Ares, god of war
Ares (Roman: Mars)
- son of Zeus and Hera
- specifically, the god of combat, blood lust, violence
- children with Aphrodite (> Harmonia, “Concordia”)
- standard iconography: helmeted Greek soldier
- sacred animal, boar
- origins in Thrace
- Aphrodite is common cult
partner
> Eros (another birth
account)
Head of Ares, St. Petersburg (after a Greek original, 420s BCE)
Zeus' opinion of Ares:
“Then with an angry glance from beneath his brows spake to
him Zeus, the cloud-gatherer: "Sit thou not in any wise by me
and whine, thou renegade. Most hateful to me art thou of all
gods that hold Olympus, for ever is strife dear to thee and
wars and fightings. Thou hast the unbearable, unyielding spirit
of thy mother, even of Hera […] wert thou born of any other
god, thus pestilent as thou art, then long ere this hadst thou
been lower than the sons of heaven."
- Iliad, book 5, lines 888-898
Is this the same Ares we get in the Homeric Hymn (8)?
Motifs:
The Nature of the gods
More on the Justice of Zeus
What entails the Monotheism of Zeus
Greek Humanism
Artemision Bronze (frontal perspective)
“This only is denied to God: the power to undo the past.”
~ Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 6.2.4
“The death of Sarpedon,” Euphronios krater (ca. 515 BCE)
The Three Fates (aka, the Moirai):
- Children of Zeus and Themis
Alt: Nyx (Night) & Erebus (Darkness)
- In Hesiod
- Three old women:
Clotho (“Spinner”)
Lachesis (“Apportioner”)
Atropos (“Inflexible”)
Disney’s Hercules (1997)
The Divine Hierarchy (from bottom to top):
Fantastic, strange, scary Creatures
Divine Spirits who animate nature (Nymphs, river gods, etc.)
Demigods/Heroes
Other Gods/Goddesses
The Olympians
Zeus
Polytheistic religion
Hylas is abducted by the Nymphs, John William Waterhouse (1896)
The Nature of the gods
Anthropomorphism
Mt. Olympus
“Olympians”
The Underworld
“chthonian”
Ambrosia
Nectar
Ichor
Image of Mt. Olympus in Greece
Xenophanes (6th c. BCE) and the argument against anthropomorphism:
- Homer and Hesiod on the gods
- What humans believe about the gods
- If animals worshiped gods
Lion playing a board game with a gazelle, Egypt
(1250-1150 BCE)
Two reflections on Divine omniscience and omnipotence:
Epicurus
Xenophanes, fr. 18 D-K (6th c. BCE):
“The gods have not, of course, revealed all things to
mortals from the beginning; but rather, seeking in the
course of time, they discover what is better.”
- Intangibility
- Not just ethereal, but force in nature
“It is folly for man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power
to obtain by himself.”
~ Deep thoughts by Epicurus (philosopher, 341-270 BCE)
- Disavowed the use of myths in teachings
- Divine are detached morally perfect beings with no care in human affairs
Arguments for the monotheism of Zeus:
Xenophanes’ monotheism:
- God is unlike human
- God perceives everything
- God sets everything in motion
- God is motionless
Cp. to Cleanthes’ (331-232 BCE) Hymn to Zeus:
- myth simply as teaching tools
- Stoic logos (“reason”)
- predetermined divine providence
Why anthropomorphism?
- a product of Greek Humanism?
- a sense of idealistic optimism in the face of realistic pessimism
- fate vs. free will vs. chance
Protagoras (5th c. BCE): “Man is the measure of all things.”
- Sophist
This reflection will shape our understanding of many
Greek myths from Homer’s Iliad to Sophocles’ Oedipus...
Achilles to Priam, Iliad, bk. 24:
“No human action is without chilling grief. For thus the gods
have spun out for wretched mortals the fate of living in
distress, while they live without care. Two jars sit on the
doorsill of Zeus, filled with gifts that he bestows, one jar of
evils, the other of blessing. When Zeus who delights in the
thunder takes from both and mixes the bad with the good,
a human being at one time encounters evil, at another
good. But the one to whom Zeus gives only troubles from
the jar of sorrows, this one he makes an object of abuse, to
be driven by cruel misery over the divine earth.”
Ransom of Hector
The Twelve (fourteen) Olympians
Greek Roman
Zeus Jupiter/Jove
Hera Juno
Poseidon Neptune
Demeter Ceres
(Hades) (Pluto)
(Hestia) (Vesta)
Athena Minerva
Apollo Apollo
Artemis Diana
Hermes Mercury
Hephaestus Vulcan
Ares Mars
Aphrodite Venus
Dionysus Bacchus
