BellerophonTzetzes, Chiliades 7.810 (TE2.149); Scholia on Pindar, Olympian Ode 13.66 or Bellerophontes () or Hipponous (), was a divine Corinthian hero of Greek mythology, the son of Poseidon and Eurynome, and the foster son of Glaukos. He was "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles".Kerenyi 1959, p. 75. Among his greatest feats 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."Iliad vi.155–203.
Bellerophon was also known for capturing and taming the winged horse Pegasus with the help of Athena's charmed bridle, and earning the disfavour of the gods after attempting to ride Pegasus to Mount Olympus.
Etymology
One possible etymology that has been suggested is: , from Ancient Greek , or ("projectile, dart, javelin, needle, arrow") and ("slayer") from ("to slay").
However, Geoffrey Kirk says that " means 'slayer of Belleros.Kirk 1990, p. 178 According to the Scholia of Homer, Bellerophon was named so after having slain a Corinthian citizen of that same name by accident, while practicing his knife throwing,Scholion zu Homer, p.155 which caused him to be exiled to Lycia; this origin hypothesis would correspond to how Hermes got his epithet () after slaying Argus.Kerenyi 1959, p. 79 According to some scholars, Belleros could have also been a local Lycian daimon, as Bellerophon's name "invited all sorts of speculation".
The only other authors to mention a Belleros killed by Bellerophon are two Byzantine scholars, John Tzetzes and Eustathius of Thessalonica, who both seem to be following Bellerophon's own name-etymology.Tzetzes ad Lycophron, 17; Eustathius on Homer p. 632.
Robert Graves suggests a possible etymology via , interpreted as "bearing darts". Joseph T. Shipley interprets the name Bellerophon as meaning "slayer of monsters".
Family Bellerophon, formerly called Leophontes (Λεωφόντης)Scholia ad Homer, Iliad 6.155 , was the son of the mortal EurynomeHyginus, Fabulae 157 (or EurymedeApollodorus, 1.9.3) and Poseidon; having been raised by his foster father Glaukos. He was the brother of Deliades (also named as HeliadesTzetzes ad Lycophron, 17, Peiren or AlcimenesApollodorus, 1.9.3 & 2.3.1).
Bellerophon was the father of IsanderHomer, Iliad 6.196–197; Apollodorus, 2.3.1 (Peisander),Strabo, Geographica 12.8.5 & 13.4.16 Hippolochus,Homer, Iliad 6.206–210 and LaodamiaHomer, Iliad 6.197–205 (DeidamiaDiodorus Siculus, 5.79.3 or HippodamiaPseudo-Clement, Recognitions 10, p. 123, ll. 46-47) by Philonoe,Apollodorus, 2.3.2; Tzetzes ad Lycophron, 17 daughter of King Iobates of Lycia. Philonoe was also known under several other names: Alkimedousa or CassandraScholia ad Homer, Iliad 6.192, Anticleia,Scholia ad Pindar, Olympian Ode 13.82b or Pasandra. In some accounts, Bellerophon also fathered Hydissos by Asteria, daughter of Hydeus.Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Hydissos
Mythology The Iliad vi.155–203 contains an embedded narrative told by Bellerophon's grandson Glaucus (who was named after his great-grandfather), which recounts Bellerophon's myth. In this narrative, Bellerophon's father is Glaucus,By some accounts, Bellerophon's father was really Poseidon. Kerenyi 1959 p. 78 suggests that "sea-green" Glaucus is a double for Poseidon, god of the sea, who looms behind many of the elements in Bellerophon's myth, not least as the sire of Pegasus and of Chrysaor, but also as the protector of Bellerophon. who is the King of Potniae and son of Sisyphus; Bellerophon's grandsons Sarpedon and the younger Glaucus fight in the Trojan War.
