Chimera
The Chimaira ( ancient Greek Χίμαιρα Chímaira , Latin Chimaera ), Germanized Chimera and Chimera . is a hybrid creature from Greek mythology . The Greek name actually means " goat ". The term chimera was later generalized and extended to other hybrid beings.
myth
According to Hesiod, the Chimaira was a daughter of the monsters Echidna and Typhon , her siblings were the Hydra , the Kerberos , the Sphinx and Orthos . She lived at Chimaira near Olympos in Lycia , where she threatened people and animals; Since prehistoric times, gases have been released from the stony ground as a rare natural phenomenon.
Homer describes the Chimaira in the Iliad as a fire-breathing hybrid being formed like a lion in the front , like a goat in the middle and like a snake or a dragon in the back. According to Hesiod, however, it had the three heads of the animals mentioned.
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King Iobates gave Bellerophon , a grandson of Sisyphus , the order to kill the Chimaira. For this purpose, Poseidon made another hybrid creature available to him: the winged horse Pegasus . From the air, Bellerophon was able to successfully fight the Chimaira . With the help of a lump of lead on the tip of his spear, he killed the monster by using a daring maneuver to place the lump of lead in the fiery jaws of the Chimaira. The lead melted, clogged the creature's airways and thus led to its death.
If one were to interpret according to today's scientific knowledge, the breath of the chimera should have been at least 327.5 ° C, as this represents the melting point of lead.
literature
- Erich Bethe : Chimaira 3. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume III, 2, Stuttgart 1899, Col. 2281 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Richard Engelmann : Chimaira . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1.1, Leipzig 1886, Col. 893-895 ( digitized version ).
- Fritz Graf : Chimaira. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 2, Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-01472-X , Sp. 1123.
