Ares: Greek God of War

Greetings fans of Greek and Roman mythology! After having recently written about Persephone, Hades, and Hephaestus, I will now move on to the brother of Hephaestus, Ares.  Since Hephaestus was the son of Zeus and Hera, so too would Ares be the sibling of Hephaestus (the only other child of Zeus and Hera was Hebe, the cupbearer of the gods, who married Heracles).  The symbol of Ares was this:  ♂.  This symbol depicts the shield and spear of Ares (or Mars, the Roman name for Ares), which has become a symbol for man, just as the hand mirror of Aphrodite (♀) became the symbol for women.
     Ares, despite the fact that he was the god of war, was quite cowardly.  He would not think twice about switching sides during a battle if the other side were winning.  He would also not think twice about killing a rival.  In the story of Adonis and the boar, the beautiful goddess Aphrodite was madly in love with Adonis, probably the most handsome of all mortals.  Before this, of course, up on Mt. Olympus, Aphrodite was in love with Ares, despite the fact that she was married to Hephaestus.  We must keep in mind that we are dealing with gods, and gods do not behave like (most) mortals do.  Everything seems pretty crazy, but that's only because we're not gods!  Anyway, Aphrodite decided to get married to Adonis, and settle down with him on Earth, leaving Mt. Olympus itself.  Adonis must have been one amazingly handsome guy. But then, of course, Aphrodite would do anything for love since she was, after all, the goddess in charge of that overwhelming emotion!
    Aphrodite and Adonis were living simply a peaceful, beautiful life until the friends of Adonis began bugging Adonis to go hunting with them.  Adonis had once loved to go hunting, but Aphrodite, once getting married to him, would no longer let Adonis go on the hunt since he might get injured, or perhaps die.  In those days, hunters would go after boars, terribly large pigs with great tusks that could easily gore and kill a human.  Hunters hunted only with spears in those days, so they had to get close to their prey (unlike today, where you can comfortably shoot prey from a tree, or from half a mile away).  Boars, terribly strong (even my Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs are enormously strong, and they are relatively small ... I had to move one once from my garden to its enclosure, and it almost killed me!), would often rip through hunters, eviscerating them on the spot.  One can little wonder then why Aphrodite was nervous about Adonis going after such a ferocious creature.
     But one day the friends of Adonis had had enough.  They hadn't seen him for months, and they missed their hunting buddy, so one morning, very early before Aphrodite got up, they knocked on the door of Adonis and asked him if he'd like to go hunting with them, since there was a terribly ferocious boar that had just wandered into that neck of the woods, and the hunt for him would be fine and highly exciting.  When Adonis hesitated, his friends began to taunt him; you can imagine them calling him "chicken" and "hen-pecked" and "boar bullied" and things that were probably less nice than that.  Adonis, young and foolish, caved, hoping that Aphrodite wouldn't find out. Off he went on the hunt.
     And did not return.  Unfortunately, the boar had killed Adonis.  Aphrodite found his dead body, abandoned by his friends (no one wanted to face her wrath).  Aphrodite mourned and mourned, but eventually returned to Mt. Olympus and Ares (oh, and Hephaestus, when she wanted some new jewels).
     Aphrodite never discovered that the boar had actually been Ares in disguise.

*Interesting Fact* The goddess Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Battle, was so much more powerful than Ares that a mere glance from her could cast aside the great spear of Ares when he hurled it at her.

*Interesting Fact* Another enormous boar, the Calydonian Boar, was the subject of another even more famous hunt, which I shall write about when I discuss the heroine Atalanta.  Yet another boar, the Erymanthian Boar, was the 4th Labor of Heracles.

*Interesting Fact*  Mars, the Roman name of Ares, is nicknamed the "Red Planet" because of its red sands.  The planet was so named Mars because it resembled the color of blood, much of which is shed during war.  Note that the names of the planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto --  yes, yes, I know that Pluto was demoted, but really ...) are named after the Roman names of Greek gods.

*Interesting Fact* The month March was also named after Mars.  Martial campaigns would take a break during the winter months, but when spring began in March, armies would once again go off to war.

*Interesting Fact* The Latin name for our day "Tuesday" is Martis, or "Day of Mars."  This crossed directly over into Spanish Martes, French Mardi, and Italian Martedi.  All, apparently, good days for war.  Our day Tuesday, in fact, is named after the Norse god of war, Tiw.  So, "Tiw's Day," or "Tuesday."

*Mythology Book Corner*   The story of the Erymanthian Boar is nicely told and depicted in a stunningly illustrated graphic novel entitled Hercules: The Twelve Labors: A Greek Myth.  All the other 12 Labors of Heracles are described as well.  For those of you who love to read myths and love to see pictures as well, this book is certainly for you!

Interested in English vocabulary and its Latin and Greek roots?  Take a look at
www.wordempire.com, a site which describes the most comprehensive dictionary available based on English derivatives that come from Latin and Greek root words.

