Wonder Stories: The Best Myths for Boys and Girls

by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

Strange words for a noble people to speak to one another in a time of such need, were they not? But it was not the heart or the soul speech of these Romans. The two other attendants of war, Fear and Discord in tarnished armor, had appeared in their midst and had put these thoughts into the minds of the men.

"Mars comes!" they said then, and the air grew dense and suffocating with smoke, only pierced at intervals by fiery arrows. Thunderbolts forged by the black, one-eyed Cyclopes in their workshops under the volcanoes fell all about, tearing up the earth and bursting in thousands of burning pieces. Through this slaughter and carnage rode the mailed Mars, one of the gods of war.

His steeds were hot and bleeding, and his own eyes shone like fire in his dark, cruel face, for Mars had no pity and took pleasure in war for the sake of itself. It was never the purpose but always the battle that gave him pleasure. With his attendants he sat on a throne that was stained with blood, and the worship that delighted his ears like music was the crash of strife and the cries of those who were sorely wounded.

Mars' palace on Mount Olympus was a most terrible place. Fancy a grim old stronghold built for strength only, without a chink or a crack for letting in Apollo's cheerful sunlight, and never visited by the happy Muses or by Orpheus with his sweet toned lute, or by jolly old Momus, the god of laughter. The palace was guarded, night and day, by a huge hound and a vulture, both of them the constant visitants of battle fields. Mars sat on his throne, waited upon by a company of sad prisoners of war, and holding forever the insignia of his office, a spear and a flaming torch. Why had he left his abode and descended upon the peaceful merrymaking of the Terminalia?

Mars was a very ruthless kind of god. In fact he was so cruel and thoughtless that the family of the gods was rather sorry that Jupiter had appointed him to so important a position, and they decided at last to have two war-gods. But who the other one was and what happened when this second chariot of war crashed down through the clouds is another story that you shall hear presently. The reason for Mars riding out with those frightful friends of his, Dread, Alarm, Fear, and Discord, was that he had not the slightest respect for Terminus, the god of boundaries. He had decided to knock down his stones and shatter his pillars.

Everyone, from the days of the myths down to the present time, has believed in a fair fight. It is about the greatest adventure a man can have, that of using all his strength and giving up his life perhaps in a battle to right a wrong or protect a defenseless people. But fancy this old fight of Mars when he rode down in the chariot that the gods had given him upon a people who were without arms and with the purpose of violating their boundaries.

With a rumble like that of all the thunder storms in the world rolled into one and a crashing like the sound of a thousand spears, Mars touched the earth and rode across Terminus' carefully laid out boundary lines and destroyed them. The wheels of his chariot ground the stones Terminus had so honestly placed to powder, and the beautifully carved pillars were shattered, and the pieces buried in the dust. The shouts of Mars and his followers drowned all the peaceful melody of earth, the singing of birds, the laughter of the children, and the pleasant sounds of spinning and mowing and grinding.

It was indeed a most dreadful invasion and for a while it seemed as if it was going to end in nothing but destruction of the people and the industry on the earth which the gods loved and had helped. But in an instant something happened.

There was a roar as if wild beasts of the forests for miles around had been captured, and the earth trembled as it did when the giants were thrown out of the home of the gods, for Mars had fallen and was crying about it. He had thought himself invulnerable, but whether an arrow from some unseen hero had hit him or whether his steeds had stumbled over one of Terminus' boundary posts, the invincible Mars lay prostrate on the field he had himself invaded, and before he could pick himself up, something else happened.

It was really rather amusing, for Mars was not hurt. He was only taught a much needed lesson.