Gynaecothoenas ( el, Γυναικοθήνας), "the god feasted by women", was an epithet of the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

god Ares at

Tegea Tegea (; el, Τεγέα) was a settlement in ancient Arcadia, and it is also a former municipality in Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the Tripoli municipality, of which it is a municipal un ...

. In a war of the Tegeatans against the

Lacedaemonian Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referre ...

king Charillus, the women of Tegea made an attack upon the enemy from an ambuscade. This decided the victory. The women therefore celebrated the victory alone, and excluded the men from the sacrificial feast. This, according to

Pausanias Pausanias ( el, Παυσανίας) may refer to: *Pausanias of Athens, lover of the poet Agathon and a character in Plato's ''Symposium'' *Pausanias the Regent, Spartan general and regent of the 5th century BC * Pausanias of Sicily, physician of t ...

, gave rise to the surname of Ares.Pausanias. ''Description of Greece'', viii. 48. § 3 (cited by Smith).

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* Epithets of Ares Women in ancient Greek warfare Religion in ancient Arcadia Greek war deities {{Greek-deity-stub