Two Gods, Two Philosophies of War
Greek mythology had not one but two gods of war — and the contrast between them reveals everything about how the Greeks understood conflict. Athena represented strategic warfare, disciplined armies, and victory through intelligence. Ares embodied the raw chaos of battle — blood, screaming, and the savage joy of combat.
The Greeks overwhelmingly preferred Athena. Ares was feared but rarely worshipped with genuine devotion in most Greek cities.
Powers Compared
Athena's Arsenal: The aegis (shield bearing the head of Medusa), a spear, helmet, and her own divine wisdom. She could inspire armies, devise unbeatable strategies, and fight with skill that Ares couldn't match. She also governed crafts, especially weaving and metalwork — the technologies of civilization.
Ares' Arsenal: Sword, spear, helmet, and shield. Accompanied by his sons Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Terror), and his sister Enyo (Destruction). His chariot was drawn by fire-breathing horses. He represented overwhelming physical force and the psychological terror of combat.
Head-to-Head: The Iliad
In Homer's Iliad, Athena defeats Ares directly. During the Battle of the Gods, Athena picks up a massive boulder and smashes Ares with it, dropping the god of war to the ground. When Aphrodite tries to help Ares escape, Athena punches her too.
Earlier in the poem, Athena guides the hero Diomedes to wound Ares with a spear, making the war god scream and flee to Olympus like a child running to his father. Zeus responds with contempt, calling Ares the most hated of all his children.
Why Athens Chose Athena
When Athena and Poseidon competed for patronage of Athens, Poseidon struck the rock with his trident and produced a salt spring. Athena planted an olive tree. The citizens chose the olive tree — civilization over raw power, sustainability over spectacle.
This choice reflects the Greek value system: intelligence beats brute force, planning beats impulse, and building beats destroying. Ares may win individual battles, but Athena wins wars.
The Verdict
By every measure the Greeks themselves used, Athena is the superior war deity. She never lost a battle. She was honored across Greece. She had the respect of Zeus. And she understood what Ares never could: that the purpose of war is not glory but peace.
Ares represented what the Greeks feared about war. Athena represented what they hoped for — that discipline, intelligence, and justice could prevail over chaos.
Every Encounter in the Iliad
Homer sets the two gods against each other more than once, and the details show how deliberately he arranged things. In Book 5 Ares fights for Troy while Athena fights for the Greeks. She takes the reins of Diomedes' chariot herself and guides his spear into Ares' lower belly. The wounded god screams as loud as nine or ten thousand men in battle (5.859–861). He rushes to Olympus to complain, and Zeus calls him the most hateful to him of all the gods on Olympus, because he loves only strife, wars and battles (5.890–891). Zeus still has him healed, because Ares is his son.
In Book 15 Ares learns that his son Ascalaphus has been killed and starts arming to avenge him, against Zeus's orders. Athena runs from her seat, pulls the helmet off his head and the shield off his shoulders, and lectures him that defying Zeus will bring ruin on all the gods. In Book 21, during the battle of the gods, Ares attacks her and strikes her aegis, which not even Zeus's thunderbolt can break. She answers with a boundary stone. Ares falls and covers seven plethra of ground, and Athena laughs over him. The pattern is consistent. Ares acts on impulse and grievance, and Athena stops him by force, by argument or by enlisting a mortal hero.
Outside Homer: Heracles, Cycnus and the Areopagus
The rivalry carries on in the Shield of Heracles, a poem attributed to Hesiod. Athena stands beside Heracles when he kills Cycnus, a son of Ares who robbed pilgrims on the road to Delphi. When Ares charges to avenge him, Athena deflects his spear, and Heracles wounds the war god in the thigh. Athens, meanwhile, honoured the two gods side by side. Its ancient homicide court sat on the Areopagus, the "hill of Ares". The court was named after the trial of Ares himself for killing Halirrhothius, a son of Poseidon, who had attacked Ares' daughter Alcippe. In Aeschylus' Eumenides Athena founds the same court on the same hill to try Orestes. Ares gave the place its name, and Athena gave it its laws.
Cult: Athena Areia and the Worship of Ares
People often think of the two as opposites, but the Greeks sometimes merged them. At Plataea there was a temple of Athena Areia, "Athena of Ares" or "warlike Athena". Pausanias says it was paid for with spoils from Marathon and held a cult statue by Phidias. An altar to Athena Areia also stood on the Areopagus. Phidias' colossal bronze Athena Promachos, "who fights in front", stood on the Acropolis of Athens, high enough that sailors could see the gleam of her spear tip.
Ares was less neglected than is often said. Athens had a temple of Ares in the Agora, rebuilt there in the Augustan period from the materials of an older temple elsewhere in Attica. Spartans sacrificed to Enyalios, a war god often identified with Ares, and Pausanias describes an old statue of Enyalios at Sparta bound in chains so that the warlike spirit would never leave the city. At Tegea, Ares was worshipped as Gynaikothoinas, "feaster of women", in memory of Tegean women who had fought off a Spartan attack. At Thebes he was an ancestor. The dragon Cadmus killed was Ares' son, and Cadmus married Ares' daughter Harmonia.
What People Often Get Wrong
One common mistake is to treat Ares as simply the "bad" war god. The Homeric Hymn to Ares (Hymn 8), probably composed later than most of the collection, prays to him for the strength to hold back from reckless violence and to keep the peace. In that hymn Ares is a source of courage under control. Another mistake is to project the Roman picture back onto Greece. Mars was a respected father-god of Rome, worshipped far more widely and seriously than Ares ever was in Greece, so the "Ares versus Athena" contrast is very much a Greek attitude. Ares also had his own frightening companions, his sister Enyo and his sons Phobos and Deimos. Athena, by contrast, needed nobody and fought alongside her chosen heroes. For more on Homer's battlefield gods, see the Iliad summary.
Ancient sources
- Homer, Iliad 5.825–909: Athena guides Diomedes' spear into Ares, Ares cries out, and Zeus rebukes him.
- Homer, Iliad 15.110–142: Athena disarms Ares to stop him avenging Ascalaphus.
- Homer, Iliad 21.391–415: the battle of the gods, in which Athena fells Ares with a boundary stone.
- Hesiod (attributed), Shield of Heracles: Athena supports Heracles against Cycnus and Ares, and Ares is wounded in the thigh.
- Pausanias, Description of Greece, Books 1, 3, 8 and 9: the altar of Athena Areia and Areopagus legend, the chained Enyalios at Sparta, Ares Gynaikothoinas at Tegea, and the temple of Athena Areia at Plataea.
- Homeric Hymn 8, To Ares: a prayer to Ares for courage and self-restraint.
Frequently asked questions
Who would win in a fight, Athena or Ares?
In every direct encounter in ancient literature Athena wins. She wounds Ares through Diomedes, disarms him in Book 15 and knocks him down with a stone in Book 21 of the Iliad.
Why did Zeus prefer Athena to Ares?
In the Iliad Zeus says he hates Ares because Ares loves strife and war for their own sake. Athena carries out Zeus's will and represents disciplined, purposeful force.
Are Athena and Ares siblings?
Yes, they are half-siblings. Both are children of Zeus. Ares' mother is Hera, while Athena was born from Zeus's head, after he had swallowed her mother Metis in Hesiod's account.
Was Ares worshipped in ancient Greece?
Yes, though less widely than Athena. He had a temple in the Athenian Agora, cults in Sparta (as Enyalios), Tegea and Thebes, and he gave his name to the Areopagus in Athens.