Chimera of Arezzo sculpture was likely created as a votive offering to the Etruscan god Tinia. According to Greek mythology the Chimera or "she-goat" was a monstrous, fire-breathing hybrid creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, created by the binding of multiple animal parts to create a singular unnatural creature. As the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, the Chimera ravaged the lands of Lycia at a disastrous pace. Distressed by the destruction of his lands, the king of Lycia, Iobates, ordered a young warrior named Bellerophon to slay the dreaded Chimera, also as a favor to a neighboring king, Proetus. Proteus wanted Bellerophon dead
Greek hero cult began to be told to individuate the persons who were now believed to be buried in these old and imposing sites", observes Robin Lane Fox. Greek hero-cults were distinct from the clan-based ancestor worship from which they developed, in that as the "polis" evolved, they became a civic rather than familial affair, and in many cases none of the worshipers traced their descent back to the hero any longer: no shrine to a hero can be traced unbroken from Mycenaean times. Whereas the ancestor was purely local, Lewis Farnell observed, the hero might be tended in more than one locality,