GREEK. Ares, though prominent in the poets, plays DO large part in Greek cult or myth. It is true that a somewhat long list can be compiled of tem ples of the god, but he did not fill a large place in religious thought, and at but few localities was his worship important. At Thebes and Athens he seems to have been more prominent than in most communities. At Thebes he was said to have been father of the dragon who guarded his sacred spring and was slain by Cadmus, who in the final reconciliation wedded Harmonia, daugh ter of Ares and Aphrodite, who here, as often in Greek legend, appears as his recognized consort. The connection of Aphrodite with Ilepinestus, and her adultery with Ares, though told in the Odyssey, was not everywhere canonical, and seems to have received its chief prominence at a late° period. At Athens there was a celebrated temple with a statue by Alcamenes, and a legend which connected him with the foundingof the court of the Areopagus (or Mars' Hill). He was said to have killed a son of Poseidon for an ontrage on Ids daughter, and to have been tried by the twelve gods and acquitted on the hill, which henceforth bore his name. Cults in Thessaly and at Argos. Tegea. and Sparta are also men tioned. In legend Ares is commonly the son of
Zeus and Hera, whose quarrelsome disposition he inherits. His sister in Homer is Eris, his sons Deimos (Terror) ) and Phobos (Fright), who go with him into battle. He is always greedy for war, battle, and bloodshed. The tumult of battle is his delight, and in later poets. as Sophocles, he appears as the sender of pesti lence and destruction. lie was certainly associ ated in the minds of the Greeks with Thrace, and there is much probability in the view that his worship was derived from Thracian tribes or their kindred. In the earlier art, especially on vases. Ares is often bearded and regularly in the full armor of a Creek soldier. In the fifth cen tury and later this equipment disappears. and the god is often represented clad in the ehlamys or nude, though usually with his attributes of shield and spear. Among the most celebrated statues are the standing "Ares Borghese" (some times called Achilles) in the Louvre, which goes back to a fifth-century work. and the seated "Ares Ludovisi" in Rome, which seems to be copied from a statue of Scopas, though the ErOteA are probably the addition of the Hellenistic copyist.