Chimaera

When he had received the wicked written signs [ sêmata] he first commanded Bellerophon to kill that savage monster, the Chimaera, who was not a human being, but a goddess, for she had the head of a lion and the tail of a serpent, while her body was that of a goat, and she breathed forth flames of fire;

they were the warrior sons of Amisodoros, who had reared the invincible Chimaera, to the bane of many.

And nature along the all-producing earth

Feeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flame

From hideous jaws- Of which 'tis simple fact

And with Pegasus, from the chilly bosom of the lonely air, he once attacked the Amazons, the female army of archers, and he killed the fire-breathing Chimaera, and the Solymi.

But I, Phaedrus, think such explanations are very pretty in general, but are the inventions of a very clever and laborious and not altogether enviable man, for no other reason than because after this he must explain the forms of the Centaurs, and then that of the Chimaera, and there presses in upon him a whole crowd of such creatures, Gorgons and Pegas, and multitudes of strange, inconceivable, portentous natures.

No one has said that in the Chimaera the lion is a living creature or the dragon;