Matthew
GONZALES The Binding of Ares in Myth and Cult:
A Re-assessment
The mythical and cultic binding of Ares has
long evoked interest and commentary. Most scholars seek
to explain these stories and practices by Ares'
supposedly "dishonored" status, and both ancients and
moderns have counted Ares among the "Forces of Evil" from
which poleis protected themselves by a magical,
prophylactic binding of his statue. But this view fails
to place Ares' binding within the larger phenomenon of
bound cult statues and do not account for the
surprisingly complex image of the god in epic and
tragedy. A brief exposition of generally neglected
evidence will establish that cult statues, including
Ares', were not chained to incapacitate their power, but
to ensure their continued presence as protective powers.
Moreover, for Ares in particular, literary and epigraphic
evidence suggests that he was bound to the city as the
avenging protector of the city's land and agent of Zeus'
daughter Dike.
The binding of Ares' cult images is not an isolated
phenomenon. Several ancient authorities, clearly testify
that the images of the gods were bound in an effort keep
them tied to their cities. The fifth century sources on
this point speak with one voice. Their consistent
reference to the binding of "Daidalian" sculptures
indicates a practice considered ancient even in the fifth
century B.C., and the many mythical bindings of various
deities, including Zeus, shows such rituals to be
extremely archaic indeed. While it is true that liminal
and potentially troublesome deities like Aphrodite,
Artemis, and Dionysos account for the lion's share of the
explicit evidence for bound cult statues, we should
remember that the power of every Greek god was a
double-edged sword. Apollo could be the bearer or averter
of disease. Demeter could either insure the fertility of
crops or drive humans into a frenzy of pre-agricultural
cannibalism. The cult of Ares, I would argue, was no
different in this respect.
The complex rationales for Ares' binding appear most
clearly in two inscriptions from southern Asia Minor, one
from Pamphylian Syedra, and another example from Iconium.
In both cases, an oracle bade the cities to create a
statue group depicting Ares bound before Hermes and Dike.
While the position of Ares as suppliant before an image
of Justice could imply a malevolent and hostile
relationship between Ares and the city, a closer reading
of the inscription tends to undermine this reading. The
relationship of Ares and Dike had earlier received
considerable elaboration by none other than Aeschylus in
his Septem and Oresteia. In these four plays, Ares is constantly and consistently
depicted as the träger
of cosmic, retributive justice. It is in this capacity
that Ares appears alongside Zeus and Athena at the heart
of the Athenian Ephebic oath, and similar concerns likely
informed Ares' binding at Syedra and Iconium. Ares was
bound and placed before Dike so that his violent and
retributive energies would not harm the polis. Far from diminishing the god's power,
cities sought to focus Ares' potentially destructive
energies outward by binding his image to the land and
subjecting him to Dike.
This is the Ares found alongside Athena on the Shield
of Achilles and invoked in the Hymn to Ares as "ally of Themis."