Mars

Roman war-god, but the registry treats Mars as substantively distinct from Greek Ares despite ancient identification. Pre-urban agricultural protector (Cato 141, Carmen Arvale) carrying war-functions; central to Roman civic religion through the Salii, the ancilia, the March/October ritual frame; begetter of Romulus and Remus on Rhea Silvia (Liv. 1.4); honored where Ares was hated. The Italic features (woodpecker, ancilia, horse-tail to the Regia) have no Greek equivalent. Per Beard/North/Price, Religions of Rome (1998); Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer (1912); Dumézil, Archaic Roman Religion (1970); Scheid, Introduction to Roman Religion (2003).

Children

• Modius Fabidius
• Remus
• Romulus

Domains

• war civic
• agricultural protection
• fatherhood of Rome
• march calendar

Powers

• Fathers Romulus and Remus upon Rhea Silvia
• Rouses men to war and martial fury

Epithets

• Gradivus
• Ultor
• Silvanus
• Quirinus
• Mars Pater

Relations

• lover: Rhea Silvia
• interpretatio: Ares
• interpretatio: Bared-Sword War-God (Sarmatian Ares)
• sibling: Bellona

Sources

• Cato Agr. 141; Liv. 1.4, 1.20; Ov. Fast. 3 entire; Verg. Aen. 1.276, 8.630-634
• Ov. Fast. 5.229-260 (Mars born of Juno alone via the flower of Olenus, without Jupiter); Hes. Theog. 921-922 cited via interpretatio as son of Iuppiter and Iuno
• Liv. 1.20 (Numa institutes Salii and ancilia); Cato Agr. 141 (Mars Silvanus farm prayer); Ov. Fast. 3 (Martius rituals)
• Varro LL 5.73; Liv. 1.20