What does ares do

In the wager of the Gods, Ares was seen in the comics choosing Kratos as his champion and was confident that nothing would stop him in his quest for the Ambrosia. After a grueling journey, Kratos captured the Ambrosia and thus made Ares the victor of the wager of the Gods. Kratos and his Spartan army were no match for the merciless barbarians tribes of the east.

Being outnumbered and overpowered, Kratos' army was losing the battle. Kratos, about to be killed by Alrik , the Barbarian King, pledged himself to Ares, the God of War, in exchange for victory. After he saw Kratos as the potential warrior that he needed to overthrow Olympus, Ares accepted, violently wiped out the barbarians, and gave Kratos the Blades of Chaos as a sign of his servitude.

To ensure that the Spartan became the perfect warrior and was bound to his will, Ares and the Furies devised three blood tests for Kratos. The first had already been completed: spilling the blood of enemies. The second, spilling the blood of innocents, was easy to accomplish with Kratos' rising bloodlust as he ended countless lives with his Spartan companions, and conquered most of Greece.

The last rite was spilling the blood of loved ones. Ares led Kratos to attack a village built in honor and worship of Athena. The Spartan soldiers ruthlessly killed all who lived in the village and burned their homes to the ground in the process. Upon reaching a strange temple, Kratos was warned by the Village Oracle not to venture within its walls. Ignoring the old woman, Kratos, blinded by bloodthirst, killed all who were within the walls of the temple, including his wife, Lysandra , and his daughter, Calliope.

Ares appeared before the bloodstained hands of Kratos and told him that it was necessary to have his family eliminated so that nothing stood in his way. The ashes of Kratos' loved ones were gathered by the Village Oracle who then placed them upon his skin as a permanent reminder of the monster he had become: the Ghost of Sparta.

Enraged by Ares' deception, Kratos declared vengeance upon the God of War who once saved his life. After Kratos left Ares' service, the God of War's son, Orkos, learned of the injustice that his parents had inflicted on Kratos and turned against his father and his mothers. Orkos sought counsel from the Oracle, Aletheia , who revealed Ares' plot to overthrow Olympus. When Orkos and Aletheia went to warn Zeus, Ares discovered their attempt and sent the Furies after them.

Orkos escaped while Aletheia had her eyes torn out and hidden in the ruined Statue of Apollo. The Furies then ruthlessly hunted Kratos to force him to return to Ares' service for their plan to reach its fruition.

During Kratos' triumph over the Furies, it was revealed that Ares had wanted Kratos returned to him; the plan was ruined when Kratos killed the Furies and mercifully killed Orkos, who was remade the oath keeper to Kratos, and thereby severed his bond.

Kratos managed to escape and served Olympus for 10 years, all while hoping to redeem himself as well as for his sins to be forgiven. Jealousy came over Ares for Athena, and, as a result of that jealousy, Ares laid siege to Athens. Since Zeus had forbidden the Gods from waging war with one another, Athena could not step in to protect her city. Instead, Athena enlisted the help of Kratos, who had faithfully served the Gods for 10 years.

Kratos was instructed to find Pandora's Box in order to kill Ares. While Ares relentlessly tore Athens apart, he suddenly sensed that Kratos had retrieved the Box. Although he was impressed, Ares picked up a broken pillar and hurled it into the desert, which flew into Pandora's Temple and struck Kratos in the chest, impaling him to a wall and killing him. Ares' Harpies retrieved the Box and brought it to him. However, Kratos escaped the Underworld through the help of the mysterious Grave Digger.

Ares challenged Zeus, and threatened to open the Box and use it against Olympus. In literature Ares represents the violent and physical untamed aspect of war, which is in contrast to Athena who represents military strategy and generalship as the goddess of intelligence. Although Ares embodied the physical aggression necessary for success in war, the Greeks were ambivalent toward him because he was a dangerous, overwhelming force that was insatiable in battle.