Hephaestus, Olympian Blacksmith

Greetings fans of Greek and Roman mythology! After having recently written about Aphrodite,  Persephone, and Hades,  I shall now move on to one of the more troubled gods, Hephaestus (Vulcan in Roman, also known as Mulciber).  Hephaestus was one of only three children of Zeus and Hera (the other two being Ares and Hebe), and his troubles began at birth.  You might ask immediately why it would be such a bad thing to be born an immortal god (ah!  an oxymoron!  all gods are immortal!  whoops!  except for Pan, the god of the satyrs, who was reported to have died in the 1500s ... but let's move on), but sadly enough for Hephaestus, it was (well, kind of).  When Hera gave birth to him, he was weak with a pitiful appearance, so his mother, highly displeased, simply tossed him off of Mt. Olympus!  That would make a great modern-day American short story!  Hera, fortunately, had quite the arm, so he did not fall upon the hard land, but fell into the sea, quite the distance from Mt. Olympus.

Having landed, thankfully unscathed, into the sea, he was found by the goddess Thetis.  One of the innate talents of Hephaestus was to make beautiful jewelry, and so he, in gratitude, began to bedeck Thetis with gorgeous necklaces and splendid, shining diamond rings.  This he did for a full nine years.  One day, however, Hera discovered that Thetis had better jewelry to wear than she did, in fact, Thetis had better jewelry than any of the Olympians (more on this fact later), so Hera asked Thetis where she had gotten it.  Finally she wrested the fact that her very son Hephaestus was making those pretty, priceless baubles for her, and the trick was up.  Soon enough, Hephaestus was reentered into the good graces of his mother, and was "allowed" to return to Mt. Olympus so he could make things now, in "gratitude," for his mother (one might think for a moment about what Hephaestus thought about all of that!).

Things went "swimmingly" for a while up on Mt. Olympus until one day Hephaestus and his father Zeus got into a bit of a tiff, and Zeus promptly threw him off the other side of Mt. Olympus!  This time Hephaestus didn't fare so well ... he landed, splat!, upon the hard earth, and broke every bone in his body.  His legs were especially affected by the fall, as was his back--he would be kyphotic, or hunch-backed, ever after, and he would have trouble walking.  One might imagine the appearance of Quasimodo from Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame when one thinks of Hephaestus.  Later on, he was once again "pardoned," and allowed to return, albeit in much rougher shape than the first time he returned!

Because Hephaestus was now so ugly and deformed, limping along and bent over because of his horribly disfigured back, he decided to dwell within the depths of Mt. Olympus, and there established a forge where he made made items with his great skill as a blacksmith.  He made himself golden leg supports to help him walk.  He made golden mechanical women that came to life to help him in his smithy.  He also fashioned 20 three-legged tables with golden wheels that would move by themselves to transport items around his stygian, or gloomy, smithy. The Cyclopes, or one-eyed giants, also helped out in his forge.  With all this assistance, he was able to forge some of the greatest weapons of the gods and heroes, including the winged shoes and helmet of Hermes,  the shield of Achilles, the aegis (the shield of Athena that bore the head of Medusa), the golden chariot of Helios, and the bow and arrows of Eros, the god of love (Roman Cupid), to name a few. 

Hephaestus, despite the fact that he was the ugliest of the Olympians, did manage to marry Aphrodite, the most beautiful of the goddesses.  Can you guess why?  Consider the fact that Aphrodite loved to gaze at herself in her hand mirror ... ah, now you have it.  The gorgeous, shining, beauty-enhancing jewelry!  Yep, that's right, this was not a marriage for love (marriages for love were unknown for the most part in the ancient world; that concept really did not have its origin until the troubadours in the Middle Ages).  Aphrodite's interest in Hephaestus was purely in the sense of being a trophy wife ... he made her beautiful, beautiful items, which she accepted with evident and rapacious glee. In fact, he made her the cestus, a girdle that made her simply even more irresistible to men.  Why he did that we'll probably never know!  He probably wasn't the jealous type, I guess.

Hephaestus, besides being the god of blacksmiths, was also the god of fire, volcanoes, sculptors, metal, metallurgy, and technology.  From the depths of Olympus to Dell.  Isn't life interesting? 

Mythology Book Corner:  This book corner suggests great mythology reads.   Probably one of the best books on Greek mythology ever written was by Edith Hamilton, a book simply called Mythology.  It's been around forever ... you know that because I read it as a kid.  It's fabulous!



*Interesting Fact* A sailor reported that Pan had indeed died.  No one knows the name of that sailor. But he was really sure about that.

*Interesting Fact* The word "volcano" and "vulcanize" come from the Roman name for Hephaestus, Vulcan.

*Interesting Fact* The thunderbolts of Zeus were fashioned by the Cyclopes, not Hephaestus.