Chimera (mythology)

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Chimera (mythology)

This article is about the mythological
Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
creature. For other uses, see Chimera
Chimera

Chimera, chimaira or chimaera may refer to:* Chimera , a monstrous creature made of the parts of multiple animals* Mount Chimaera, the region in Lycia that some believe was the inspiration for the myth...
.

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, the Chimera (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
??µa??a (Chímaira); Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
Chimaera) was a monstrous creature of Lycia

Lycia

Lycia was a region in Anatolia in what are now the Provinces of Turkey of Antalya Province and Mugla Province on the southern coast of Turkey. It was a federation of ancient cities in the region and later a Roman province of the Roman Empire....
in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of multiple animals: upon the body of a lioness with a tail that terminated in a snake's head, the head of a goat arose on her back at the center of her spine. The Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon

Typhon

In Greek mythology, Typhon , also Typheus/Typhoeus , Typhaon or Typhos is the final son of Gaia , fathered by Tartarus, and is the god of wind....
and Echidna

Echidna (mythology)

Cerberus

Cerberus is the name given to the entity which, in Greek mythology and Roman mythology, is a multi-headed dog which guards the gates of Hades, to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx from ever escaping....
and the Lernaean Hydra

Lernaean Hydra

In Greek mythology, the Lernaean Hydra The Hydra was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna , noisome offspring of the earth goddess, Gaia. It was said to be the sibling of the Nemean Lion, the Stymphalian birds, the Chimera ,and Cerberus....
.

lass="link1" onMouseover='showByLink("m338714",this)' onMouseout='hide("m338714")'href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Homer">Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
's brief description in the Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
is the earliest surviving literary reference: "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".

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Encyclopedia

Greek mythology

Greek language

Latin

Lycia

Lycia was a region in Anatolia in what are now the Provinces of Turkey of Antalya Province and Mugla Province on the southern coast of Turkey. It was a federation of ancient cities in the region and later a Roman province of the Roman Empire....
in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of multiple animals: upon the body of a lioness with a tail that terminated in a snake's head, the head of a goat arose on her back at the center of her spine. The Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon

Typhon

In Greek mythology, Typhon , also Typheus/Typhoeus , Typhaon or Typhos is the final son of Gaia , fathered by Tartarus, and is the god of wind....
and Echidna

Echidna (mythology)

Cerberus

Lernaean Hydra

Description

Homer

Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek language oral poet, his date is uncertain but leading scholars agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the Eighth-century BCE....
's Theogony
Theogony

The Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogy of the polytheism of the ancient Greeks, composed circa 700 BC....
follows the Homeric description: he makes the Chimera the issue of Echidna

Echidna (mythology)

In the most ancient layers of Greek mythology, Echidna was called the "Mother of All Monsters". Echidna was described by Hesiod as a female monster spawned in a cave, who mothered with her mate Typhon every major horrible monster in the Greek myths,...
: "She was the mother of Chimaera who breathed raging fire, a creature fearful, great, swift-footed and strong, who had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion; in her hinderpart, a dragon; and in her middle, a goat, breathing forth a fearful blast of blazing fire. Her did Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay" The author of the Bibliotheca
Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)

The Bibliotheca , in three books, provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends, "the most valuable mythographical work that has come down from ancient times," Aubrey Diller observed, whose "stultifying purpose" was neatly expressed in the epigram noted by Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople:...
concurs: descriptions agree that she breathed fire

Fire

Fire is the oxidation of a combustion material releasing heat, light, and various Chemical reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water....
. The Chimera is generally considered to have been female (see the quotation from Hesiod above) despite the mane adorning its lion's head, the inclusion of a close mane often was depicted on lionesses, but the ears always were visible (that does not occur with depictions of male lions). Sighting the Chimera was an omen of storms, shipwrecks, and natural disasters (particularly volcano

Volcano

A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet's surface or Crust , which allows hot, molten rock, ash, and gases to escape from below the surface....
es).

While there are different genealogies, in one version the Chimera mated with her brother Orthrus

Orthrus

In Greek mythology, Orthrus was a multi-headed animal dog and a doublet of Cerberus, both whelped by the chthonic monster Echidna by Typhon....
and mothered the Sphinx

Sphinx

A sphinx is a zoomorphic mythological figure which is depicted as a recumbent lion with a human head. It has its origins in sculpted figures of Old Kingdom Ancient Egypt, to which the ancient Greeks applied their own name for a female monster, the "strangler", an archaic figure of Greek mythology....
and the Nemean Lion

Nemean Lion

The Nemean lion was a vicious monster in Greek mythology that lived in Nemea. He was eventually killed by Heracles. The lion was usually considered the offspring of Typhon and Echidna , but it was also said to have fallen from the moon, offspring of Zeus and Selene....
(others have Orthrus and their mother, Echidna, mating; most attribute all to Typhon and Echidna).

