Enyalius

Enyalius in Greek mythology is generally a byname of Ares the god of war but is sometimes differentiated.

On the Linear B Knossos Tablet KN V 52 the name E-nu-wa-ri-jo is interpreted to refer to this same Enyalios. Enyalios is mentioned nine times in Homer's Iliad and in four of them it is in the same formula describing Meriones who is one of the leaders of from Crete.

A scholiast on Homer declares that the poet Alcman sometimes identified Ares with Enyalius and sometimes differentiated him, and that Enyalius was sometimes made the son of Ares by Enyo and sometimes the son of Cronus and Rhea. (From A. Bernabé Poetae Epici Graeci, 44, Berlin, 1983- ). Ares and Enyalius are possibly differentiated in Aristophanes' comedy Peace.

According to Pausanias (3.15.7) the Lacedaemonians believed that by chaining up Enyalius they would prevent the god from deserting Sparta. Pausanias also mentions at 3.14.9 and 3.20.2 that puppies were sacrificed to Enyalius in Sparta.

Polybius' history renders the Roman god Mars by Greek Ares but the Roman god Quirinus by Enyalius and the same identifications are made by later writers such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, perhaps only because it made sense that a Roman god who was sometimes confounded with Mars and sometimes differentiated should be represented in Greek by a name that was similarly sometimes equated with Ares (who definitely corresponded with Mars) and was sometimes differentiated.

Josephus in his Antiquities 4, (3)[115] states after telling the story of the Tower of Babel:

But as to the plan of Shinar, in the country of Babylonia, Hestiaeus mentions it, when he says thus: "Such of the priests as were saved, took the sacred vessels of Zeus Enyalius, and came to Shinar of Babylonia."

The context of the reference ascribed to Hesitaeus is unknown.