Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians companion #5.5) - Rick Riordan Page 0,93

by four fire-breathing horses. His twin sons, Phobos and Deimos (Fear and Panic), were his usual charioteers, holding the reins and amusing themselves by seeing how many people they could run over: Fifty points if you can smash that line of archers! A hundred points if you can hit that old dude!

You can see why Ares’s sacred animal was the wild boar, which will charge anything, is almost impossible to kill, and has major attitude.

One of his sacred birds was the vulture, since it feasted on corpses after a battle. His favorite reptile was the poisonous snake. In a lot of pictures, you’ll see Ares holding one, or he’ll have one painted on his shield.

Ares didn’t have a sacred flower. Go figure.

In addition to his apartment on Olympus, where he liked to hang out with his girlfriend Aphrodite, Ares had his own fortress in the mountains of Thrace. It was the first and ultimate man cave.

The castle was made entirely of iron—black metal walls, metal gates, dark towers, spiked turrets, and a central keep with bars on all the windows. The sunlight barely made it inside, as if it was afraid to enter.

The halls and rooms were piled high with loot from various wars—some trophies that Ares had claimed himself, some that had been sacrificed to him by mortal warriors. He had about ten million swords and shields, enough armor to outfit the entire population of India, heaps of broken chariots and siege equipment, old banners, spears, and quivers of arrows. If you made a crossover TV show about hoarders who were also doomsday survivalists, the camera crew would totally want to film Ares’s fortress.

He had a lot of valuables in there. His gun collection alone must’ve been worth millions. But the fortress was guarded by dozens of minor warlike gods like Mischief, Anger, Threat, Road Rage, and Rude Gestures. Ares also had one of those signs on the front door that read: FORGET THE GUARD DOG! BEWARE OF OWNER!

The Greeks didn’t worship Ares much. They felt the same way about him as Zeus did. Ares was part of the Olympian family. They had to tolerate him. Sometimes they feared him. But he was whiny and annoying and always got people killed.

Sure, there were exceptions. The city of Sparta? They loved Ares. Of course, they were the manly men of Greece who ate nails and steroids for breakfast, so I guess that made sense.

In the center of town they had a statue of Ares all chained down, the theory being that if they kept Ares in shackles he couldn’t desert them, so the Spartans would always have courage and victory.

Still. Chaining down the god of war? That’s hard-core.

The Spartans also made human sacrifices in honor of Ares, so you can see why they got along with him so well, though the sacrifices did cut down on Spartan tourism.

Up in Thrace, in the northern lands where Ares was raised, the mortals worshipped him in the form of a sword. Maybe they painted a smiley face on the blade and called it Mr. Ares. I’m not sure. But when it was time to sacrifice the sheep or cows or people, they sharpened the sacred sword and made a big mess.

Another one of Ares’s fan clubs? The queendom of the Amazons. In their culture, the women were in charge, and those ladies knew how to fight. The first of them were demigod daughters of Ares. He gave the original Amazon queen a magical belt that bestowed super-awesome combat skills. The Amazon queens passed it down from generation to generation.

Ares always looked out for the Amazons when they went to war. Those female warriors liked Daddy War God so much, they built him a temple on a nearby island, which was guarded by some of Ares’s sacred birds. Imagine a flock of six million ravens, each one with feathers like razor-sharp darts that could be fired with enough force to pierce the hull of a ship. Yeah…the island was well guarded.

If that wasn’t enough war god love, Ares also had two sacred groves: one in central Greece and one in a land called Colchis, far to the east on the shores of the Black Sea. Each grove was a dark forest of oak trees where you could go to pray for victory in battle; but you had to be brave, because each grove was guarded by a dragon.

These two big monsters were both sons of Ares. Who was the mom? How did a god