Bellerophon- Greek HeroHero"Slayer of the Chimera"

The Accidental Exile

Bellerophon was born in Corinth as the son of King Glaucus and Eurynome, grandson of Sisyphus. Apollodorus names Poseidon rather than Glaucus as his true father. He was originally called Hipponous. The name Bellerophon, "slayer of Belleros," came after he accidentally killed a man, identified in different sources as his brother Deliades or a man named Belleros. The blood-guilt of this killing forced him into exile, as was custom for those polluted by homicide.

Bellerophon traveled to Tiryns seeking ritual purification from King Proetus, who cleansed him and welcomed him as a guest. But Proetus's wife, called Anteia by Homer and Stheneboea by Euripides, conceived a violent passion for Bellerophon. When he rejected her, she accused him of attempted seduction and demanded his death.

The Sealed Letter

Proetus believed his wife and wanted Bellerophon dead, but the sacred laws of xenia, guest-friendship under Zeus's protection, forbade him from killing someone who had eaten at his table. Instead, he sent Bellerophon to his father-in-law, King Iobates of Lycia, bearing sealed tablets inscribed with a request that the bearer be put to death. Bellerophon unknowingly carried his own death warrant.

Iobates received the young stranger warmly and feasted him for nine days before breaking the seal. Each night they drank and shared meat. On the tenth day, Iobates read the tablets and their grim contents. Bound by the same laws of hospitality, he could not slay his guest. Instead, he conceived a series of impossible tasks, each meant to kill where he himself could not.

Taming the Divine Steed

Iobates's first command was to slay the Chimera, a fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, body of a goat, and tail of a serpent that had been devastating the Lycian countryside. But the seer Polyeidos advised Bellerophon to seek the winged horse Pegasus, who had sprung from the blood of Medusa when Perseus severed her head.

Bellerophon found Pegasus drinking at the spring of Pirene in Corinth but could not approach the divine creature. Following Polyeidos's counsel, he spent a night sleeping in the temple of Athena. The goddess appeared to him in a dream, holding a golden bridle, and told him to take the horse-charm and sacrifice a white bull to Poseidon the Horse-Tamer. Bellerophon awoke to find the golden bridle beside him. He sacrificed to Poseidon as commanded, then returned to the spring, where Pegasus accepted the divine bridle without resistance. For the first time, a mortal rode the sky.

Slaying the Chimera

Astride Pegasus, Bellerophon possessed a weapon no hero before him had wielded: mastery of the air. He soared above the Chimera, beyond reach of her devastating flames. He fitted his spear with a lump of lead, then drove it into the monster's fire-breathing throat. The Chimera's own flames melted the lead, which poured molten down into her vitals and destroyed her from within.

Iobates was astonished but not satisfied. He sent Bellerophon against the Solymi, a fierce warrior tribe of the Lycian highlands. Riding Pegasus, Bellerophon rained destruction on them from above and routed them. Next came the Amazons. Bellerophon defeated them the same way. At last, Iobates set his most desperate trap: he placed the finest warriors in all Lycia in ambush along the road. Bellerophon killed every one of them. Not a single Lycian warrior returned.

Recognition and Glory

Iobates could no longer deny the truth. He showed Bellerophon the tablets containing Proetus's treacherous request, offered his daughter Philonoe in marriage, and gave him half the royal lands of Lycia. Bellerophon became a Lycian prince, ruling over the rich Xanthian plain. The man who had arrived as a fugitive now stood second only to the king.

He fathered three children: Isandros, Hippolochos, and Laodameia. Isandros was slain by Ares while fighting the Solymi, the same people his father had once conquered. Laodameia was beloved of Zeus and bore Sarpedon, but Artemis struck her down in anger. Only Hippolochos lived to old age, and his son Glaucus journeyed to Troy, where he met the Achaean Diomedes on the battlefield. Upon discovering their grandfathers' bond of guest-friendship, the two warriors exchanged armor rather than blows. Glaucus gave his gold for Diomedes's bronze; Homer says Zeus stole his wits.

The Fatal Flight

Bellerophon's mind turned toward Olympus. He had ridden Pegasus above the Chimera's fire, above the spears of the Solymi and the arrows of the Amazons. Pindar says he now wished to reach the dwelling places of heaven and the company of Zeus. He mounted Pegasus and flew upward.

Zeus sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus. The horse bucked violently, and Bellerophon lost his seat and tumbled from the sky. He survived the fall, broken in body. Pegasus continued upward to Olympus, where the horse was given a place in Zeus's stables and the honor of bearing the god's thunderbolts.

The Aleian Plain

Homer gives Bellerophon's end in three lines: hated by all the gods, he wandered alone over the Aleian plain, eating his heart out, avoiding the paths of men.

Euripides put the broken hero onstage. In the fragments of his lost Bellerophon, the hero declares from the dirt that there are no gods in heaven.

Pindar, celebrating Bellerophon as Corinth's hero, put it another way: "If any man sets his eye on a far target, he is too short to reach the bronze-paved floor of the gods."