Chimera- Greek CreatureCreature · Monster"The Impossible Beast"

The Impossible Beast

Homer provides the earliest description of the Chimera in the Iliad, when the Lycian warrior Glaucus recounts the deeds of his ancestor Bellerophon. He calls her "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire." Hesiod's Theogony confirms this: she was "breathing invincible fire." Her name derives from chimaira, the Greek word for she-goat, but the goat-head was only one third of the monster. The lion formed her front, the goat-head rose from her spine, and her tail was a living serpent with its own fanged mouth. A warrior who dodged the lion's teeth met the serpent behind, and both were within range of the fire.

Born of Monsters

Her parents were Typhon and Echidna. Typhon was the giant who had challenged Zeus for supremacy of the cosmos, a creature with a hundred serpent-heads whose eyes flashed fire and whose voice could sound like bulls or howling dogs. Zeus buried him beneath Mount Etna, but his brood survived. Echidna, half beautiful woman and half serpent, dwelt immortal and ageless in a cave beneath the earth. From their union came the Chimera, the Hydra, and Cerberus. Hesiod names the Chimera herself as mother of both the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion by Orthrus, the two-headed hound who guarded Geryon's cattle.

Raised as a Weapon

Homer mentions a Lycian king, Amisodarus, who "nurtured the baneful Chimera, a bane to many men." How a king acquired a fire-breathing monster and raised it, Homer does not say. His sons Atymnius and Maris fought at Troy, where both died in a single passage of the Iliad. Antilochus killed Atymnius with a spear through the flank. Maris rushed to avenge his brother and fell to Thrasymedes' spear over the body. The Chimera ravaged the Lycian countryside, burning villages and killing anyone who came against her. Livestock charred in their fields. The people of Lycia begged their king for help. Iobates had none to give. Every warrior he sent died before striking a blow.

Bellerophon and the Chimera

Bellerophon had come to the court of King Proetus in Tiryns as an exile from Corinth, seeking purification for a killing. Proetus purified him and took him in. Proetus's wife Anteia (called Stheneboea in Euripides) desired Bellerophon and propositioned him. When he refused her, she went to Proetus and accused the hero of trying to force himself on her. Proetus could not kill the guest he had purified without inviting the wrath of Zeus. He inscribed instructions on a folded tablet and sent Bellerophon to carry it to King Iobates of Lycia, his own father-in-law. Bound by the same laws of hospitality, Iobates could not slay his guest directly. He needed the Chimera to do it for him.

What Iobates had not expected was Pegasus. Bellerophon had found the winged horse drinking at the spring of Peirene in Corinth. According to Pindar, Athena appeared to him in a dream and left a golden bridle beside his sleeping head. He woke and found it beside him. No man had been able to approach Pegasus, but when Bellerophon came to the spring with the golden bridle, the wild horse accepted it and stood still. On Pegasus's back, Bellerophon could fight a creature that killed with fire from a place the fire could not reach.

Bellerophon circled above the Chimera's range, loosing arrows from Pegasus's back to weaken her. The monster raged below, filling the air with flame, but every blast fell short. Then he fitted his spear with a lump of lead and dove. He drove it into her fire-breathing throat and pulled away. When the monster inhaled to blast him with flame, her own fire melted the lead inside her. The molten metal poured into her vitals and burned through her from within. Her own weapon killed her.

Bellerophon returned to Iobates bearing proof of the kill. The king, still hoping fate would finish what the Chimera could not, sent him against the Solymi, fierce mountain warriors. Bellerophon defeated them. Iobates sent him against the Amazons. He defeated them too. Finally, the king set his own picked soldiers in ambush. Bellerophon killed every one. Only then did Iobates recognize divine favor at work. He showed Bellerophon the tablets Proetus had sent, gave him his daughter Philonoe, and made him prince of half the kingdom. The exile who had arrived carrying his own death sentence left as heir to the throne.

The Fire That Still Burns

The Chimera of Arezzo, an Etruscan bronze from around 400 BCE discovered near Arezzo in 1553, shows the monster mid-battle: the lion body crouches, the mane bristles, the mouth opens in a snarl. The goat-head droops with a wound on its neck, as if the killing blow has already landed.

Strabo connected the Chimera to Mount Chimaera in Lycia, modern Yanartas, where natural gas seeps through cracks in the rock and burns in perpetual flames. Pliny the Elder confirmed that the flames burned even in rain. Ancient sailors used them as landmarks off the Lycian coast. Strabo mapped the three-natured monster onto three zones of the mountain: lions roaming the peak, goats grazing the middle slopes, serpents nesting at the base. The flames have burned for at least 2,500 years. They burn still.