Dionysos certainly is a foreigner, a god imported into ancient Greek religion from somewhere outside Greek culture; Ares may be too, for he is never very popular, from Homer down; he is constantly associated with Thrace; and he is not really needed, since other deities, as Zeus and Athena, to say nothing of some of the great heroes, have warlike functions in plenty. Be that as it may, he is already a recognized member of the Olympic circle by the time of Homer, and is the son of Zeus and Hera. He never developed into a god of social, moral, or theological importance, in this respect contrasting sharply not only with Apollo, but even with the Italian Mars, with whom he is identified in Graeco-Roman cult and legend; for Mars has agricultural as well as warlike functions, however he came by them, and, at least in the Augustan cult of Mars Vltor, he was capable of embodying the idea of righteous vengeance, while Ares is little more than a divine swashbuckler.
As already described in the file about the goddess Aphrodite, q.v., Ares is from early times associated with Aphrodite, as lover or cult-partner. Apart from this, and from his constant appearance as stirrer-up of strife, he really has but little mythology. War was not a subject on which Greek fancy dwelt with much complacency, although the Greeks of the classical epoch fought a great deal. It is perhaps as a result of this that Ares not infrequently gets the worst of it in his encounters, as when Otos and Ephialtes overcome and bind him. (The scholia on Homer give a reason for this misfortune. The Aloadai were entrusted by Aphrodite with the care of Adonis; when therefore Ares killed him, they were justifiably annoyed and imprisoned the god.)
Ares was the father of a number of children. By Aphrodite, if we combine various accounts, he had Eros and Anteros, Deimos and Phobos (Fear and Rout, his attendants in Homer) and finally Harmonia. But his affections were not concentrated on Aphrodite; for Eos is said to have been his mistress, and consequently to have been caused by Aphrodite to be perpetually in love with some one. Several other children of Ares, notably Diomedes of Thrace and Kyknos, Herakles’ opponents, are described in the file about the hero Herakles, q.v. One noteworthy union was that of Ares with the Attic heroine, or goddess, Aglauros, who bore him a daughter, Alkippe. Halirrhothios, a son of Poseidon, violated Alkippe, and was consequently killed by Ares. He was tried before the Areiopagos, which then met for the first time, and in connexion with this homicide he, like Apollo, underwent the penalty of a period of serfdom.
Associated vith Ares are two minor deities of war, Enyalios (male) and Enyo (female). Neither has any myth to speak of, and the former is really, to judge by Homer’s use of the word, simply a name or epithet of Ares himself. He was often identified with the Roman Quirinus, she commonly with Bellona.