Deities

Mars

MARZ

Roman Deities

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Mars." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/deities/mars.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Mars. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/deities/mars

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-mars,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Mars},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/deities/mars},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

As the face of the planet Mars, the Roman Mars embodies drive, courage, and conflict. Mars is the Roman god of war and, in older layers of belief, a guardian of agriculture and the fields, a combination characteristic of early Rome. Second in importance only to Jupiter, he was the foremost god of the Roman army. By Rhea Silvia he was the father of Romulus and Remus, and so a father of the Roman people themselves. His festivals fell in March, the month named for him, which opened the campaigning season, and in October, which closed it. He is the counterpart of the Greek Ares, though far more honored and dignified. Sacred to him are the spear, the wolf, and the woodpecker, and he embodies martial drive, courage, and the vigor that both makes war and guards the land.

Facts

Function

Domain / Function

Agriculture and harvest 1

Domain / Function

War and battle 1

Belief

Theology

Polytheistic: many gods 2

Cult

Principal Cult Centre

The Campus Martius, and the temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus 1

Attributes and Iconography

In full armour with helmet, spear and shield; the wolf and the woodpecker. 1

Worship and Practice

The month of March, named for Mars, opened the Roman festival calendar with the Feriae Marti and the ritual dance of the Salii priests, who processed through the city bearing the sacred shields called ancilia while singing archaic hymns whose language even Roman antiquarians found difficult to understand. 2

Life

Associated Relic

The sacred shields called the ancilia and the ceremonial spears kept in the Regia were treated as Mars's ritual relics in Rome, both ritually shaken by the Salian priests each March in a rite that formally opened the annual campaigning season for the Roman army. 2

Attributions

Mythic Association

Roman tradition held that Mars fathered Romulus and Remus with the priestess Rhea Silvia, making him ancestor of the Roman people and founder, through his sons, of the city of Rome itself, a genealogical claim that elevated Mars from an earlier standing as a lesser agricultural deity into one of Rome's most important gods. 2

Attestation

Era of Attestation

600 BCE to 391 CE 1

Veneration Today

Historically attested; no continuous cult 1

Historicity

Not a historical person: a divine or other-than-human being 2

Origins

Origin of the Name

The name Mars derives from the older Italic form Mavors, and he ranked second only to Jupiter in the Roman state cult. 2

Practice

Lineage

Roman tradition, as recorded by Ovid, holds that Mars was conceived by Juno alone, without Jupiter, using a magical flower given to her by Flora. 2

Identity

Gender

Male 1

History

Historical Note

Roman antiquarian tradition holds that Mars began as a guardian of fields and flocks, invoked to protect agriculture from blight and disease, with his standing as a god of war only later coming to dominate his public cult as Rome itself grew into a militarized state. 2

Position Profile

Key Text

The Carmen Saliare, an archaic hymn sung by the Salian priests in Mars's honor, survives only in fragments quoted by later grammarians; its language was already so antiquated by the late Republic that even native Latin speakers such as Quintilian confessed they could barely understand it, making it one of the oldest surviving specimens of the Latin language. 1

Sources

Textual Note

Ovid's Fasti records that March, the month named for Mars, once opened the Roman calendar year, so that the god of war stood at the very start of Roman civic and religious time before a later calendar reform moved the year's beginning to January. 2

Learn More

Not Merely a Roman Ares

Before Mars had any fixed cult statue, his presence at Rome was carried by a set of sacred spears kept in the Regia, the old royal house at the edge of the Forum; ancient writers record that their stirring of their own accord was read as a grave omen, and Plutarch reports such a sign among the portents said to precede the assassination of Julius Caesar. This spear-fetish stage of Mars, a god present in his weapon rather than in a human image, is older than any anthropomorphic statue and points to an Italic war-god considerably rougher and less classically Greek than the armoured youth of later art.

That later image, in full armour with helmet, spear and shield, owes much to Hellenistic sculpture, and the Etruscan bronze known as the Mars of Todi, a young warrior in the same guise, shows the type already established in central Italy before Rome's own art fully absorbed it. The identification with Ares carried through to give Mars the alchemical metal iron and the planet named for him, and dies Martis, Mars's day, survives in the Romance languages as mardi and martedi. Renaissance and Baroque painters returned often to Mars disarmed by Venus, an allegory of love overcoming war that Botticelli painted around 1483 and that later artists, including Rubens, reworked as a plea for peace.

