Enyalius

The warlike, frequently occurs in the Iliad (never in the Odyssey) either as an epithet of Ares, or as a proper name instead of Ares.1

At a later time, however, Enyalius and Ares were distinguished as two different gods of war, and Enyalius was looked upon as a son of Ares and Enyo, or of Cronus and Rhea.2 The name is evidently derived from Enyo, though one tradition derived it from a Thracian Enyalius, who received into his house those only who conquered him in single combat, and for the same reason refused to receive Ares, but the latter slew him.3

The youths of Sparta sacrificed young dogs to Ares under the name of Enyalius,4 and near the temple of Hipposthenes, at Sparta, there stood the ancient fettered statue of Enyalius.5 Dionysus, too, is said to have been surnamed Enyalius.6

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References

Notes

  1. xvii, 211; ii, 651; vii, 166,;viii, 264; xiii, 519; xvii, 259; xviii, 309; xx, 69; comp. Pindar. Olympian Odes xiii, 102; Nemean Odes ix, 37.
  2. Aristophanes. Peace, 457; Dionysius. Antiquitates Romanae iii, 48; Eustathius on Homer, p. 944.
  3. Eustathius on Homer, p. 673.
  4. Pausanias. Description of Greece iii, 14.9.
  5. ibid. iii, 15.5.
  6. Macrobius. Saturnalia i, 19.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.