In Stephanus of Byzantium's Ethnica, a genealogy is given for a figure named Chrysaor ("of the golden sword"), which would make him a double of Bellerophon: he is called the son of Glaucus (son of Sisyphus). Chrysaor has no myth besides that of his birth: from the severed neck of Medusa, who was with child by Poseidon, he and Pegasus are both born at the moment of her death. "From this moment we hear no more of Chrysaor, the rest of the tale concerning the stallion only ... [who visited the spring of Pirene] perhaps also for his brother's sake, by whom in the end he let himself be caught, the immortal horse by his mortal brother."Kerenyi 1959 p. 80.
Exile in Argos Bellerophon's brave journey begins in a familiar way,See Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, chapter 1, "Separation". with an exile: in one narrative he has murdered his brother, whose name is given as Deliades, Peiren or Alcimenes; a more precise narrative involves him slaying a Corinthian citizen or nobleman called "Belleros" or "Belleron" by accident, while practicing knife-throwing with his friends, which causes the name change from Hipponous to Bellerophon.
In atonement for this crime, he has to make a plea to Proetus, a king in Tiryns, one of the Achaean strongholds of the Argolid. Proetus, by virtue of his kingship, cleanses Bellerophon of his crime. But when the wife of king Proetus – whose name is either AnteiaIn Iliad vi. or StheneboeaEuripides' tragedies Stheneboia and Bellerophontes are lost. – tries to make advances on him, he rejects her, causing her to accuse Bellerophon of attempting to make advances on her instead.This mytheme is most familiar in the Biblical narrative of Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Robert Graves also notes the parallel in the Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers and in the desire of Athamas' wife for Phrixus (Graves 1960, 70.2, 75.1). Proetus dares not satisfy his anger by killing a guest (who is protected by ), causing him to finally exile Bellerophon to King Iobates, his father-in-law from the plain of the River Xanthus in Lycia, bearing a sealed letter in a folded tablet which reads: "Please remove this bearer from the world: he attempted to violate my wife, your daughter."The tablets "on which he had traced a number of devices with a deadly meaning" constitute the only apparent reference to writing in the Iliad. Such a letter is termed a "bellerophontic" letter; one such figures in a subplot of Shakespeare's Hamlet, bringing offstage death to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Such a letter figures in the earlier story of Sargon of Akkad.
Before opening the tablets, Iobates feasts with Bellerophon for nine days. On reading the tablet's message Iobates too feared the wrath of the Erinyes if he murdered a guest; so he sends Bellerophon on a mission that he deems impossible to survive: to kill the Chimera, living in neighboring Caria. The Chimera is a fire-breathing monster consisting of the body of a goat, the head of a lion and the tail of a serpent. This monster terrorized the nearby countryside.
On his way to Caria, he encounters the famous Corinthian fortune teller Polyeidos, who gives him advice on his upcoming battle, telling Bellerophon that in order to emerge victorious, he would be in need of the mythical Pegasus.
Capturing Pegasus
To obtain the services of the untamed winged horse, Polyeidos tells Bellerophon to sleep in the temple of Athena. While Bellerophon sleeps, he dreams that Athena sets a golden bridle beside him, saying "Sleepest thou, prince of the house of Aiolos? Come, take this charm for the steed and show it to the Tamer thy father as thou makest sacrifice to him of a white bull."Kerenyi 1959, quoting Apollodorus Mythographus, 2.7.4. It is there when he awakes and he understands that he has to approach Pegasus while it is drinking from a well. When asked, Polyeidos tells him which well: the never-failing Pirene on the citadel of Corinth, the city of Bellerophon's birth. Bellerophon mounts his steed and flies off, back to Lycia where the Chimera is said to dwell.
Other accounts say that Athena brings Pegasus already tamed and bridled, or that Poseidon the horse-tamer, secretly the father of Bellerophon, brings Pegasus, as Pausanias understood.Description of Greece 2.4.6.
