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August 6
36 min read
Greek Mythology II: Heroes

Perseus

Daily history and lit
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Readings
• 2.4.1-4 from "Bibliotheca" by Apollodorus
• Book 4: 621–662 from "Metamorphoses" by Ovid
• Book 4: 663–739 from "Metamorphoses" by Ovid
• Book 4: 663–739, Book 5: 1-249 from "Metamorphoses" by Ovid
• Perseus IV: "How Perseus Avenged Danae" from "Tales of Troy and Greece" by Andrew Lang
• Book IV: 119-211 from "The Illiad" by Homer

Danae

A doomed king tries to imprison a prophecy.
Many Greek and Roman myths trace royal lineages. The cities are real; the genealogies are legendary. By Ovid's time, the Bronze-Age chieftains behind them were long forgotten.
We've met Cadmus of Thebes. Now we turn to the Argive genealogy. Because the city of Argos was so central, the word "Argive" often functions like "Greek" or "Achaean" in literature.
We've already met Inachus, the river god and mythical founder of Argos. We've also met his daughter Io, whom Jupiter turned into a heifer.
Io produced a line of Egyptian kings: Epaphus (father of Libya), Belus, and Aegyptus. The twin brother of Aegyptus was Danaus, who returned to Greece with his fifty daughters to claim the throne of Argos.
Don't worry if you can't remember every name; the Argive family tree is famously bloated. We'll pick up the lineage three generations later with Acrisius.
Acrisius has just defeated his twin brother Proetus to become king of Argos. He now seeks heirs to secure his power.
Apollodorus
When Acrisius inquired of the oracle how he should get male children, the god said that his daughter would give birth to a son who would kill him.
Fearing that, Acrisius built a brazen chamber under ground and there guarded Danae. Zeus had sex with her in the shape of a stream of gold which poured through the roof into Danae's lap.
When Acrisius afterwards learned that she had got a child Perseus, he would not believe that she had been seduced by Zeus, and putting his daughter with the child in a chest, he cast it into the sea.

Medusa's Head

Perseus turns an impossible boast into a Gorgon heist.
Apollodorus
The chest was washed ashore on Seriphus, and Dictys took up the boy and reared him. Polydectes, brother of Dictys, was then king of Seriphus and fell in love with Danae, but could not have sex with her, because Perseus had grown to man's estate.
So he pretended to be in love with Hippodamia, daughter of Oenomaus, and called together his friends under the pretext of collecting gifts for her.
Perseus, being young and heroic, declared that he would not hesitate even if asked to give a Gorgon's head. Polydectes then ordered Perseus to deliver that exact gift.
Under the guidance of Hermes and Athena, Perseus made his way to the Graeae, daughters of Phorcus: Enyo, Pephredo, and Dino.
The Graeae were sisters of the Gorgons, and old women from their birth. The three had but one eye and one tooth, and these they passed to each other in turn.
Perseus got possession of the eye and the tooth, and when they asked them back, he said he would give them up if they would show him the way to the nymphs.
Now these nymphs had winged sandals and the kibisis, which they say was a wallet. They had also the cap of Hades. When the Phorcides had shown Perseus the way, he gave them back the tooth and the eye, and coming to the nymphs got what he wanted.
So he slung the wallet (kibisis) about him, fitted the sandals to his ankles, and put the cap on his head. Wearing it, he saw whom he pleased, but was not seen by others.
Having received also from Hermes an adamantine sickle he flew to the ocean and caught the Gorgons asleep. They were Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa. Now Medusa alone was mortal; for that reason Perseus was sent to fetch her head...
But the Gorgons had heads twined about with the scales of dragons, and great tusks like swine's, and brazen hands, and golden wings, by which they flew; and they turned to stone anyone who beheld them.
Perseus stood over them as they slept, and while Athena guided his hand and he looked with averted gaze on a brazen shield, in which he beheld the image of the Gorgon, he beheaded her.
When her head was cut off, there sprang from the Gorgon the winged horse Pegasus and Chrysaor, the father of Geryon; these she had by Poseidon. Perseus put the head of Medusa in the kibisis and left, hidden by Hades's cap.
Perseus now carries Medusa’s head. Having reached the western edge of the known world, he must now fly home.

