Who is Mars? Guide to the Roman God of War
Mars is the Roman god of war, and among the Roman gods second in importance only to Jupiter. Unlike his Greek counterpart Ares - who was widely disliked even among the Olympians - Mars was among the most respected gods in Rome. His month opened the Roman year. His priests were among the oldest colleges in Roman religion. And he was, through the twins Romulus and Remus, the mythological father of the Roman people. He was the god the legions marched under, and the god they most owed their identity to.
Key Takeaways
- Mars is the Roman god of war, agriculture, and Rome itself, and one of the twelve principal Roman gods.
- He is the father, by the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia, of the twins Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome.
- He is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Ares, but with a much elevated status - respected by Romans in a way Ares never was by Greeks.
- The month of March (Latin Martius) is named after him, marking the beginning of the Roman year and the traditional opening of the military campaigning season.
- His priests, the Salii (leaping priests), performed sacred dances in his honour twice a year to open and close the campaigning season.
- His sacred animals include the wolf and the woodpecker; his sacred plants include the oak.
- His weapon is the spear, and his signature attributes are the helmet, shield, and the ancient shields called ancilia preserved in his temple.
Who is Mars?
Mars is the Roman god of war, agriculture (in his older role), and the divine father of Rome. He is one of the twelve principal Roman gods and one of the most important in Roman civic religion.
Definition - Mars
The Roman god of war, agriculture (in older tradition), and the mythological father of the Roman people through his sons Romulus and Remus. Mars is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Ares, but held in far greater respect. His name gives us the month of March and the planet Mars. His Greek counterpart is Ares.
The Romans took Mars very seriously in a way the Greeks never quite took Ares. Ares in Greek myth is often mocked, sometimes wounded by mortals (Diomedes in the Iliad), and generally unloved even by his own family. Mars, by contrast, is a god of dignity and civic authority. The difference reflects a real cultural difference. The Greeks admired the strategic warfare of Athena over the raw violence of Ares. The Romans admired both, and treated their war god accordingly.
Mars and the founding of Rome
The single most important story about Mars in Roman tradition is his role in the founding of Rome.
The tale begins with Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin - a priestess sworn to chastity in service to the goddess Vesta - and the daughter of Numitor, deposed king of Alba Longa. Her uncle Amulius, the usurper who had seized her father’s throne, had made her a Vestal specifically to prevent her from having children who might reclaim the throne.
Mars saw her and desired her. In one telling he came to her in a sacred grove; in another he came to her in her sleep. She conceived twin sons: Romulus and Remus. Amulius, discovering the pregnancy, ordered the infants killed. His servants, unwilling to kill children, set them adrift on the flooded Tiber in a basket. The basket washed ashore. A she-wolf found and suckled them until they were discovered and raised by a shepherd. When they came of age, they overthrew Amulius, restored their grandfather, and set out to found their own city. That city was Rome. Read Mars and the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia and the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus.
Through Romulus, the Romans considered themselves descended from Mars. The wolf - the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus - became one of Rome’s founding symbols and one of Mars’s sacred animals.
Mars as god of agriculture
The older layer of Roman religion preserves Mars in a role that surprises many modern readers: he was originally an agricultural god as well as a war god.
The evidence is in the ancient Roman prayers. The Cato the Elder text known as De Agri Cultura preserves a prayer to Mars, offered by a farmer at the ceremonial spring cleaning of the fields, asking him to protect the flocks, herds, and crops. In this prayer Mars is not a war god at all. He is a boundary-keeping god who defends the fields against pests, diseases, and thieves.
The two roles are less distinct than they might seem. Both are protective functions. Both involve defending a boundary - the border of the field or the border of the city - against threats. The Romans understood Mars as the god who kept the enemy out, whether the enemy was a rival army or a crop disease. Over time the war function eclipsed the agricultural one, but the older role persisted in ritual for centuries.
Mars’s priests and rites
The Salii (“leaping priests”) were one of the oldest priestly colleges in Rome, dedicated to Mars. There were two colleges, each of twelve priests, drawn from patrician families. Twice a year - in March, at the opening of the campaigning season, and in October, at its close - the Salii would perform sacred dances through the streets of Rome, wearing archaic bronze armour and singing hymns so old that by the classical Roman period the priests themselves could no longer understand the words.
The Salii carried the ancilia, twelve sacred shields kept in the Temple of Mars. One of them was said to have fallen from heaven in the reign of King Numa, the second king of Rome, as a sign that Rome would rule the world. To prevent the sacred shield from being stolen, Numa had eleven identical copies made, and the twelve were kept together so no one would know which was the true one. The Salii carried them through Rome in the spring dances.
The month of March, named for Mars, opened the Roman year in the older Roman calendar. It also opened the campaigning season - Roman armies did not fight in winter - which is why the dances happened then. Mars’s rites marked the moment when the year turned toward war.
