Ares
Ἄρης · Roman 마르스 (Mars)
A god who relishes battle itself — and whom the Greeks never liked.
Ares was unpopular in Greece. In the Iliad, Zeus tells him, "You are the most hateful to me of all my children."
He always loses when he meets Athena, and at one point flees screaming after the mortal Diomedes spears him.
Rome's Mars, by contrast, stands far higher — a god of farming and of the founding of the state, father of Romulus, with the month of March as his own.
SourcesHomer, Iliad
Commonly confused
Ares and Mars share little beyond the pairing of names — their standing differs. Greece's despised god is, in Rome, the father of the nation.