Читать книгу The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome - Ultimate Collection - Homer - Страница 25

If Athena, as the warlike defender of right and justice, the protector of cities, enjoyed the honor of all men and the fullest share in her mighty father's confidence, it was far otherwise with Ares, the god of war and battle. Zeus declares in his anger,

" Most hateful to me art thou of all the gods that dwell on Olympus; thou ever lovest strife and wars and battles." (Iliad, V. 890.)

Athena addresses him as,

"Ares, Ares, blood-stained bane of mortals, thou stormer of walls." (Iliad, V. 31.)

He was the personification of battle, always thirsting for blood; his worship originated among the savage tribes of Thrace. He was drawn in his chariot by his fiery horses. Fear and Dread, borne by a Fury to the North Wind, and was attended by Strife, Rout, Terror, and Battle-din.

In art, however, this blood-stained Ares gave place to a much milder conception. In the fourth century B.C. he appears as a young man with spirited, but somewhat thoughtful face, and slender, graceful, nude form. Often he has no arms other than a helmet and a shield or club. He is frequently seen with Aph ro di’te (Venus), goddess of love and beauty, or their child, Eros (Cupid). For Aphrodite, tired of her marriage with the lame god of fire, Hephæstus, into which she was forced by Zeus, yielded to the love of Ares. Homer tells how Hephæstus, told of his wife's infidelity by the sun-god, forged a net, fine as a spider's web, wherein he insnared the guilty lovers so that they could not move a limb. Here he held them prisoners, a laughing-stock to all the gods.

Fig. 29. Bearded Mars.

Fig. 30. Aphrodite of Cnidos.

From Ares was derived the name, A re op’agus, of the hill near the Acropolis in Athens, where cases of murder were tried in old times.

Worshiped as Mars, in Rome the war-god occupied a much higher place than in Athens. To him was dedicated the Campus Martins, a field where the army met to be numbered, and to him, on the return of a victorious army, were dedicated the spoils of war. Through his son Romulus, the legendary founder of the city of Rome, the Romans claimed the special favor of the war-god. (See p. 348.) With Mars was associated Bel lo’na, a goddess personifying war.