Ares - Mars
Ares is the Greek god of courage and war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent and untamed aspect of war and is the personification of sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister, the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and generalship.
The counterpart of Ares among the Roman gods is Mars, who as a father of the Roman people was given a more important and dignified place in ancient Roman religion as a guardian deity. During the Hellenization of Latin literature, the myths of Ares were reinterpreted by Roman writers under the name of Mars. Greek writers under Roman rule also recorded cult practices and beliefs pertaining to Mars under the name of Ares. Thus in the classical tradition of later Western art and literature, the mythology of the two figures later became virtually indistinguishable
Ares - Mars Stamp Collection
All stamps of Mars and Athena can be watched on the page of Pallas Athena - Minerva (at the end)
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Greece 1986 Mars is depicted as either bearded and mature, or young and clean-shaven. Even nude or seminude, he often wears a helmet or carries a spear as emblems of his warrior nature.
Greece 1974 Attic black-figure amphora depicting the Birth of Athena 6th century BC . Athena is "born" from Zeus's forehead as a result of him having swallowed her mother Metis, as he grasps the clothing of Eileithyia on the right, Ares on the far right, Neptune on the left.
Bhutan 1991 Mars and Rhea Sylvia by Rubens
A mirror view
Bhutan 1991 Mars and Rhea Sylvia by Rubens
A mirror view
Liechtenstein 2000 Mars and Rhea Sylvia by Rubens
The correct view
For Peter Paul Rubens’ Mars and Rhea Silvia, the Princely Collections not only own the completed work but also the elaborate oil sketches. According to ancient myth, Mars was attracted to Rhea Silvia, a priestess of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, who was also worshipped as the protectress of the family, of hospitality and of ordered community life. Ovid reports that Mars overpowered the Vestal while she was asleep. Rubens shifted the scene to the temple. The god has been borne there on a cloud and passionately approaches the priestess, who cringes in horror: as a Vestal, she has sworn an oath of chastity, though possibly not of her own free will. Mars has removed his helmet, and with it his war-like aspirations, for the time being. Cupid, the god of love, acts as pimp, and leads Mars to Rhea. Virgil records that Mars had twins by Rhea Silvia, Romulus and Remus, who later founded Rome. Vesta’s eternal fire, tended by the priestess, burns on the altar on the right. As no images with human faces were made of this goddess, her shrine is marked by a statue of Pallas Athena instead. Rubens demonstrated once more at this point that he was familiar with ancient sources and their contemporary interpretation, as by his friend Justus Lipsius in De Vesta et Vestalibus Syntagma (Antwerp, 1605). Rubens borrowed small details from Roman coins and ancient sarcophagi like the one in the Palazzo Mattei in Rome. The fact that the attributes of Mars and Athena are reversed shows that the painting was used as the basis for a tapestry. It is possible that it was intended as the first of a series on Romulus, but by 1625 at the latest, when the scene was taken up for the first time as part of a tapestry for the cycle on the Roman consul Decius Mus, Rubens had clearly abandoned his ideas for an independent series
Spain 1994 Armed Mars (?)
Cards: Jack of Diamonds, Cards Museum of Álava
Hungary 1993 Ancient Roman Roads. Mercury (roads for commerce) and Mars (roads for war)
Yemen 1968 Mars (?) by Rembrandt
holding a lance and shield
Liechtenstein 2001
Gutenberg Votive Bronze “Mars” warrior god figure, 12.8 cm height - 1 v chr - the cuirass with shoulder straps, presumably leather or with metal overlay. His hand is raised and open to hold a spear, which was either never attached or missing here, possibly also wood or bronze if originally affixed. Note the figurine is right-handed. If there was a shield in any way associated or attached (to the left hand), it too was missing from the buried deposit.
Paraguay 1985 Bellona, the goddess of War
History of Marie de Medici - Apotheosis of Henry IV and the Proclamation of the Regency by Rubens
Bellona, the goddess of War
Her main attribute is the military helmet worn on her head; she often holds a sword, spear, or shield, and brandishes a torch or whip as she rides into battle in a four-horse chariot. She had a temple near the Theatre of Marcellus. Her iconography was extended by painters and sculptors following the Renaissance.
The Apotheosis of Henry IV and The Proclamation of the Regency
On the left, Jupiter and Saturn are shown welcoming the assassinated King of France, as he ascends as a personified Roman sovereign, victoriously to Olympus.As with all of Ruben's allegorical paintings, these two figures are chosen for a reason. Jupiter is meant to be the King's celestial counterpart, while Saturn, who represents finite time, is an indication of the end of Henry's mortal existence. This particular theme, within the painting as a whole, has found other great masters receiving inspiration and fascination from Rubens' tormented figure of Bellona, the goddess of War, who lays disarmed below. Post-Impressionist, Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) registered for permission to copy the goddess as many as ten times. It should be kept in mind that Rubens's energetic manner of placing all these allegorical themes is substantially resultant from classical coins as documented through communication with his friend and notable collector of antiquities, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. The right side of the panel shows the succession of the new Queen, dressed in solemn clothing suited to a widow. She is framed by a triumphal arch and surrounded by people at the court. The Queen accepts an orb, a symbol of government, from the personification of France while the people kneel before her and this scene is a great example of the exaggeration of facts in the cycle. Rubens stresses the idea of the Regency that was offered to the Queen, though she actually claimed it for herself the same day her husband was murdered