Visiting Mars
The red planet has a bloody namesake
Saturdays are perfect days for mythological surprises. Surprise—we’re talking about Mars!
One of the planets that looms largest both in our skies and minds (despite being the second smallest in the solar system) is Mars, the red planet. Our rocky, rust-colored neighbor is a world of dusty, cold deserts, canyons, and volcanoes that may just maybe hold evidence of water and possibly even life.
The reason pop psychologists claim that men herald from Mars has nothing to do the fourth planet from the sun itself but rather because of its divine namesake. Mars was the Roman god of war, specifically bloody, savage battle. As is typical of the great Roman gods, Mars had an Olympic equivalent, the Greek god of war Ares. What does it say about Rome that its society held Mars in much greater esteem than Greece revered Ares?
Etymologically, Ares is equally insignificant with no English derivations to his credit; the zodiac sign Aries comes from the Latin aries meaning ram. Mars, as ever, makes a more major mark on modern language. The month of March was named in his honor as a god of agriculture as well as war, though the word march has a different origin. You'd think that the word mar meaning disfigure or impair would derive from such a violent deity, but it descends from Proto-Germanic instead. Still, we have a few common words that enshrine the memory of the red god of war:
court martial (noun) - a judicial court or proceeding for trying members of the armed services, or a conviction by such a court
—to court martial is to bring formal legal proceedings against members of the armed services
Martian (adj) - of or pertaining to the planet Mars or its inhabitants
martial (adj) - of or pertaining to war, soldiers, or the military; warlike or belligerent
BREAKDOWN: MAR- (of Mars or war) + -IAL (pertaining to)
—martial arts are any of a variety of sports, skills, or fighting styles that originated as forms of combat or self defense
"But things must fall, and so it always was,
on one hand Venus, on the other Mars." —Derek Walcott