Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/115

* MARRYAT. 95 UARS. giist 0, 1848, at Laii^^liain. Aiiioiij; liis niinierou.s tales are the avowedly autl)iogra[iliic'al I'ruiilc Uildmuy (1820); theu I'etvr Himpk (1834); Mr. ilidship)iHiii Easy (1830); The Phantom Ship (1839) ; I'tjor Jack ( 1840) ; and The I'rimi- teer's Man (184(i). In fun and humor ilarryat is the Dickens of the sea. Consult: Life and Letters, by his daughter, Florence Alarryat (Lon- don, 1872) ; and Life, by Hannay (ib., 1889). MARS (I.at., also Marors, or Marspiter, like Jupiter, Gk "A/jtjs, Arcs, of unknown derivation). 'ith tiic ancient Greeks and Romans the god of war and tumult of battle. The Greek and Koman conceptions differ radically. GiiiOEK. Ares, though prominent in the poets, plays no large part in Greek cult or myth. It is true that a somewhat long list can be compiled of tem- ples of the god, but he did not fill a large place in religious thought, and at but few localities was his worship important. At Thebes .and Athens he seems to have been more prominent than in most communities. At Thebes he was said to hae been father of the dragon who guarded his sacred spring and was slain by Cadmus, wlio in the final reconciliation wedded Harmonia, daugh- ter of Ares and Aj^hrodite, who here, as often in Greek legend, appears as his recognized consort. The connection of Aphrodite with Hephsestus, and her adultery with Ares, though told in the Odyssci/, was not everywhere canonical, and seems to have received its chief prominence at a late* ))eriod. At Athens there was a celebrated temple with a statue by Alcamenes, and a legend which connected him with thefoundingof the court of the Areopagus (or ilars' Hill). He was said to have killed a son of Poseidon for an outrage on his daughter, and to have been tried by the twelve gods and acquitted on the hill, which henceforth bore his name. Cults in Thessaly and at Argos, Tegea, and Sparta are also men- tioned. In legend Ares is commonly the son of Zeus and Hera, whose quarrelsome disposition he inherits. His sister in Homer is Eris. his sons Deimos (Terror) and Phobos ( Fright ), who go with him into battle. He is always greedy for war, battle, and bloodshed. The tumult of battle is his delight, and in later poets, as !>ophoclcs, he appears as the sender of pesti- lence and destruction. He was certainly associ- ated in the minds of the Greeks with Thrace, and there is mucli probability in the view- that his worship was derived from Thracian tribes or their kindred. In the earlier art, especially on vases. Ares is often bearded and regularly in the full armor of a Greek soldier. In the fifth cen- tury and later this equipment disappears, and the god is often represented clad in the chlamys or nude, though usiuilly with his attributes of shield and spear. Among the most celebrated statues are the standing "Ares Borghese" (some- times called Achilles) in the Louvre, which goes back to a fifth-century work, and the seated "Ares Ludovisi" in Rome, which seems to be copieil from a statue of Scopaa, though the Frotes 'are probably the addition of the Hellenistic copyist. Roman. Mars was an ancient Italian deity and seems everj-where to have been the god of war. At Rome his worship is among the most ancient and important. His temple and oldest altar stood in the Campus Jlartius. and another fa- mous temple just outside the Porta Capena on the south of the city. At each lustrum at the close of the census, when the eoinitia ccnturiata, or Roman citizens as an army, gathered in the Campus Jlartius, the gathering was purified by leadmg aroind it the souictaurilia (l)oar. ram, and bull), an offering sacred to Mars, which was afterwards sacrificed, and similar ceremonies are found in connection with other purifications as of the city, villages, and even single farms. The sacred emblems of Mars were the spear and shield, said to have fallen from heaven, which were prescned in the Regia, and carried by the Salii, priests of the god, in their festivals. The chief festivals of Mars were in the mouths of March (Jlartius, from the god) and October, which are clearly connected with the opening and close of the campaigning season. MARS. The first of the superior planets. Its mean distance from the sun is 141.5 million miles or nearly | times that of the earth ; its periodic time, G80.9 days; its diameter, 4230 miles; vol- ume ^^ that of the earth; density, 0.71, earth's being unity. When it is nearest to the earth (i.e. in favorable opposition) its apparent angu- lar diameter is 2.5", but when farthest away (i.e. in conjunction) its diameter is not more than 4". The axis of rotation is inclined 24° 50' to the plane of the orbit and therefore the planet presents phenomena of seasons similar to the earth's. The diurnal rotation period of Mars is known very accurately from observations of surface markings to be 24 hours 37 minutes 22.07 seconds. The planet shines with a red light and is a brilliant object in the heavens at midnight when near opposition. Mars has two satellites, discovered by Hall in 1877. They are very small, and visible with powerful telescopes only. The inner satellite. Phobos, revolves around the planet in 7 hours 39 minutes, which is less than one- third of the Martian day. Consequently, Phobos will rise in the west and set in the east, its real motion more than counterbal.ancing the apparent diurnal motion of JIars on its axis. The outer satellite is called Deimos. Beginning with the telescopic researches by Sir William Hei-schel, Mars has possessed special interest owing to the indication of the existence upon its surface of physical conditions not unlike those of the earth. The Martian seasons have already been mentioned. The 'canal system' of Mars, suggested by Schiaparelli in 1877. has given rise to a careful study of the planet, ren- dered possible by the construction of our great modern telescopes. Many things seem to indi- cate that Mars is enveloped in an atmosphere with physical properties similar to those of the earth's atmosphere. According to observations by Lowell, at Flagstaff, Ariz., carried on for six months, this atmosphere would appear to be of remarkable clearness. Two white patches, in the neighborhood of the poles, are very con- spicuous and so brilliant that they, in the proper light of the sun, have lieen seen sparkling like stars. They are generally explained as accumu- lations of snow and ice, and this view- is sup- ported by the fact that they change with the Martian seasons, i.e. increase in size during win- ter, decrease as spring approaches, and almost disappear during the summer. A mixture of orange patches and gray-green markings are seen extending over more than half the surface of the planet in a central zone, al- most parallel to the equator. The orange patches are assumed to be land. This assumption is