The slaying of the Chimera
When Bellerophon arrives in Lycia to face the ferocious Chimera, he cannot harm the monster even while riding Pegasus. But when he feels the Chimera's hot breath, he is struck with an idea. He gets a large block of lead and mounts it on his spear. He then flies head-on towards the Chimera, holding out the spear as far as he can. Before breaking off his attack, he lodges the block of lead inside the Chimera's throat. The beast's fire-breath melts the lead, which blocks its air passage, suffocating it.Pseudo-Nonnus, On Gregory of Nazianzus 1; Tzetzes ad Lycophron, 17; Eustathius On Homer's Iliad 6.494.40 Some red-figure pottery painters show Bellerophon wielding Poseidon's trident instead.Kerenyi 1959.
Return to Iobates
When Bellerophon returns victorious to King Iobates,Hesiod, Theogony 319 ff.; Apollodorus, 2.3.2; Pindar, Olympian Odes 13.63 ff.; Pausanias, 2.4.1; Hyginus, Fabulae 157; John Tzetzes, On Lycophron. the king is unwilling to believe his story. A series of daunting quests ensues: Bellerophon is sent against the warlike Amazons, who fight like men, but he vanquishes them by dropping boulders from his winged horse; in some narratives, this is preceded by Bellerophon facing off the Solymi.
When he is sent against a Carian pirate, Cheirmarrhus, Iobates' men try to ambush him, but fail when Bellerophon kills everyone sent to assassinate him. The palace guards then are sent against him, but Bellerophon calls upon his father Poseidon, who floods the plain of Xanthus behind Bellerophon as he approaches. To defend themselves, the palace women rush from the gates with their robes lifted high to expose themselves. Unwilling to confront them while they are undressed, Bellerophon withdraws.Robert Graves, 75.d; Plutarch, On the Virtues of Women.
Iobates relents, produces the letter, and allows Bellerophon to marry his daughter Philonoe, the younger sister of Anteia, and shares with him half his kingdom, with its fine vineyards and grain fields. The lady Philonoe bears him Isander (Peisander),Isander is struck down by Ares in battle with the Solymi (Iliad xvi). Hippolochus and Laodamia, who sleeps with Zeus the Counselor and bears Sarpedon, but is slain by Artemis.Homer, Iliad, 6. 197–205In Diodorus Siculus's Bibliotheca historica 5.79.3: she is referred to as Deidamia and made the wife of Evander, son of Sarpedon the elder, and by her, father of Sarpedon the younger.
Bellerophon takes his vengeance on Stheneboea and Proetus as well. After returning to the royal couple following the Chimera's death, he pretends to reciprocate Stheneboea's love.Tzetzes on Aristophanes' Frogs 1051 He promises to take her away to Caria, and she enthusiastically follows him on Pegasus. But while they are flying over Milos, Bellerophon throws her off the horse and she drowns in the waves below; fishermen find and return her body, and Bellerophon confesses his actions to Proetus, claiming that he has exacted appropriate justice from them both in the form of death for her and grief for him.Euripides, Stheneboea hypothesis [=P. Oxy. 2455]; scholia on Aristophanes' Peace 141
Flight to Olympus and fall
As Bellerophon's fame grows, so does his hubris. Bellerophon feels that because of his victory over the Chimera, he deserves to fly to Mount Olympus, the home of the gods. This act angers Zeus and he sends a gadfly to sting Pegasus, causing Bellerophon to fall back to Earth and die. Pegasus completes the flight to Olympus, where Zeus uses him as a pack horse for his thunderbolts.Parallels are in the myths of Icarus and Phaeton.
According to other narratives, on the Plain of Aleion ("Wandering") in Cilicia, Bellerophon, who has been blinded after falling into a thorn bush, lives out his life in misery, "devouring his own soul", until he dies.Pindar, Olympian Odes, xiii.87–90, and Isthmian Odes, vii.44; Bibliotheke ii.3.2; Homer, Iliad vi.155–203 and xvi.328; Ovid, Metamorphoses ix.646.
Euripides's Bellerophon