He is well known as the lover of Aphrodite , who was married to Hephaestus , and though Ares plays a limited role in literature, when he does appear in myths it is typically facing humiliation. For example, one famous story of Ares and Aphrodite exposes them to ridicule by the gods when her husband Hephaestus trapped them both naked in a bed using a clever device he made. The Roman counterpart to Ares was Mars , who was known as a father to the Roman people.

Because of this, he was a less aggressive and physical form, revealing a more calm and understanding demeanour. If you use any of the content on this page in your own work, please use the code below to cite this page as the source of the content.

Home » Greek Gods » Ares. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent. That is why in ancient Greek, Alectryon is the word for rooster, To this day, the rooster crows when the sun rises, to alert Ares in the chance him and Aphrodite are together.

He was however honored more often when Greek city-states were at war. The most well known people to honor him where the Spartans. He was viewed as a warrior all spartans should aim to be. He was physical, good in combat, and had supreme military and battlefield knowledge. The spartans also offered sacrifices to him in the hopes of him offering protecting and helping them fight in battle. Overall, the great God of War, Ares, was an interesting character.

While he is popular today for being a fierce fighter and portrayed as the epitome of fitness, strength, and military foresight, at the time, he was looked at as a normal handsome young man without any distinct attributes to separate him from other combat heroes Achilles. His love and adulterous relationship with Aphrodite often lead him to pain, and to fighting against the Greeks in the Trojan war. Myths are a very interesting field.

To continue your learning of Ares, check out the following, which were used heavily to produce this article. Theoi Wikipedia. We also explore the culture and travel destinations of Greece.

Oh, we hope you are hungry. If you cook anything on here, make sure to tag us on Instagram: lemonandolives , or message us on Facebook! Ares loved Eris as her very presence would cause petty bickering, enraged arguments and would cause lines in the sand to be drawn even between dear friends and family, at which point Ares fanned these arguments even further until both sides of any given disagreement were driven into murderous fervor.

This was Ares standard process to sew the seeds of war, have Eris created a base divide between friends and then escalating the disagreements into all out war. Ares' status as a coward is entirely dependent on which version of stories were told. Ares was stated to be one of the most handsome and beautiful male gods, this trait itself was used by Athenians and Spartans to inform his character in two completely different ways: Athenians attributed Ares' good looks to the fact that he was cowardly and ran from combat the second he personally was endangered leaving the people he incited to die fighting for him; Spartans attributed Ares' good looks to being such a refined warrior that his features remained perfect and unblemished as no one was ever able to lay a single scratch on him.

Ares was an extremely sadistic individual, embracing violence and seeing destruction as ranging from beautiful to hilarious. Despite being a bloodthirsty and dangerous sadist, Ares was actually a sympathetic father, he tried to be to his children, what Zeus had not been for him and was both loving and protective of them. Ares went as far as to kill Poseidon's son Alirrothios for trying to rape his daughter Alkippe. His sons Phobos fear and Deimos terror , took it upon themselves to make their father proud by sewing chaos whenever possible, acts greatly appreciated by Ares.

Ares fought with nearly every single one of his family members over something or another, the ancient Greeks used this to emphasize how war disrupts all aspects of life. Ares was Zeus' least favorite son, something which caused mass resentment in Ares and caused him to act out to get his father's attention, which itself was what Zeus disliked about him.

As Athena was the daughter of Zeus' first wife, Metis. Hera tried to raise Ares as a better god of war that would do her legacy proud, but when this mentality just lead him to reject Athena's subtler arts of tactics and diplomacy, Hera was left constantly disappointed that the ambitions she tried to instill in him only ended up disgracing her side of the family.

Poseidon saw Ares' reliance on mortal armies rather than fighting his battle himself to be a sign of weakness, this dismissive attitude would later become outright scorn after Ares killed Poseidon's son, Alirrothios. Demeter, Dionysus and Artemis saw the environments left devastated in Ares' wake as an extreme annoyance. Apollo saw warfare as a less imaginative art and so as a god of poetry had many verses written on the futility of war.

Aphrodite and Ares were lovers and much is made of the primal synchronicity of passion that comes from love and war which is what fueled the relationship, but this also meant Hephaestus, Aphrodite's husband and Ares' brother despised him.