Cold Atlas

Perseus turns Atlas into a western mountain.
In the last lesson, Perseus set out to behead Medusa. He now returns home with her head, flying on winged sandals given to him by the Hesperid nymphs.
The Hesperides take their name from the Greek "Hesperos" meaning "evening" (Latin "Vespers"). Naturally, these nymphs live where the sun sets, on the westernmost edge of the ancient Greek world.
Here the Titan Atlas guards the golden apple orchards of the Hesperides, having been warned by prophecy that a son of Jupiter will try to steal them.
Ovid
Over the Libyan sands the Gorgon-head dropped clots of gore that quickened on the ground and became numberless serpents, a fitting cause to curse a land so long infested with vipers.
Carried by ever-shifting winds through boundless latitudes—now here, now there—like a vapor-cloud in dizzy flight, he looked down from the lofty skies, far removed from earth, and encompassed the world.
Three times he beheld the frozen Bears, and three times his gaze fell on the Crab's bent arms; now west, now east—how often he changed his course.
At last, as day declined, fearing night, he halted his flight in the west—the realm of Atlas—and sought repose until Lucifer, the morning star, called Aurora's fires, Aurora the charioteer of Day.
There lived huge Atlas, son of Iapetus, vaster than the race of men; his sway stretched over domains and over oceans that receive the Sun's panting coursers and bathe the Chariot of Day.
For him a thousand flocks, a thousand herds grazed the pastures; neighboring tribes disturbed none of that land; bright leaves glinting with gold adorned the trees, and golden-wrought boughs bore apples of gold.
Perseus
Friend, if you would hear my lineage, the author of my life is Jupiter; if valiant deeds delight you, mine may deserve your praise. I beg kind treatment, a place of rest.
Ovid
But Atlas, remembering an oracle told by Parnassian Themis, recalled: O Atlas, a son of Jupiter will come and strip your orchards of golden fruit. The glory will be his.
Atlas tried to drive the unwilling guest from his doors. Perseus tried words, both timid and bold, yet did not dare to rival Atlas's might.
Perseus
Since you hold my goodwill in light esteem, take this instead; let this be yours for your refusal.
Ovid
He spoke no more; turning his face away, he showed upon his left Medusa's head with abhorrent features, and Atlas, huge and vast, became a mountain.
His great beard and hair became forests; his shoulders and hands, mountainous ridges; his head, the summit of a high peak; his bones hardened into rock.
Swelling on all sides, his growth reached enormous height—so you ordained it, O mighty gods—who now set the heavens' expanse and unnumbered stars to rest upon him.
At the sight of Medusa's head, Atlas hardens into a mountain—his hair becomes forests, shoulders become ridges, and his head becomes a peak. Roman readers understood this as the real Atlas range of northwestern Africa.
As you read Greek and Roman myths, imagine the known world as they did: encircled by the great river Oceanus, with wonders at every edge.
In the West lie the Hesperides and Atlas, visited by both Perseus and Hercules. In the East rise the dawn-gates of Eos where Dionysus campaigns in India.
To the North stretch Hyperborea and the Caucasus, where Prometheus is chained; and to the South, sun-scorched Aethiopia, burned by Phaethon’s fall. In the next lesson, we'll follow our mythic compass southward to Aethiopia.

