Like Ares who was the son of Zeus and Hera, Mars is usually considered to be the son of Jupiter and Juno. Mars may ultimately be a thematic reflex of the Proto-Indo-European god Perkwunos, having originally a thunderer character. Latin adjectives from the name of Mars are martius and martialis, from which derive English 'martial' (as in 'martial arts' or ' martial law') and personal names such as 'Marcus', 'Mark' and 'Martin'. Scholars have varying views on whether the two gods are related, and if so how. It has been explained as deriving from Maris, the name of an Etruscan child-god, though this is not universally agreed upon. The oldest recorded Latin form, Mamart-, is likely of foreign origin. The word MДЃrs (genitive MДЃrtis), which in Old Latin and poetic usage also appears as MДЃvors ( MДЃvortis), is cognate with Oscan MДЃmers ( MДЃmertos). His love affair with Venus symbolically reconciled the two different traditions of Rome's founding Venus was the divine mother of the hero Aeneas, celebrated as the Trojan refugee who 'founded' Rome several generations before Romulus laid out the city walls. In the mythic genealogy and founding myths of Rome, Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus by his rape of Rhea Silvia. ДЄlthough Ares was viewed primarily as a destructive and destabilizing force, Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, and was a father (pater) of the Roman people.

Although the center of Mars's worship was originally located outside the sacred boundary of Rome ( pomerium), Augustus made the god a renewed focus of Roman religion by establishing the Temple of Mars Ultor in his new forum. Mars's altar in the Campus Martius, the area of Rome that took its name from him, was supposed to have been dedicated by Numa, the peace-loving semi-legendary second king of Rome. But the character and dignity of Mars differed in fundamental ways from that of his Greek counterpart, who is often treated with contempt and revulsion in Greek literature. Under the influence of Greek culture, Mars was identified with the Greek god Ares, whose myths were reinterpreted in Roman literature and art under the name of Mars. Most of his festivals were held in March, the month named for him ( Latin Martius), and in October, which began the season for military campaigning and ended the season for farming. He was the son of Jupiter and Juno, and he was the most prominent of the military gods in the religion of the Roman army. In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars ( Latin: MДЃrs, pronounced ) was the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome.

God of war mythology