Boys and Their Toys II- The Myth of Ares

                Ares, I was once told by classics professor, represented raw, animalistic aggression while Athena, goddess of war, represented the disciplined courage of, say, a Greek hoplite army. Of course, it is the discipline and applied energy of ‘civilized’ warfare that has proved so utterly destructive compared to the limited exchanges of spears and arrows more typical among hunter gatherers. It is among the Mesopotamians that we find the first clear examples of it. We can find represented in their art the basic unit of ancient warfare; the close ranked infantry phalanx equipped with shield and spear. We find as well the mobile ‘shock’ arm of chariot riders in bulky looking wagons drawn by onagers, an extinct type of donkey. This is the basic form of the civilized army even today where we have rifle armed footmen who hold and take ground and roving armored forces which flank the enemy or pour rapidly through gaps in the opposing side. I have often wondered what genius it was who first convinced a bunch of farmers and tradesmen that this was a good way to spend their time. Perhaps it was pure intimidation though it is hard to see how one man can intimidate a 1000 other men who are all armed and (some of them, if they can afford it) armored. Perhaps warfare was a break from agricultural drudgery or perhaps the pay or plunder was really good. Perhaps though, and I say this advisedly for individuals differ, at least SOME of these ancient fellows felt drawn to warfare as something intrinsically enticing and glamorous. Perhaps, just perhaps, some of them felt Ares stirring in their gut or, in this case, Ninurta. We also learn from the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh that when two men feel the urge to kill together, Gilgamesh and Enkidu in this case, a certain intimacy may develop which is both intense and satisfying and avoids the social awkwardness of homo-erotic desire. In other words we have the socially approved form of male bonding we call camaraderie and one site in which camaraderie is allowed to flower is war. This is to say, I suppose, that war is a social construct which uses certain psychological tendencies and processes as its building blocks though that may get us no closer to the real mystery of it.

                In a previous post I called war ‘humanity’s basest activity’. Ancient thinkers might be shocked at such a statement. They generally (though not exclusively) thought war among our noblest activities and not the grim necessity it became for later Christian theorists who had to reconcile it with the principle of charity. In a passage in his dialogue On Order Augustine speaks about the beauty of cock fighting (a taste we have lost!) which holds the maximum tension within the strictest order. The fight proceeds to a necessary conclusion yet within that necessity each bird exerts himself to the utmost. War might be understood the same way, at least for the aristocrats who engage in it, though Homer, who tells the truth in all matters, shows in the figure of Thersites that the Trojan campaign was less than fully enthralling for the grunts and conscripts. In war skill, energy, daring, loyalty and will are all tested to the maximum degree against the grim pitiless necessity that sets limits on what any human can accomplish through force of will or muscular effort. Even beyond sport absolute effort is called forth in war in an arena where the stakes are life and death. This is not only engrossing for the humans who contest for fame and plunder or to please the boss. It is engrossing for the gods who watch and sometimes even participate.

                Military historians and their readers (like me!) have the luxury of contemplating war as divine spectacle for they give it a form for the intellect. They trace the patterns and interplay of human will and effort with social, psychological, technical and physical necessity in a manner comparable to the pleasure Zeus takes in watching humans toil and contest. Of course, as Simone Weil reminds us in her magisterial essay on the Iliad, it is the nature of warfare that slowly and surely what is human in it is sunk under the sheer weight of impersonal force. In war we all become things whether we win or lose, whether we kill or are killed. Many of us are reduced to pure things as in corpses or slaves. This is the power of Ares who always lurks beneath the civilized veneer of well-ordered hoplites and splendid chariots. Homer, who I told you above always tells us the truth, gives us an image of this in the battle of Achilles against the river Scamander. Inspired by rage over the death of his friend Patroclus (again with the male bonding!), Achilles pursues the broken Trojans across the plains of Troy. As he does so he charges into the river to pursue some Trojans who have stumbled into it in a panicked search for safety. Soon though, he is fighting the river itself in a mad act of hubris which has the ironic result of allowing the Trojans to reach safety and regroup to continue the war. This is all we need to know about Ares. A man fully possessed by this god becomes blind to any aims he may have had going into the fight. Ares wars with all constraint, all otherness in his nihilistic fury even the otherness of nature itself. Further, by failing to follow the Trojans to the walls of Troy Achilles has ensured his own death at the hands of Paris. In Freud’s terms he has become an avatar of pure thanatos, the death instinct that consumes even itself. In war, Ares is unleashed and will express himself. Victorious soldiers cannot rest content with achieving the rational aims of a war but must loot, rape and destroy on a mass scale. Events like the My Lai massacre are not simple accidents reducible to poor discipline but a manifestation of the god himself. Athena may restrain him for a time but not forever.  In another myth Ares was confined in a jar but here the poets stumble for Ares cannot be kept in jar: war will release him and he will reduce humanity and nature to ultimate ruin.