Ares, is a Greek god, son of the king and queen of the gods, Zeus and Hera in the ancient Greek religion. The cult of Ares was not very large, being centered in the northern region of Greece and in Sparta, one of the most important city-states in Ancient Greece. Although often referred to as the Olympic god of war, he is more exactly the god of wild war, bloodlust, or personified killing. The Romans identified him as Mars, the Roman god of war and agriculture (which they had inherited from the Etruscans).
Among the Hellenes there was always mistrust of Ares and he was detested by Zeus. Ares was generally diminished in the name of his half-sister, Athena, who although she was a goddess of war, Athena's position was one of strategic war, while Ares tended to be the unpredictable violence of war. His birthplace and his real home were placed very far away, among the warlike barbarians and Thracians (Iliad 13,301; Ovid, Ars Amatoria, II.10;), from where he withdrew after his affair with Aphrodite was revealed. Although Aphrodite is best known as the wife of Hephaestus in late myths, she was more portrayed with Ares, than for representing virility and her ideal lover in the classical imagination.