Ares at the table

The ancient Greek meal is structured around sitos (the grain base: barley, bread or flatbread), accompanied by opson (what is eaten with it: meat, fish, cheese, legumes, olives), and ends with honey sweets and wine mixed with water during the symposion. For a god like Ares, this human meal is doubled by thysia, the sacrifice: the fat and bones are burned for the deity, while the men share the grilled meat. To eat here is also to nourish the altar.

More rustic and hardier than wheat, barley is the cereal of soldiers on campaign and of the northern peoples dear to Ares, like the Thracians. It is found in flatbread (maza), porridge and even the restorative drink (kykeon). This is the martial thread of this table: a hard grain that sticks to the body and marches with the army.