While war was always a male-dominated activity, ancient Greeks had also female war deities. The most important of them is Enyo, attested from very early times (the epics of Homer) andwhose worship continued until Late Antiquity. In Homer, Enyo is presented as personification...

...of maniacal combat, of frazied fighting and bloodlust. Her name is often thought to derive from the word "enyous", which means "panic, fear", rush of adrenaline", an etymology that fits into her role. In this context she is frequently paired up with the war god Enyalios, who..

...is, in fact, Ares as he was called in Sparta. The name "Enyalios" can be understood as the masculine form of Enyo. Alternatively, the name "Enyalios" can be understood as meaning "he of the glass-like clear firmament" and Enyo would be the female form, alluding to a phase...

...where Ares had a more important role in the pantheon, id est the function of the Sky Father, much like the Scandinavian Tiwar.

But, back to Enyo, the context where she appears in Homer connects her to Eris (=discord, frenzy). In the fifth book of the "Iliad",...

...Hector goes to battle flanked by Ares and Enyo. Enyo's frenzied state is the exact opposite of Athena (=deathless, id est the mind). Athena is the rational thinking, the calmer and more easily understood side, while Enyo is the frenzied, unpredictable state of the mind.

As we have said, the name of Enyo's near-equivalent, Eris, refers not only to doscord, bot also to frenzy. The "frenzy" in question is the shamanistic frenzy. Ergo, Enyo is the inducer of said state of the mind, which, in rituals, helps the pagan priest/shaman to...

...connect with the spirit world. In prehistoric cave paintings, we have shamans pictured in conjunction with hunting scenes. In the Stone Age, the hunting (in Latin, "venatio", from the verb "venio, venire", meaning "to go") was connected to the initiate's quest, to...

...the feat the novus homo had to undertake to prove himself worthy of his ancestors. We see that in mythology, like the Great Hunt or the Calydonian Boar Hunt. The function of hunting was, in later periods, taken over by warfare. The idea of proving themselves in the field...

...in defence of the kin and tribe also expanded the concept of a honorable death, since a death in battle was a self-sacrifice, an act of honor, which helps ensure a swifter rebirth. So, the frenzied fighting fits in this context. The frenzied warrior is filled with...

...the valor of his ancestors, is administered the "eris" by the "eriounios" Hermes (sum total of the forebears). And, Enyo, the adrenaline rush, accompanies him as he charges forth at the enemies or, in previous times, as he charged forth against a beast. Moreover, in...

...the clearly symbolic layer, both the beast-slaying and the enemy-killing function as metaphors for reincarnation. The warrior's victory is the initiate's rebirth, the frenized state he fights under is the moment that his ancestor's spirit " possesses" him, when the flame...

...is rekindled.

In Rome, Enyo's equivalent is Bellona, with function and attributes virtually identical to that of her Greek counterpart.

Thanks for reading.

Dixi.