Bellerophon ease, with the privations suffered by the good—is apparently the basis for Aristophanes' imputation of "atheism" to the poet. The replacement of Bellerophon by the more familiar culture hero Perseus was a development of Classical times that was standardized during the Middle Ages and has been adopted by the European poets of the Renaissance and later. Bellerophon Bellerophon (; Ancient Greek: Βελλεροφῶν) or Bellerophontes () is a hero of Greek mythology. He was "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles", and his greatest feat was killing the Chimera, a monster that
Greek hero cult Greek hero cult Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. In Homeric Greek, "hero" (, ) refers to a man who fought (on either side) during the Trojan War. By the historical period, however, the word came to mean specifically a "dead" man, venerated and propitiated at his tomb or at a designated shrine, because his fame during life or his unusual manner of death gave him power to support and protect the living. A hero was more than human but less than a god, and various kinds of supernatural figures came to be