The God Who Also Guarded the Fields

Augustus gave Mars his grandest Roman temple under the title Mars Ultor, the Avenger, vowed on the battlefield at Philippi in 42 BCE where he defeated Caesar's assassins and dedicated only in 2 BCE, at the centre of his new Forum of Augustus. From that temple the standards recovered from the Parthians were displayed, and the Senate met there to debate questions of war and peace, making the Avenger's shrine as much a monument to Augustan foreign policy as to the god himself; it remains one of the best preserved of Rome's imperial forum temples.

The temple precinct also served a civic function beyond worship: provincial governors departing for their commands took their leave from its steps, and captured military standards, including those recovered from the Parthians in 20 BCE after the humiliation of Crassus's earlier defeat, were displayed inside. Augustus lined the flanking colonnades of his forum with statues of great Romans of the Republic, each captioned with a summary of his achievements, a gallery of exemplary ancestors that placed Augustus, and by extension the god of the temple at its centre, at the head of Rome's whole military tradition rather than merely its patron in war.

Correspondences & Relations

Mars gave the red planet the name it keeps in nearly every European language. He was an agricultural as well as a war god in early Roman religion, so the purely martial reading of the planet is a later narrowing.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Addressed By

Carmen Saliare

Its own text: sung by "the Salii, the twelve leaping priests of Mars" during the rites marking the opening and closing of the campaigning season under his authority.

Source Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A HistoryMary Beard, John North and Simon Price

Cato's Prayer to Mars

Explicitly addressed to Mars.

Source De Agri CulturaMarcus Porcius Cato

Associated With

Ancilia

Sacred shields kept in the Temple of Mars and borne each March by the Salii.

Source Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A HistoryMary Beard, John North and Simon Price

Aquarius Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aquarius First Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aquarius Fourth Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 20 to 25 degrees of Aquarius and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aquarius Second Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aquarius Third Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aries Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aries First Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aries Fourth Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 20 to 25 degrees of Aries and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aries Second Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aries Third Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Bandua

This source names Mars directly: "the stones themselves with the Roman Mars."

Source Jose d'EncarnacaoJose d'Encarnacao

Bode's Law and the Discovery of Juno

This source names Mars directly: "Law prediction of a planet between Mars and Jupiter."

Source Bode's Law and the Discovery of JunoClifford J. Cunningham

Cancer Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Cancer First Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 0 to 7 degrees of Cancer and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Cancer Fourth Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Cancer Second Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Cancer Third Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Capricorn Fifth Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 26 to 30 degrees of Capricorn and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Capricorn First Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Capricorn Fourth Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Capricorn Second Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Capricorn Third Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Ceres

This source names Mars directly: "first object found in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it was counted a planet for some decades before being reclassified as an asteroid and, in 2006, as a dwarf planet."

Source Resolution B5, Definition of a Planet in the Solar System, 26th General AssemblyInternational Astronomical Union

Curium

This source names Mars directly: "X-ray spectrometers carried by Mars rovers, which use curium-244 to determine the composition of rocks."

Source Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the ElementsJohn Emsley

Decan 1 of Aries

This source names Mars directly: "opening of the zodiac, sub-ruled by Mars, the sign's own ruler doubled."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Decan 1 of Scorpio

This source names Mars directly: "heart of the sign, sub-ruled by Mars, its traditional ruler doubled."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Decan 2 of Capricorn

This source names Mars directly: "degrees), cardinal earth sub-ruled by Mars, exalted in Capricorn and lending sharp, disciplined drive."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Decan 2 of Gemini

This source names Mars directly: "20 degrees), mutable air sub-ruled by Mars, which sharpens the intellect with drive and edge."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Decan 3 of Leo

This source names Mars directly: "30 degrees), fixed fire sub-ruled by Mars, which fires Leo's creativity with courage and drive."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Decan 3 of Pisces

This source names Mars directly: "degrees), mutable water sub-ruled by Mars, closing the zodiac with drive beneath its gentleness."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Flamen

This source names Mars directly: "(major flamens), serving Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus and traditionally drawn from patrician families, and twelve flamines minores (minor flamens) serving lesser deities, generally open to plebeians."

Source Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A HistoryMary Beard, John North and Simon Price

Gemini Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Gemini First Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Gemini Fourth Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 17 to 24 degrees of Gemini and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Gemini Second Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Gemini Third Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Iron

This source names Mars directly: "Iron was the alchemists' Mars, marked with a circle and an arrow leaving it at the upper right, and the association runs through the language still: martial, iron in the blood, the red planet and..."

