Phobos

The personification of fear and panic in battle, son of Ares and Aphrodite, who accompanies his father into war alongside his twin brother Deimos.

Accounts of this vary across texts and traditions. This entry primarily follows Greek mythology (Hesiod and Homer), with other tellings (Homer (Iliad and Odyssey), Ovid's Metamorphoses (Roman retelling), Regional and later Greek and Roman tradition) noted where relevant.

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Relationships

Parents

Ares · Aphrodite

Siblings

Deimos · Priapus · Harmonia

Introduction

Phobos, "fear" or "panic", is the personification of the terror that grips soldiers in battle, a son of Ares and Aphrodite, generally paired with his twin brother Deimos ("dread" or "terror"), the two together forming a fitting escort for their father, the god of war.

Family

Father: Ares
Mother: Aphrodite
Siblings: Harmonia, Deimos, Priapus

Role

Phobos and Deimos are described, notably in Homer's Iliad, as yoking their father Ares's chariot and accompanying him onto the battlefield, embodying the fear and dread that spread through armies in the chaos of combat, abstract qualities given divine, personal form as constant companions of war itself.

Legacy

The word phobos is the direct root of the modern English suffix "-phobia", used for irrational fears, a linguistic legacy of this ancient personification of battlefield terror. In modern astronomy, Phobos, along with Deimos, is the name given to one of the two small moons of Mars (the Roman equivalent of Ares), named for the god of war's two divine attendants.

Sources

Iliad (primary text) — https://classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.html
Theogony (primary text) — https://classics.mit.edu/Hesiod/theogony.html

This entry is independently written for myVamsam using the sources listed above. Where traditions differ, this entry identifies the relevant tradition rather than presenting one account as universally established fact.