The Tales of Athena and Ares

The Tale of Athena

Athena is the Olympian goddess of wisdom and war and the adored patroness of the city of Athens. She was also – somewhat paradoxically – associated with peace and handicrafts, especially spinning and weaving. Majestic and stern, Athena surpassed everybody in both of her main domains. In fact, even Ares feared her; and all Greek heroes asked her for help and advice. In art and literature, Athena is usually depicted as a majestic lady, with a beautiful, but stern face, unsmiling full lips, grey eyes, and a graceful build, emanating power and authority. She is always regally clad in either a chiton or a full armor. In the former case, she is sometimes represented with a spindle. In the latter case, she wears an elaborately crested Corinthian helmet and holds a long spear in one hand and an aegis in the other.

Athena was born in most miraculous circumstances. On learning that Metis' next child may overthrow him, Zeus swallowed his first wife who was already pregnant with Athens. When the time came, Zeus started feeling tremendous headaches. As even he couldn't bear them, Hephaestus struck him with his axe and – lo and behold! – Athena leapt out of Zeus' head, fully armed and with a cry so mighty and fearsome that Uranus and Gaea were shaken to their bones with terror. Zeus was delighted and full of pride.

As a child, Athena had a friend she loved above all. Her name was Pallas and she was all but her equal in the art of war. However, one day, as they were practicing some martial exercises, Athena accidentally killed her friend. Grief-stricken and in an attempt to preserve her memory, she added her friend's name to her own. That's why many people know Athena as Athena Pallas. Just like Artemis and Hestia, Athena was never swayed by love or passion. Consequently, she never had any children.

Poseidon and Athena had a much-publicized quarrel over who deserves to be the patron of the most prosperous Ancient Greek city, Athens. Poseidon claimed that the city would benefit more from him than Athena and to prove this, he struck his trident into a rock, creating a seawater stream which welled up in the Temple of Erechtheion on the north side of the Acropolis. Smart as she was, Athena did nothing spectacular: she merely planted an olive tree. However, the first king of Athens, Cecrops – who was the judge of the contest – realized that the olive tree was much more beneficial since it gave the Athenians fruit, oil, and wood.

Athena was a master artisan. As much as she was the women counterpart of Ares as a war goddess, she was also the female equivalent of Hephaestus when it came to arts and crafts. However, the most famous myth which connects Athena with handicrafts is the story of Arachne, a mortal craftswoman who boasted that she was more skillful than Athena herself. Athena offered her a chance to repent, but after Arachne refused, she challenged her to a weaving duel. The goddess fashioned a beautiful tapestry which illustrated the gruesome fate of the mortals who had the hubris of challenging the gods. Arachne, on the other hand, chose for a subject the stories of the mortals unjustly victimized by the gods. She didn't even have a chance to finish it: enraged and offended, Athena tore Arachne's fabric to pieces and turned her into a spider. As such, Arachne is doomed to weave ever since.

As a war goddess associated with wisdom – unlike Ares who was associated with mere violence – Athena was often the main helper of Ancient Greece's greatest heroes. Most famously, she guided Odysseus during his ten-year-long journey back to Ithaca. But, she also helped many others, such as Heracles, Perseus, Bellerophon, Jason, Diomedes, Argus, and Cadmus.

The Tale of Ares

Ares is the Olympian god of war. However, unlike Athena, he represents merely its destructive capacity and is typically the personification of sheer violence and brutality. In art, Ares is usually represented wearing a helmet, a shield, and either a sword or a spear. He drives a four-horse chariot and is accompanied by dogs or vultures. Sometimes, his sons Deimos and Phobos are also depicted beside him.

Ares was the oldest child of Zeus and Hera. Since he was the savage god of senseless war, Ares was almost universally detested. At one point, after Ares is wounded in battle by Diomedes, even Zeus calls him "the most hateful of all the gods," remarking that if he hadn't been his son, he would have surely ended up in Tartarus with Cronus and the Titans.

The episode with Diomedes is only one of many in which Ares comes off second-best in his martial encounters. During the Trojan War, Athena needs no more than one stone to floor him, after which she spends some time mocking him and bragging of her superiority as a warrior. Heracles defeats Ares not once, but twice – first during the battle of Pylos, and then after killing his son Cycnus. Most humiliatingly, Otus and Ephialtes, the Aloadae, once manage to kidnap Ares and imprison him in a bronze jar for thirteen months.

Ares's most Famous affair was the one he had with Aphrodite. At the time, the goddess of beauty was married to Ares' brother, Hephaestus, who was told by Helios of his wife's transgressions. Hephaestus fashioned a delicate, almost invisible, bronze net, which he put on the bed where Ares and Aphrodite were supposed to lie. When they finally did in his absence, he stormed into the room with a host of gods. The Olympians laughed for days at the helplessly entrapped lovers.

However, it seems that in this case, Ares had the last laugh, since Aphrodite bore him at least three and as many as eight children. Hesiod lists only Deimos, Phobos, and Harmonia. Later authors include Adrestia and some or all of the four Erotes: Eros, Anteros, Pothos, and Himeros. Ares can rarely be seen alone on the battlefield. He is typically joined by a bloodthirsty crowd, a number of infernal associates symbolizing the terror of war. His sons Deimos (Panic or Dread) and Phobos (Fear) are almost always beside him. The same holds true for Ares' "comrade and sister" Eris (Strife) and Enyo (the Sacker of Cities and "sister of war"). Sometimes, Kydoimos appears as well – the personification of the confusion and muddle of battle. Most frighteningly, so do the Keres, the grim-eyed female Spirits of Death, dressed in cloaks crimson with human blood.