The Chimera finally was defeated by Bellerophon

Bellérophon

Bell?rophon is an opera with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully and a libretto by Thomas Corneille and Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle first performed at the Palais Royal, Paris on 31 January 1679....
, with the help of Pegasus

Pegasus

In Greek mythology, Pegasus was a winged horse sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa....
, at the command of King Iobates

Iobates

In Greek mythology, Iobates was a Lycian king, the father of Antea and Philonoe. Bellerophon was sent into exile to the land of King Iobates. Proetus, King of Tiryns, wanted Iobates to kill Bellerophon, but Iobates feared the wrath of the gods if he murdered a guest....
of Lycia

Lycia

Lycia was a region in Anatolia in what are now the Provinces of Turkey of Antalya Province and Mugla Province on the southern coast of Turkey. It was a federation of ancient cities in the region and later a Roman province of the Roman Empire....
. Since Pegasus could fly, Bellerophon shot the Chimera from the air, safe from her heads and breath. A scholiast to Homer adds that he finished her off by equipping his spear with a lump of lead that melted when exposed to the Chimera's fiery breath and consequently killed her, an image drawn from metalworking.

The Chimera was situated in foreign Lycia, but her representation in the arts was wholly Greek. An autonomous tradition, one that did not rely on the written word, was represented in the visual repertory of the Greek vase-painters. The Chimera first appears at an early stage in the proto-Corinthian pottery-painters' repertory, providing some of the earliest identifiable mythological scenes that can be recognized in Greek art. The Corinthian type is fixed, after some early hesitation, in the 670s BCE; the variations in the pictorial representations suggest to Marilyn Low Schmitt a multiple origin. The fascination with the monstrous devolved by the end of the seventh century into a decorative Chimera-motif in Corinth, while the motif of Bellerophon on Pegasus took on a separate existence alone. A separate Attic tradition, where the goats breathe fire and the animal's rear is serpent-like, begins with such confidence that Marilyn Low Schmitt is convinced there must be unrecognized earlier local prototypes. Two vase-painters employed the motif so consistently they are given the pseudonyms the Bellerophon Painter and the Chimaera Painter. A fire-breathing lioness was one of the earliest of solar and war deities in Ancient Egypt (representations from 3000 years prior to the Greek) and influences are feasible.

In Etruscan civilization

Etruscan civilization

Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy and Corsica whom the ancient Romans called Etrusci or Tusci....
, the Chimera appears in the "Orientalizing" period that precedes Etruscan Archaic art; that is to say, very early indeed. The Chimera appears in Etruscan wall-paintings of the fourth century BCE.

Robert Graves

Robert Graves

Robert Ranke Graves was an England poet, translator and novelist. During his long life, he produced more than 140 works. He was the son of the Anglo-Irish writer Alfred Perceval Graves and Amalie von Ranke, a niece of the famous German historian Leopold von Ranke....
suggests that "the Chimaera was, apparently, a calendar-symbol of the tripartite year, of which the seasonal emblems were lion, goat and serpent."

In Medieval art, though the Chimera of Antiquity was forgotten, chimerical figures appear as embodiments of the deceptive, even Satan

Satan

Satan is a term that originates from the Abrahamic religions, being traditionally applied to an angel in Judeo-Christian belief, and to a Genie in Islamic belief....
ic forces of raw nature. Provided with a human face and a scaly tail, as in Dante

DANTE

DANTE is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various National Research and Education Networks in Europe and surrounding regions....
's vision of Geryon

Geryon

In Greek mythology, Geryon , son of Chrysaor and Callirrhoe and grandson of Medusa was a fearsome giant who dwelt on the island Erytheia of the mythic Hesperides in the far west of the Mediterranean....
in Inferno xvii.7-17, 25-27, hybrid monsters, more akin to the Manticore

Manticore

The manticore is a legendary creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx. It has the body of a red lion, a human head with three rows of sharp teeth , and a trumpet-like voice....
of Pliny's Natural History (viii.90), provided iconic representations of hypocrisy and fraud well into the seventeenth century, through an emblemmatic representation in Cesare Ripa

Cesare Ripa

Cesare Ripa was born in Perugia around 1560 and died around 1622 in Rome. Not much is known about his life. Ripa was an aesthetics who worked for Anton Maria Salviati as a cook and butler....
's Iconologia.

