Hephaestus discovers
his wife Aphrodite is having an affair with Ares, he traps the lovers in a net and exposes them to the
ridicule of the other gods.
Ares' nearest counterpart in Roman religion is Mars, who was given a more important and dignified
place in ancient Roman religion as ancestral protector of the Roman people and state. During
the Hellenization of Latin literature, the myths of Ares were reinterpreted by Roman writers under the
name of Mars, and in later Western art and literature, the mythology of the two figures became
virtually indistinguishable.

Names
The etymology of the name Ares is traditionally connected with the Greek word ἀρή (arē),
the Ionic form of the Doric ἀρά (ara), "bane, ruin, curse, imprecation".[1] Walter Burkert notes that
"Ares is apparently an ancient abstract noun meaning throng of battle, war."[2] R. S. P. Beekes has
suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name.[3] The earliest attested form of the name is
the Mycenaean Greek 𐀀𐀩, a-re, written in the Linear B syllabic script.[4][5][6]
The adjectival epithet, Areios ("warlike") was frequently appended to the names of other gods when
they took on a warrior aspect or became involved in warfare: Zeus Areios, Athena Areia,
even Aphrodite Areia ("Aphrodite within Ares" or "feminine Ares"), who was warlike, fully armoured
and armed, partnered with Athena in Sparta, and represented at Kythira's temple to Aphrodite
Urania.[7] In the Iliad, the word ares is used as a common noun synonymous with "battle."[2]
In the Classical period, Ares is given the epithet Enyalios, which seems to appear on
the Mycenaean KN V 52 tablet as 𐀁𐀝𐀷𐀪𐀍, e-nu-wa-ri-jo.[8][9] Enyalios was sometimes identified with
Ares and sometimes differentiated from him as another war god with separate cult, even in the same
town; Burkert describes them as "doubles almost".[10][11]