Greek poetic tradition portrays Alala as a personified force of warfare. Pindar is reported to present her as a daughter of Polemos (the personification of war), a formulation that situates her within the family and entourage of martial personifications rather than as an independent cult-figure. The surviving testimony is poetic and descriptive rather than narrative: Alala exists as the cry itself rendered into a named presence associated with battle.
Ancient sources and modern summaries treat Alala functionally and poetically rather than providing a physical description. She is listed among Ares' attendants on the battlefield, but no surviving source included in the supplied material gives bodily features, clothing, or iconographic detail; her depiction in the literature is primarily as the audible war-cry incarnate.
Alala's 'power' is the embodiment of the battle-cry: the sound soldiers raise to terrify enemies and rally comrades. Poetic testimony (notably Pindar as summarized) characterizes her as a 'prelude to spears' and associates her with the sacrificial imagery of death offered for the city, linking the cry with the ritual and civic dimensions of martial killing. She functions alongside other personified wartime forces (fear, dread, discord, manslaughter) as part of Ares' entourage.
Androktasiai
Androktasiai (Ἀνδροκτασίαι, sing. Androktasia) are plural personifications in ancient Greek poetry that embody manslaughters or the slayings of men in battle. They appear chiefly as named offspring of Eris in Hesiod's Theogony and as elements in Homeric/Hesiodic ekphrasis (the Shield of Heracles), functioning as poetic embodiments of wartime slaughter rather than individualized cult-deities.
Keres
In Greek myth the Keres (Κῆρες; singular Κήρ) are night-born, malevolent death-spirits associated with violent death, pestilence, and the ravaging aspects of mortality; they are often portrayed as a swarm of blood‑thirsty female spirits that hover over battlefields and seize the dead and dying.
Community Record
- [1]Alala. Wikipedia, 'Alala' (entry summarising ancient Greek personification and citing Pindar and other literary attestations).wiki
- [2]Alala (Wikidata). Wikidata entry for Alala, linked data record corresponding to the personification of the war-cry.other