Andromeda

Perseus discovers Andromeda, her punishment, and the monster approaching her.
Having now rested, Perseus flies over Ethiopia. It is dawn. Aeolus has shut the winds and the morning star Lucifer, "reminder of our toil," has risen. Perseus spots a woman chained to a rock.
She is Andromeda, punished and exposed because her mother Cassiopeia, Queen of Ethiopia, boasted that her daughter was prettier than even sea-nymphs.
Perseus falls in love instantly. He introduces himself as Jupiter's son and offers to rescue her from the sea monster Cetus if she will marry him.
Ovid
In their eternal prison, Aeous had shut the winds; and Lucifer, reminder of our toil, rose in splendour into the lofty sky.
Perseus bound wings upon his feet—one to each—girded on his sword, and sped through the liquid air, till kingdoms lay behind and the Ethiopian peoples and the lands of Cepheus stretched far below.
There Ammon, the Unjust, decreed that Andromeda, the Innocent, should suffer for her mother's tongue; they bound her arms to the rock as the sea-breeze stirred her hair and warm tears fell.
When Perseus beheld her he would have deemed her marble; yet the breeze moved her hair and tears streamed from her eyes. Her beauty amazed his heart; his swift wings almost forgot to beat.
Perseus
O fairest, these chains do not become you; you are worthy only of links that lovers bind; tell me your country's name and yours, and why you stand thus bound in chains.
Ovid
A moment, overcome with shame, she made no sound; were she not fettered she would hide her blushing head, but what she could do she did—she filled her eyes with tears and turned aside.
He pleaded so that, lest refusal seem to imply confession of a crime, she told her name, her country's name, and how her charms had been her mother's pride, as the ocean roared.

The Sea Monster

Perseus bargains for Andromeda and adapts his aerial advantage to kill Cetus.
Ovid
Over the waves a monster fast approached, its head held high abreast the wide expanse; the virgin shrieked. Perseus approached her wretched parents, who clung distracted to her fettered form.
Perseus
I am the son of Jove and of Danaë, who he embraced in showers of gold in her brazen cell; I slew the snake-haired Gorgon and dared with wings to cleave the air.
Time waits for tears but flies the moment of need; if my valor saves her life, let it be agreed I win her love and stand preferred above all others as your son-in-law.
Ovid
To this her parents gladly assented—who could hesitate?—and they entreated him with promises, even offering the kingdom as a dower for the daughter whose life he strove to save.
As a great ship with steady prow, forced by the sweating arms of youth, ploughs the deep, so the monster breasted the vast waves until only a sling's cast remained to reach the rock.
That instant the youth sprang upward to a cloudy height; when his shadow touched the sea, the monster strove in fury to rend the shade, snapping vainly at the phantom marked upon the surface.
As Jove's swift bird seizes a serpent and grips its neck to forestall the venomed fang, so the winged youth pressed down and drove his sword to the hilt into its shoulder.
Wild with the grievous wound, the monster reared high or plunged beneath, wheeling as a frightened boar shuns the hounds; the hero avoided its jaws and tortured its back with his crooked sword.
Wherever he could pierce the mail of hollow shell or strike between the ribs, he wounded its lashing tail, long and tapered as a fish, and crimson spouts drenched his wings.
Drenched and heavy with spume, he dared no longer trust his life to dripping wings; discerning a rock that rises clear in calm but now was washed by waves, he rested and grasped its upper ledge.
Holding fast with his left hand, he thrust his sword, more than three times, unswerving in aim, sheer through the monster's entrails; shouts of praise rang along the shores and even the gods might hear his glory.

