Homeric Hymn to Ares (8)
Catalogue ID: 02-olympian-gods/101-homeric-hymn-ares-8
Cycle: Olympian gods — Ares / short Homeric Hymn
Version line: Homeric Hymn VIII — praise and ethical petition to Ares
Sources: Homeric Hymn to Ares (8)
Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/02-olympian-gods/101-homeric-hymn-ares-8.md
Characters
- Ares — war-god addressed; asked for courage tempered by mildness
- Praotes — ethical goal of the petition
- Singer — asks restraint of rage and deceitful impulse
- Themis — named as his ally in the epithet string
Places
Themes
Narrative
The short Homeric Hymn to Ares addresses the war-god with a cluster of martial epithets—exceeding in strength, chariot-rider, golden-helmed, shield-bearer, city-savior, ally of Themis, and so on—and links him to the starry sphere and the defense of Olympus. Unlike purely narrative hymns, this piece turns into a petition: the singer asks Ares to grant strength to drive away cowardice, to restrain the deceptive impulse of the spirit, and to help the speaker toward the rule of Mildness (*Praotes*) against strife, so that he may follow the laws of peace among the upright.
Classical readers often felt the hymn’s tone closer to later philosophical prayer than to archaic cult song; nevertheless it stands in the transmitted Homeric Hymn corpus as the Ares-atom of praise plus moral request. Catalogue it apart from Homeric battlefield Ares and from the Areopagus crime-myth.