Bellerophon 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 Homer depicted with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail: "her breath came out in terrible blasts of burning flame." Bellerophon was born at Corinth and was the son of the mortal Eurynome by either her husband Glaucus, or Poseidon. One possible etymology that has been suggested is: Βελλεροφόντης from βέλεμνον, βελόνη, βέλος
Chimera (mythology) parts taken from various animals, or to describe anything composed of very disparate parts, or perceived as wildly imaginative, implausible, or dazzling. The sight of a Chimera was an omen for disaster. Homer's brief description in the "Iliad" 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." Elsewhere in the "Iliad", Homer attributes the rearing of Chimera to Amisodorus. Hesiod's "Theogony" follows the Homeric description: he makes the Chimera the issue of Echidna: "She was