Chimaera
animal · 3 works · 5 mentions · 5 anchored passages
also in the atlas: Chimaera the figure
the Chimaera · dire Chimaeras · invincible Chimaera · she, Chimaera lone · that savage monster
in the texts
Iliad
Fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, tail of a serpent, and body of a goat, killed by Bellerophon.
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.
De Rerum Natura
The Chimaera, a hybrid fire-breathing monster, cited by Lucretius as an example of a creature that cannot actually be born because species are bound by fixed atomic laws.
Feeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flame
From hideous jaws- Of which 'tis simple fact
And nature along the all-producing earth
Letters to Lucilius
Mythological hybrid creature (lion, goat, dragon) invoked as a further analogy for the part/whole argument.
No one has said that in the Chimaera the lion is a living creature or the dragon;