If a Greek god of war clue pops up in a crossword, I usually reach straight for ARES — it’s the classic four-letter fill and shows up in puzzle grids all the time.
I like to pause, though, and double-check the crossing letters before committing. Puzzle setters can be cheeky: if the clue explicitly says 'Roman god of war' you want MARS, and if it’s a cryptic with a question mark there might be wordplay pointing somewhere else. There are also rarer possibilities like ENYO, who’s a war goddess in the same mythic neighborhood, or references to related figures like PHOBOS and DEIMOS (Ares’ sons) that can mislead you if the enumeration doesn’t match.
Beyond the technical bit, Ares is fun because he’s such a character in myth — brash, often unpopular with the other gods, tangled up with Aphrodite, and a frequent cameo in stories from 'The Iliad' to modern retellings. Whenever ARES slots into a grid it feels like a tiny mythological wink from the setter, and I grin at how compactly mythology fits into four squares.