Source Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the ElementsJohn Emsley

Leo Fifth Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 24 to 30 degrees of Leo and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Leo First Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Leo Fourth Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Leo Second Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Leo Third Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Libra Fifth Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 28 to 30 degrees of Libra and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Libra First Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Libra Fourth Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Libra Second Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Libra Third Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Lydney Park (Temple of Nodens)

This source names Mars directly: "one dedicant equates him with Mars, another with Silvanus, and a votive plaque naming him alongside images of sea creatures gestures toward Neptune as well."

Source A Dictionary of Celtic MythologyJames MacKillop

Mars

This source names Mars directly: "The glyph of Mars is a circle with an arrow springing from its upper right, traditionally read as the shield and spear of the god of war."

Source The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian CultureFrancesca Rochberg

Mysterium Cosmographicum

This source names Mars directly: "icosahedron, Earth, dodecahedron, Mars, tetrahedron, Jupiter, cube, Saturn."

Source Mysterium CosmographicumJohannes Kepler

Nodens

This source names Mars directly: "offerings identify him variously with Mars, Silvanus and Neptune, reflecting a god whose domain spanned the hunt, the wild and the healing power of water."

Source A Dictionary of Celtic MythologyJames MacKillop

Pallas

This source names Mars directly: "the search for a planet between Mars and Jupiter; like the other early asteroid signs it is an attribute emblem of the deity whose name the body carries, and its origin is documented."

Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion

Pisces Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Pisces First Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Pisces Fourth Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 19 to 28 degrees of Pisces and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Pisces Second Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Pisces Third Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Rome

Mars, father of Romulus in Roman legend, was closely tied to the city's founding myth.

Source Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A HistoryMary Beard, John North and Simon Price

Sagittarius Fifth Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 26 to 30 degrees of Sagittarius and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Sagittarius First Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Sagittarius Fourth Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Sagittarius Second Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Sagittarius Third Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Scorpio Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Scorpio First Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 0 to 7 degrees of Scorpio and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Scorpio Fourth Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Scorpio Second Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Scorpio Third Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Taurus Fifth Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 27 to 30 degrees of Taurus and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Taurus First Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Taurus Fourth Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Taurus Second Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Taurus Third Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Virgo Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Virgo First Term: Mercury

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Virgo Fourth Term: Mars

This source names Mars directly: "This term spans 21 to 28 degrees of Virgo and is ruled by Mars."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Virgo Second Term: Venus

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Virgo Third Term: Jupiter

This source names Mars directly: "run Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Children

Romulus

Roman tradition holds Romulus (and his twin Remus) to be sons of Mars and the Vestal Rhea Silvia, asserted independently on both Mars's and Romulus's own entity records; no honest edge target exists for Rhea Silvia or Remus.

Source The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th editionSimon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.)

Depicted In

Venus and Mars (Botticelli)

Source Venus and Mars, Botticelli (Web Gallery of Art)

Identified with (Interpretatio)

Ares

Interpretatio romana: Greek war-god Ares identified with Roman Mars.

Source Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A HistoryMary Beard, John North and Simon Price

Camulus

Camulus is the Celtic face of Mars, worshipped by the Gauls and Britons as Mars Camulus in the shared astrological figure of martial drive, courage and conflict.

Source A Dictionary of Celtic MythologyJames MacKillop

Mangala

Mangala is the Hindu face of the planet Mars, set alongside the Roman Mars and Greek Ares in the shared astrological figure of drive, courage and conflict.

Source Encyclopedia of HinduismDenise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.)

Tyr

Interpretatio germanica: Tiw/Tyr equated with Mars; Latin dies Martis calqued as Old English Tiwesdaeg (Tuesday).

Source GermaniaPublius Cornelius Tacitus

Zhurong

Zhurong is the Chinese face of Mars, set alongside the Roman Mars in the shared astrological figure of fire, courage and conflict.

Source Chinese Mythology: An IntroductionAnne Birrell

Married To

Venus

Venus's own description: "she is the counterpart of the Greek Aphrodite and the consort of Mars."

Source Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A HistoryMary Beard, John North and Simon Price

Namesake Of

March

Martius is the month of Mars, god of war and guardian of the fields, whose priests the Salii processed with the sacred shields in March.

Source FastiOvid

Worshipped In

Ancient Romans

Mars, father of Romulus, kept the armies and the fields; March opens the old Roman year in his name.

Source Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A HistoryMary Beard, John North and Simon Price

Roman Religion

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Sources

1. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th edition

Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2012s.v. MarsView the Source

2. Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History

Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, Cambridge University Press, 1998View the Source

Encyclopedia of Religion

Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. MarsView the Source

Take a Related Quiz

Gods of Ancient Rome: BeginnerIncludes a question about Mars.
Gods of Ancient Rome: ExpertIncludes a question about Mars.
Gods of Ancient Rome: IntermediateIncludes a question about Mars.

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