Empedocles held that the universe was governed by an interplay between two forces, Love and Strife, and he gave his theory a mythological dress by calling these forces Ares and Aphrodite. These two deities became lovers in a famous story told in the eighth book of Homer’s Odyssey; their Roman equivalents are Mars and Venus. Strife or Ares, it appears, is the force that dissevers, Aphrodite or Love the force that unites.
love/strifde venus/mars