Perseus and Phineus

A wedding retelling ends when Andromeda's former betrothed storms the feast.
Perseus slays the sea monster, Cetus, and frees Andromeda. Her parents (Cepheus and Cassiopeia) keep their vow, and a wedding begins.
Perseus rinses his hands and sets Medusa's head on seaweed, which hardens into the first coral. He then raises turf altars to Minerva, Mercury, and Jove.
Amid flowers, music, and feasting, a guest asks Perseus to tell the Medusa story. This story will sound familiar. It's Ovid's retelling of the story we heard earlier from Apollodorus.
Perseus
Beneath cold Atlas stands a rocky entrance guarded by two sisters, daughters of Phorcys, who shared a single eye by turns; by craft I seized it as it passed from one to the other.
Then far and remote, through pathless crags and wild hills bristling with woods, I came to the Gorgon’s lair, seeing along fields and roads men and animals turned to flinty stone at her visage.
Reflected in the brazen shield upon my left I saw her horrid face; while she slept, her serpent hair slumber-bound, I struck and took the head from the neck, and blood birthed winged Pegasus.
His brother sprang forth as well, twins of rapid wing born from that neck-blood, a marvel that followed the stroke which ended Medusa’s power.
Ovid
He told of journeyings, seas and lands seen far below, stars touched on wavering wings; before they knew, the tale was ended, and a noble asked Perseus why only Medusa wore serpents among all the sisters.
Perseus
Because she surpassed all in beauty, and many suitors hoped enviously; words would fail to tell the glory of her hair, most wonderful of all her charms, whose lovely splendor a friend once praised.
Fame declares the Sovereign of the Sea attained her love in chaste Minerva’s temple; enraged, the goddess turned her head away and held her shield before her eyes.
To punish that great crime Minerva changed the Gorgon’s splendid hair to horrible serpents; now, to strike foes with fear, she wears upon her breast those awful vipers, creatures of her rage.
As Perseus recounts his adventures, Phineus storms in with armed men, claiming Perseus stole his bride. He mocks Perseus' winged sandals and golden shower conception.

The Banquet Battle

Cepheus's defense fails; Medusa's face ends the wedding ambush in stone.
King Cepheus defends Perseus, reminding everyone that Andromeda was chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster until Perseus saved her.
Ovid
While Perseus, brave son of Jupiter, sat among Cepheus' lords, a raging multitude with sudden outcry filled the royal courts, not festal clamors but boisterous rage, ominous of dread war.
As when a great wind lashes a tranquil sea and tempestuous billows roll across the peaceful deep, so the pleasures of the banquet shifted in an instant to violent tumult.
Phineus
Ha, it is I; I come avenger of my ravished bride; let your fluttering wings deliver you, or even Jupiter dissolved in showers of imitation gold.
Ovid
He aimed his spear at Perseus; Cepheus cried out for restraint, demanding why strange delusions compelled his brother to this crime against heroic worth.
Cepheus
Is this just requital for noble deeds, a fair reguerdon for her life? Not Perseus ravished her, but the god who rules the Nereides, or horned Ammon, or Ocean's monstrous abyss.
Your suit was not abandoned until the hour she must perish and be lost to you; cruel are you, seeking my daughter's death and rejoicing lightly in our deep despair.
Was it not enough to stand supine while she was chained, offering no help though her lover and betrothed? Will you grieve she was rescued, and spoil her champion of his just rewards?
Those rewards, though magnificent, were not denied you had you saved her fettered to the rock; let him who restored my child receive the merit due both word and deed.
Ovid
Phineus deigned no reply; he delayed, then hurled his spear, which missed and quivered in a couch. Perseus leaped up, flung it back; Phineus crouched behind the altars and the point struck Rhoetus' brow.
As the barb tore from bone, his heels drummed; spouting blood defiled the board. The crowd flamed in rage and hurled darts; Cepheus withdrew invoking Hospitality, Truth, and Justice, while Pallas lent Perseus courage.
The feast flips from joy to panic as a mob storms the hall. Missiles fly, altars are violated, and the palace becomes a battlefield.
In the chaos, a head is struck off at the very altar—"The severed head fell upon the altar; his dying tongue still cursed their weapons, and his soul expired amid the sacred flames."
The fighting is brutal and messy: shields splinter, bowls become weapons, and even the musicians aren't spared—"falling, the dying fingers swept the strings in a mournful dirge."
Perseus, back to a pillar, holds his ground and warns friends to look away. He unveils Medusa; one attacker lunges and then—"the earth detained his steps; he could not speak and stood a statue."
Ovid
Two hundred warriors still eager for the fight stiffened to stone as soon as they could see Medusa's face.
At last repentant, Phineus dreaded his unjust war; he touched nearby statues, found them hard stone, turned his eyes away, stretched his hands toward Perseus, confessed, and implored.
Phineus
Remove, I pray, invincible Perseus, that dreadful Gorgon; take away Medusa's stone-creating countenance.
We warred not for hatred or a throne, but for a woman; your merit proved your claim; give me life. Time argued for my suit, yet I yield; only grant me life, and all the rest be thine.
Perseus
I grant as your conduct deserves; no steel shall violate you. You shall be a monument in my father-in-law's palace, softening my surrendered spouse's grief with the darling image of her first betrothed.
Ovid
He turned Medusa toward Phineus' tremulous face; as he struggled to avert his gaze, his neck stiffened and moisture in his eyes hardened; his timid face and coward hands remained guilty as in life.
After this eventful wedding, Perseus returns to Greece with his wife and loot. In the next lesson, we’ll complete our Perseus saga.