In more recent times, the term "chimera" has been used to describe real-life entities that arise or are created as amalgams of previously separate entities in fields such as botany (see chimera (plant)

Chimera (plant)

Chimeras in botany are usually single organisms composed of two genetically different types of tissue. They occur in plants, on the same general basis as with Chimera ....
), genetics (see chimera (genetics)

Chimera (genetics)

Typically seen in zoology , a chimera is an animal that has two or more different populations of genetically distinct cell that originated in different zygotes; if the different cells emerged from the same zygote, it is called a mosaicism....
), and molecular biology (see chimera (protein)). Chimeras also surface in the Harry Potter

Harry Potter

Harry Potter is a Heptalogy fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the eponymous adolescent wizard Harry Potter , together with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, his friends from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry....
books, and the manga

Manga

, , are comics and print cartoons , in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 20th century. In their modern form, manga date from shortly after World War II, but they have a long, complex pre-history in earlier Japanese art....
and anime

Anime

is animation in Japan and considered to be "Japanese animation" in the rest of the world. Anime dates from about 1917.Anime, in addition to manga , is extremely popular in Japan and well known throughout the world....
versions of Fullmetal Alchemist

Fullmetal Alchemist

Fullmetal Alchemist, known in Japan as , is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. The world of Fullmetal Alchemist is styled after European Industrial Revolution....
.

Classical sources

The myths of the Chimera can be found in pseudo-Apollodorus' Bibliotheca

Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)

The Bibliotheca , in three books, provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends, "the most valuable mythographical work that has come down from ancient times," Aubrey Diller observed, whose "stultifying purpose" was neatly expressed in the epigram noted by Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople:...
(book 1), Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
's Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
(book 6); Hyginus' Fabulae 57; Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman Empire poet known as Ovid to the English language-speaking world, who wrote about love, seduction, and Roman mythology transformation....
's Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)

The Metamorphoses by the Ancient Rome poet Ovid is a Narrative poetry in fifteen books that describes the Creation myth and history of the world....
(book VI 339; IX 648) and Hesiod

Hesiod

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
, in the Aeneid
Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin Epic poetry written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Rome....
(book 5) employs Chimaera for the name of Gyas' gigantic ship in the ship-race, with possible allegorical significance in contemporary Roman politics.

Theory about origin

"Even in antiquity the Chimaera was regarded as a symbol of the volcanic character of the Lycian soil," Harry Thurston Peck noted. Ctesias

Ctesias

Ctesias of Cnidus was a Hellenic civilization physician and historian from Cnidus in Caria. Ctesias, who flourished in the 5th century BC, was physician to Artaxerxes II, whom he accompanied in 401 BC on his expedition against his brother Cyrus the Younger....
(as cited by Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author, naturalist or natural philosopher and naval and military commander of some importance who wrote Natural History ....
and quoted by Photius) identified the Chimaera with an area of permanent gas vents which still can be found today by hikers on the Lycian Way

Lycian Way

The Lycian Way is a long-distance trail in Turkey. It is 500 km long and stretches from Fethiye to Antalya, around part of the coast of ancient Lycia....
in southwest Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
. Called in Turkish Yanartas (flaming rock), it consists of some two dozen vents in the ground, grouped in two patches on the hillside above the Temple of Hephaestus

Hephaestus

Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan . He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculpture, metals, metallurgy, Fire and volcanoes....
about 3 km north of Çirali

Çirali

?irali is an agricultural village in the southwest of Turkey in Antalya Province. It is close to ancient ruins of Olympos and Chimaera permanent gas vents....
, near ancient Olympos

Olympos

Olympos is the Greek word/name " ????p?? ".Olympos is in a valley at the south coast of Turkey, 90 km southwest of Antalya city near the Town of Kemer....
, in Lycia

Lycia

Methane

Methane is a chemical compound with the molecular formula . It is the simplest alkane, and the principal component of natural gas. Methane's bond angles are 109.5 degrees....
thought to be of metamorphic

Metamorphic rock

Metamorphic rock is the result of the transformation of an existing rock type, the protolith, in a process called metamorphism, which means "change in form"....
origin, which in ancient times were landmark

Landmark

Originally, a landmark literally meant a geographic feature used by exploration and others to find their way back or through an area.In modern usage, a landmark includes anything that is easily recognizable, such as a monument, building, or other structure....
s that sailors could navigate by, and which today the custodian uses to brew tea

Tea

Tea refers to the agricultural products of the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of the Camellia sinensis plant, prepared and cured by various methods....
.