Mars and Venus
Mars’s most famous romantic relationship is with Venus, goddess of love. The pairing is the Roman version of the Greek Aphrodite and Ares. It is symbolic as well as narrative: the goddess of love and the god of war, together, and the offspring of their union include Concordia (harmony) and Cupid (desire) in some accounts.
In the famous story, Venus is married to Vulcan, the smith god, but takes Mars as her lover. Vulcan discovers the affair and forges a net of golden chain to trap them together, calling the other gods to witness. Neptune eventually persuades Vulcan to release them. Read Venus and Mars caught in Vulcan’s net.
The pairing also had a specifically Roman meaning. Venus was the mother of Aeneas, and through him ancestress of the Julian line. Mars was the father of Romulus, and through him father of the Roman people. In some Roman theological texts, Venus and Mars are treated as the divine mother and father of Rome jointly - the love and war that produced a state built for both.
Mars compared to other war gods
War gods are common across mythologies. Mars is unusual for his high status and for his agricultural origins.
| Tradition | War god | Attributes | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roman | Mars | Spear, shield, wolf, woodpecker | Second only to Jupiter; father of Rome |
| Greek | Ares | Spear, shield, dogs | Widely disliked; less respected than Athena |
| Norse | Tyr | One-handed god of law and war | Sacrificed his hand binding Fenrir |
| Egyptian | Montu | Falcon-headed | Local war god, later absorbed by Ra-Horakhty |
| Yoruba | Ogun | Iron, tools, war | God of iron and war; still worshipped |
| Aztec | Huitzilopochtli | Sun and war | Patron of Tenochtitlan |
The comparison with Ares is worth thinking about. Ares and Mars share a name-family and many myths, but not the Roman prestige. Roman writers themselves noticed this and sometimes explained it as a matter of Roman moral clarity: Rome respected war as a civic instrument, where the Greeks (in the Roman view) had been squeamish about it.
Read the stories
Mars appears throughout Roman myth, particularly in the founding stories of the city. Some entry points:
- Mars and the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia
- The Founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus
- Venus and Mars Caught in Vulcan’s Net
- Quirinus and the Deification of Romulus
- The Rape of the Sabine Women
- The Myth of Bellona, Goddess of War (Bellona was often paired with Mars)
- Hercules and the Mares of Diomedes
Mars is the god Rome most consciously modeled itself on. When Roman legions marched, they marched under signs he had approved. When Roman children learned their own origin, they learned it from Mars and a she-wolf. When Roman priests danced through the streets in March in armour older than anyone alive, they were marking the god’s month and the opening of another year of war. Mars was, in the Roman conception, not the god of violence so much as the god of Rome’s discipline. That is the specifically Roman inflection, and the tradition preserves it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Mars the same as Ares?
Yes, in essence, but with a significant difference in cultural weight. Mars is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Ares, and shares much of his mythology - the affair with Venus/Aphrodite, the general war function, the same iconography. But Mars was held in far higher respect in Rome than Ares was in Greece. Where Greek myth often mocked Ares, Roman religion treated Mars as second only to Jupiter in importance.
What does the name Mars mean?
The name Mars comes from an older Latin form Mavors or Mamers, of uncertain etymology. It may derive from a Proto-Italic root meaning “man” or “warrior,” or it may be a loanword from an Italic language predating Latin. The name is old enough that its exact origin is debated. The month March (Latin Martius) and the planet Mars both take their names from him.
Why did Rome consider itself descended from Mars?
Because Romulus, the founder of Rome, was Mars’s son. Mars fathered the twins Romulus and Remus on the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia, and the twins were suckled by a she-wolf after being set adrift on the flooded Tiber. Romulus went on to found Rome and become its first king. Every Roman was, in this sense, a descendant of Mars’s founding act, and Mars was the divine father of the Roman people.
What is Mars’s month?
March, the third month in the modern calendar but the first month of the older Roman calendar. The Latin name Martius is directly derived from Mars. March opens the campaigning season for the Roman armies (they did not fight in winter), and the priestly college of the Salii performed sacred armed dances through Rome at the start of March each year to consecrate the coming year of war.
Who are the Salii?
The Salii were one of the oldest priestly colleges in Rome, dedicated to Mars. There were two colleges of twelve priests each. Twice a year, in March and October, they wore archaic bronze armour and performed leaping dances through the streets of Rome, carrying the twelve sacred ancilia shields kept in Mars’s temple. Their rites opened and closed the war-season and were among the most conservative religious performances in Rome.
What is Mars’s relationship with Venus?
Mars is Venus’s lover in the classical story, in which the two are trapped together in a golden net by Venus’s husband Vulcan. In Roman theological terms, the pairing has additional meaning: Venus is the divine mother of Rome (through her son Aeneas) and Mars is the divine father of Rome (through his son Romulus). In one Roman formulation, Venus and Mars are the parents of the Roman people jointly.