Ares and Athena, two gods with seemingly similar aspects but polar opposite personalities. They are both gods of battle, but at their core, they represent two different views of the battlefield. Ares is the god of war and represents the gore of battle as well as its depraving ability to turn us back into bloodthirsty animals. Where Athena represents the tactical wisdom and even grace of battle. These two gods have many characteristics that are very similar and traits that set them worlds apart.
One common characteristic of these two gods is the way they are depicted in art. They can be easily found because both are seen wearing armor and carrying their weapons at most times. The reason for this is simple and that is because they are gods of war, so they should be depicted as so. In the 11th hymn to Athena we can see that these two are comparable to each other, "and with Ares she loves deeds of war"(Rayor). The reason they are alike is because the Greeks wanted a male and female version of war, so there for Athena and Ares came to be similarities.
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We see that Athena is well like by zeus, "until the maiden Pallas Athena had stripped the heavenly armor from her immortal shoulders. And wise Zeus was glad."(Rayor). Athena came directly from Zeus and they always had a good relationship. Where Ares, the product of Zeus and Hera, was ill liked by Zeus, "But if you were born of some other of the gods, since you are so destructive you would have long since been thrown out of Olympus." (Homer lines 895-898). He was saying that he hates him and wish that he wasn't his own son. This is important to the Greeks because ares is the bad side of was and because Zeus does not like it, it might have been an example for them to dislike it