Enyo: The Greek Goddess of Slaughter & Bloodshed

Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Enyo, the Greek goddess of slaughter and bloodshed. She, along with better known gods like Ares and Athena, was a war deity, one said to revel in the destruction of armies and the devastation of cities. Because of her perverse proclivities and morbid M.O., she was much more in line with Ares than Athena: Ares was associated with bloodlust, brutality, and wanton violence, while Athena's own association with warfare is more accurately described by words like defense, strategy, restraint, and necessity. She was someone you would have invoked while devising a battleplan or organizing the defense of a settlement or city. With Ares, the point of it all was suffering and slaughter; with Athena, wisdom and warfare were interwoven; for her, war was a last resort - a tool of pragmatism, not an indulgence of pleasure.

Alright let's get into it.

Virtually the only times Enyo features in the stories that culminate into the mythical mosaic of ancient Greece is during battle. As the goddess of slaughter and bloodshed, writers almost exclusively included her in their works when people were killed and blood was spilt. In this way, she numbered among other gods and daimons who frequented the battlefield. ( Daimon is the Ancient Greek word for spirits that were halfway between gods and humans, often functioning as minor deities, and is the antecedent for the English word 'demon'.) The gods and daimons who frequented the battlefield include: Ares, the god of war, Phobos and Deimos, respectively "Fear" and "Dread", Eris, the goddess of strife, and the Keres, the trio of goddess or daimons of violent death, described as horrid, nightmarish creatures who feasted on the fallen, devouring flesh and drinking blood. When battles are described by the poets of Ancient Greece, and by later poets who wrote stories situated within the framework of the Greek mythos, usually some combination of these carnage-fueled characters is described on the battlefield. They foment conflict, fill forces with frenzy and fury, take part in the killing, and glory in the thick of the clash, champions pressing forward and corpses littering the ground.