#Otus dan Ephialtes

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Mitologi Yunani Kuno: Raksasa Otus dan Ephialtes

Dalam mitologi Yunani kuno, kisah mengenai Otus dan kembarannya, Ephialtes, menjadi bagian dari legenda raksasa yang memperlihatkan kekuatan luar biasa dan ambisi yang tak terkendali. Keduanya adalah putra dari dewa Poseidon dan Iphimedia, yang pada awalnya menikah dengan Alöeus sebelum menjadi istri Poseidon. Nama ‘Otus’ berasal dari kata ‘otheo’, yang mengandung arti ‘mendorong’, ‘memaksa…

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Contemporary portrayals of Ares, the god of war (not Kratos), have not been kind. A fair amount of emphasis has been placed on his violent and combative aspects, understandable since he was a god of war, to create a god that has been utilised as a villain by many world builders and writers. But this focus on violence I would argue has skewed our view against him to the point of being reductionist.

  Ares has been present in most films and popular series’ that involve classical mythology. And most of them he is if not a total villain, a horrendous bully. In Clash of the Titans (2010) he betrays Zeus alongside Hades (a god who has also been misrepresented in contemporary media), in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief he is manipulated by Kronos to hold Zeus’ Master Bolt and most importantly is a total jerk to our nominal protagonist who eventually defeats him in single combat. While in Wonder Woman (2017) he is the antagonist who supposedly brings out the violent and bloodthirsty sides of mankind during the First World War, plus he is portrayed as attempting again to overthrow Zeus. Lastly in God of War Ares is responsible for all manner of injustices towards Kratos…again for the purposes of overthrowing Zeus. Seriously where did this idea that Ares wanted to overthrow Zeus come from?

  Ares slaughters his Olympian brethren. Wonder Woman (2016)

  The most positive depictions of Ares in modern media have been Immortals (2011) when he helped Theseus against his father’s wishes, and Disney’s Hercules (1997) which by far portrayed him most kindly as he barely got any screen time. So why do we villainize Ares? I would argue that as he was solely the god of war, he didn’t have any extra domains such as weaving, metalwork or music, he could only be seen as destructive. We can get a sense of this in his portrayal in the Iliad when Zeus rebukes him for returning to him in tears after being lanced by the mortal hero Diomedes:

  “Sit thou not in any wise by me and whine, thou renegade. Most hateful to me art thou of all gods that hold Olympus, for ever is strife dear to thee and wars and fighting. Thou hast the unbearable, unyielding spirit of thy mother, even of Hera; her can I scarce control by my words. Wherefore it is by her promptings, I think, that you suffer this. But I will no longer endure you in pain, for you are my offspring, and it was to me that thy mother bare you; but were you born of any other god, as the pestilence you are, then long ere this hadst thou been lower than the sons of heaven.”

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  We also find very few cults worshipping Ares in Greek cities. The reason for which has been speculated that the Greeks did not wish to openly worship violence. The most accounted for place of Ares worship was Sparta which kept a statue of the god chained so he would never desert them (Pausanias 3.15.7). This has given the impression that Spartans were somehow more violent and warmongering than their fellow Greeks �� an assertion difficult to support with historiography. Sparta if anything was cautious to war lest their Helots revolt in their army’s absence. Also, by the time of Pausanias they had shrines to Athena, Zeus, Artemis and Aphrodite. While our modern reception has taken this perception of Ares and combined it with a contemporary dread and condemnation of all violence and war on the collected experience of two world wars and the more visibly accessible carnage of the 21st century . So was Ares just pure unadulterated violence?

  Ares the antagonist of God of War (2005)

  The Homeric Hymn to Ares would certainly disagree with that assessment, Ares is paid such complements as: ‘exceeding in strength’, ‘doughty in heart’, ‘Saviour of cities’, ‘unwearying’, ‘defence of Olympus’, ‘father of warlike Victory’, ‘ally of Justice’, ‘leader of righteous men’, ‘sceptred King of manliness’ (1-6). Much more than an aggressive force of violence, Ares is warfare done in defence of the city and a paragon of aristocratic masculinity. He is associated with the qualities that make a city successful and harmonious: strength, victory and justice. We might associate him with warmongering, but he could just as much be invoked by a soldier defending his home. The Hymn goes on:

  ‘Shed down a kindly ray from above upon my life, and strength of war, that I may be able to drive away bitter cowardice from my head and crush down the deceitful impulses of my soul. Restrain also the keen fury of my heart which provokes me to tread the ways of blood-curdling strife.’

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  Ares appears to be a god that inspires courage as well as (uncharacteristic) discipline. From the hymn the god gave the soldier his will to keep down both his dread to go into battle and possibly die as well as his urge to commit violence against his fellow citizens. I would therefore argue that Ares represents not the violence and warfare, but its primal emotional aspect: its courage, urge to defend one’s home and the discipline required to overcome fear. Thus, the Spartans didn’t keep Ares chained as a means to ensure perpetual brutality, but so that the values of bravery and discipline would never desert them in battle. And it is these realms that pop culture has failed to recognise and so has resulted in the demonization of Ares’ persona.

    Greek and Roman depictions of Ares

  If the qualities of bravery and discipline seem remote to the god of war’s character because you’ve astutely noticed that the former Iliad passage was from Ares fleeing a battle, or you’ve heard of the story when he was overpowered by two giants and kept in a jar, then that is understandable. Ares can also be argued to have been a negatively perceived god because of the company he kept: Deimos (Dread) and Phobos (Fear) were his charioteers so that didn’t exactly help with PR. However, bear in mind that Athena was also present at the same battle as Ares in the Iliad and was also one of the gods that allegedly temporarily overthrew Zeus, while Ares wasn’t even named in masterminding the plot (Homer, Iliad 5.840-6 ; 1.399-406); and pop culture doesn’t nearly give her the same amount of negativity. Moreover, terror was not a domain particular to Ares. The satyr god Pan is the origin for the English word ‘Panic’ and Dionysus was actually also attributed the fear of men turning tail and fleeing battle as a form of madness (Euripides, Bacchae 302-6). Regarding his lacklustre performance against Otus and Ephialtes (Homer, Iliad 5.385-92), bear in mind that Zeus, the King of Olympus, had his tendons ripped out by the monster Typhon, and that Ares fighting them in the first place was by definition doing his job as defending Olympus. We should also give him some credit for defeating the serpent footed giant Echidnades who was a son of Echidna, the mother of monsters and whom Kronos used to confront Zeus’ thunderbolts (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 18. 274).

  Thus, the popular view of Ares as the embodiment of human violence and warmongering is simply reductionist. Since mainstream reception has assumed that Ares is bad by definition because aggression and violence are such, the god of war has been villainised and implicated in strangely consistent plots where he overthrows his own father Zeus. On this, Zeus was actually paranoid that Athene was the one to defeat him, hence why he ate her and her mother Metis which resulted with Athena’s birth as she sprang forth from Zeus’ head. This singular interpretation has left out key evidence of Ares’ wider significance and characterisation which should be considered when we think of portraying him responsibly to public audiences to get a better impression of the Greeks’ god of war.

  Dan Tang

The Athenian Inspector

  If you want to learn about the Romans, check out: https://romanimperium.wordpress.com/

Rehabilitating Ares in Pop Culture Contemporary portrayals of Ares, the god of war (not Kratos), have not been kind. A fair amount of emphasis has been placed on his violent and combative aspects, understandable since he was a god of war, to create a god that has been utilised as a villain by many world builders and writers.