![]() This new edition of the handbook continues to offer an essential reference resource for all students of Greek mythology, and it provides an accessible and comprehensive overview of these stories for anyone with an interest in the classical world.M ars was the Roman god of war. This new edition has been extensively rewritten and reorganized to make it more accessible to readers who may have no particular knowledge of the ancient world and Greek mythology, and to ensure that information on each myth or mythical figure is easy to find within the book. The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology sets out to provide a comprehensive history of the divine order and mythical prehistory of Greece, as systematized on a genealogical basis by Hesiod and the ancient mythographers, while also taking into account the ways in which individual myths have changed and evolved over time in different genres of literature. Now in its eighth edition, this magisterial work offers a comprehensive survey of the stories of Greek myth, from the Olympian gods, through the lesser gods and deities, to the heroes, adventures, and foundation myths of the ancient Greek world. The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology (Originally, in old Italian beliefs, Mars had been associated with fertility, vegetation, and the protection of cattle he became fused with Quirinus, previously the Sabine god of war.) Vitruvius (2.8.11), writing in the 1st century bce, mentions a colossal acrolithic statue of Mars (a draped or gilded wooden body with marble head and extremities) that stood in a temple atop a hill in Halicarnassus. Servius refers to two temples of Mars: one outside the city that served as a temple for warriors, dedicated to Mars Gradivus, the god "that walks in battle" the other inside the city, charged with guarding tranquility and dedicated to Mars Quirinus. In the postclassical era Servius's commentary on Virgil's Aeneid (1.292) was the major source of knowledge of Mars's dual role as a keeper both of war and of peace. Romulus, one of his twin sons born to the Vestal virgin Rhea Silvia, legendarily founded the city. One of the most prominent and worshiped gods of Rome, Mars lent his name to a Roman district, the Campus Martius (Field of Mars), which announces even today his status as the city's protector and as father of the Roman people. Mars was identical with Greek Ares, although Ares never had a notorious position in the Greek pantheon. Roman god of war, thus symbol of a society that for centuries was thought of as essentially belligerent. The war-god disappeared off to Thrace – a favourite country of his, full of warlike peoples – while Aphrodite went to her sacred precinct on Cyprus. ![]() Poseidon at length persuaded Hephaestus to release them on the understanding that Ares would pay a fine. ![]() Hephaestus caught the lovers in the act by trapping them beneath a magical, invisible net, then called in the other gods to witness their humiliation. He himself was not married, but he had many liaisons, most famously with APHRODITE, goddess of love and wife of the crippled smith-god HEPHAESTUS, as recounted by the bard Demodocus in Homer's Odyssey (8.266–366). His sons PHOBOS AND DEIMOS (Terror and Fear) often accompanied him on the battlefield, as sometimes did ERIS (Strife) and the war-goddess ENYO (1).Īres was the son of Zeus and HERA. While ATHENA presided over the disciplined and rational use of war to protect the community, Ares stood for the bloodlust and mindless frenzy of battle, delighting in the blood and slaughter, and relishing all the tumult, confusion and horror of war. He was relatively little worshipped by the Greeks, but his Roman equivalent, MARS, was a very important god, second only to JUPITER (ZEUS). Ares was one of the twelve great Olympian gods, and the Greek god of war.
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