Source Verification: Chimera
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
Was the Chimera three separate heads or one body with mixed parts?
Both descriptions exist side by side. Homer's Iliad describes one continuous body - lion in front, serpent behind, goat in the middle - while Hesiod's Theogony calls her three-headed outright. Ancient vase painting generally follows Hesiod's reading, showing a lion's body with a second goat head rising from its back and a snake for a tail, which is also the image that became standard in later art.
Source: Hesiod, Theogony 319-325
Did Bellerophon really ride Pegasus to kill the Chimera?
Not in the earliest account. Homer's Iliad, the oldest surviving telling of the fight, credits Bellerophon's victory to nothing more specific than his trust in the gods, with no flying horse mentioned at all. Pegasus enters the story only in later sources, most clearly Pindar's Olympian Ode 13 and Apollodorus's Library, both written centuries after Homer.
Source: Homer, Iliad 6.150-183
Who were the Chimera's parents?
Hesiod's Theogony names her as a daughter of the monsters Typhon and Echidna, born in the same catalogue of offspring as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra. All three are described together as fearsome creatures with no ordinary animal ancestry, part of the same brief but crowded family history.
Source: Hesiod, Theogony 319-325
Where did the Chimera live?
Homer places her in Lycia, in southwest Asia Minor, which matches where the rest of Bellerophon's cycle of trials under King Iobates takes place. The Iliad gives no more specific location within Lycia than that.
Source: Homer, Iliad 6.150-183
Why couldn't ordinary weapons defeat the Chimera?
Her fire kept most attackers from ever closing the distance to strike her directly. Apollodorus's version of the fight solves this by putting Bellerophon in the air on Pegasus, letting him strike down at her from a height her flame could not reach, rather than facing her fire on the ground.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 2.3.2
Is the Chimera related to other monsters in Greek mythology?
Yes. Hesiod names her alongside Cerberus and the Hydra as children of the same parents, Typhon and Echidna, in one continuous passage. The same passage goes on to make Echidna, through a further union with her own son Orthus, the mother of the Sphinx and the Nemean lion as well, extending the family further still.
Source: Hesiod, Theogony 319-332
Where Accounts Differ
- whether Pegasus was involved in killing the Chimera
- Homer's Iliad, the earliest surviving account of Bellerophon's fight, credits no flying horse at all; Pegasus enters the story only in later sources such as Pindar and Apollodorus.
- Bellerophon, the hero who killed the Chimera, is not yet a character in this corpus; his role here is described only through the sources that name him.
Sources
- Homer, Iliad 6.150-183
- Hesiod, Theogony 319-325
- Apollodorus, Library 2.3.1-2.3.2
- Pindar, Olympian Ode 13
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)