Ares

How Ares is worshipped

Ares is most appropriately approached with honesty about the nature of conflict — he has no interest in sanitized or heroic abstractions. He is the god of what war actually feels and smells like, not what it looks like in monuments. He is appropriately invoked by those who face real physical danger, who are training their bodies and minds for protection of others, or who are navigating unavoidable conflict with the courage to see it through. Tuesday, the day of Mars, is his day. Red candles, iron objects (tools, nails, a small piece of iron), and red wine are the most traditional offerings. Incense — frankincense, myrrh, or other strong resins — is appropriate.

In the Attic sacred calendar, there was no single great festival of Ares comparable to the major festivals of other Olympians — a reflection of the Greek ambivalence about him. He was honored regularly in the city as the necessary protector, but his unbounded nature was never entirely comfortable within civic religion. In Sparta, his cult was central: the Spartans offered dogs and oxen to him, and their severe training culture (the agoge) was, in a sense, a living act of devotion to what Ares represents — discipline in service of martial excellence. The Laconian Ares was sometimes portrayed in chains, as if the Spartans' own ferocity kept the war-force in service of their city rather than running wild.

Approach Ares with directness and without pretense. He respects physical courage, willingness to face pain, and honesty about conflict. He does not respect posturing or fantasy violence. Physical training — martial arts, endurance exercise, any practice that builds genuine physical capability in service of something real — is a profound act of devotion to him. Do not invoke Ares for aggression you will not own, for violence you are not willing to be accountable for, or for the glorification of suffering. He is a demanding deity who asks for genuine courage, not performance of it.

How do I start honoring Ares?

If you are drawn to Ares, begin with physical honesty — he is a god of the body in extremity, and the best first offering to him is some form of genuine physical effort: a hard workout, a difficult hike, a martial arts session, an act of real labor. Light a red candle. Pour a glass of red wine. Place an iron object — a nail, a knife, a tool — on your altar. Read the Homeric Hymn 8 (To Ares), which is brief but theologically surprising: it asks him not for victory in battle but for the strength to keep his violent energy in check when righteous peace is possible. This is perhaps his most important teaching — the warrior who can choose peace from a position of genuine capability is more admirable than one who cannot stop fighting. Read the aristeia of Diomedes in Iliad Book 5 to understand how the ancients saw his relationship to mortal courage. He is a demanding patron, but one who rewards absolute honesty about fear and conflict.

A prayer to Ares

Ares, bronze-helmed, great in strength,
Who stirs the hearts of mortal men to courage or despair,
You who know the smell of blood and iron and the weight of a wound —
I do not come to you for glory. I come for strength.
Stand with me as I face what I must face.
Let my fear be honest and my courage real.
Let me protect what is worth protecting.
And when the conflict is over, let me lay it down.
I pour this wine in your name, Enualios.
May your force be in my hands when I need it,
And may Harmonia, your daughter, follow after.
Hail Ares.

Festival days

• No single great Panhellenic festival dedicated to Ares survived in the ancient sources (in contrast to the Panathenaea, the Dionysia, etc.) — this itself reflects the Greek ambivalence about him
• Spartans honored Ares with regular sacrifice, particularly dogs, before military campaigns — their training culture (the agoge) constituted a continuous form of devotion
• Areopagus trials (Athens) — held on the Hill of Ares; the site of the first mythic murder trial was one of his sacred places in civic life
• War departures — any Athenian or Spartan military expedition was preceded by sacrifices that included acknowledgment of Ares
• Noumenia (new moon) — appropriate for honoring him as one of the household and city gods on the first of each lunar month

What people get wrong about Ares

• Ares is not the god of military strategy or justified war — that is Athena's domain. Ares governs the raw experience of combat: the wounding, the blood, the terror, the chaos. He and Athena are explicitly opposed in ancient sources, and Athena consistently defeats him because skill and wisdom overcome raw force.
• Ares's frequent humiliation in mythology (wounded by Diomedes, trapped by Hephaestus, imprisoned by giants) does not mean he is a weak or lesser god. It means that raw war-force is consistently overcome or constrained by civilization, craft, and law — yet he always returns. That cycle is the point.
• The Roman Mars is significantly different from the Greek Ares. Roman Mars was an agricultural deity before he was a war god, was one of the most important and respected Roman deities, and was the divine father of Romulus. Ares was not agricultural, was frequently mocked, and was one of the least favored Olympians in Greek cult. They share a name via interpretatio but have very different characters.
• Ares is not purely evil or destructive. The Homeric Hymn 8 explicitly asks him for peace when peace is possible and for the courage to put down violence after battle is done. He fathered Harmonia (Harmony) and Eros (Love). He killed in defense of his daughter Alcippe. He is a complex deity of necessary force, not simply a demon of violence.
• Ares was NOT the most worshipped war deity in ancient Greece — Athena Promachos (the Champion) was the civic war deity of Athens. Ares was honored but never beloved in the way his Roman counterpart Mars was. This ambivalence in the cult is itself spiritually significant and worth understanding.