Perseus Returns

Perseus returns to Seriphos and prepares a beggar's revenge.
When we left Perseus he had beheaded Medusa and saved Andromeda from Cetus. Perseus and Andromeda will now return to Seriphos to visit King Polydectes and his mother Danae before heading to Argos.
This is the final chapter in the story of Perseus. Because Ovid skips over the details, we'll read the Scottish poet Andrew Lang's retelling of the canonical Apollodorus version.
Andrew Lang
With a steady south wind behind them they sailed to Seriphos, and landed, and brought their wealth ashore, and went to the house of Dictys.
They found him lonely and sorrowful, for his wife had died, and his brother, King Polydectes, had taken Danae, and set her to grind corn in his house, among his slave women.
When Perseus heard that word, he asked, 'Where is King Polydectes?' 'It is his birthday, and he holds his feast among the princes,' said Dictys.
'Then bring me,' said Perseus, 'the worst of old clothes that any servant of your house can borrow from a beggar man, if there be a beggar man in the town.'
Such a man there was—he came limping through the door of the courtyard, and up to the threshold of the house, where he sat whining, and asking for alms.
They gave him food and wine, and Perseus cried, 'New clothes for old, father, I will give you, and new shoes for old.'
The beggar could not believe his ears, but he was taken to the baths, and washed, and new clothes were given to him, while Perseus clad himself in the beggar's rags, and Dictys took charge of the winged shoon of Hermes and the sword Herpê, and the burnished shield of Athênê.
Then Perseus cast dust and wood ashes on his hair, till it looked foul and grey, and placed the goat-skin covering and the Gorgon's head in his wallet, and with the beggar's staff in his hand he limped to the palace of Polydectes.

The Beggar's Gift

A disguised hero turns mockery into Danae's revenge.
Andrew Lang
On the threshold he sat down, like a beggar, and Polydectes saw him and cried to his servants, 'Bring in that man; is it not the day of my feast? Surely all are welcome.'
Perseus was led in, looking humbly at the ground, and was brought before the king. 'What news, thou beggar man?' said the king. 'Such news as was to be looked for,' whined Perseus.
'Behold, I am he who brought no present to the king's feast, seven long years agone, and now I come back, tired and hungry, to ask his grace.'
'By the splendour of Zeus,' cried Polydectes, 'it is none but the beggar brat who bragged that he would fetch me such a treasure as lies in no king's chamber!
The beggar brat is a beggar man; how time and travel have tamed him! Ho, one of you, run and fetch his mother who is grinding at the mill, that she may welcome her son.'
A servant ran from the hall, and the chiefs of Seriphos mocked at Perseus. 'This is he who called us farmers and dealers in slaves. Verily he would not fetch the price of an old cow in the slave market.'
Then they threw at him crusts of bread, and bones of swine, but he stood silent. Then Danae was led in, clad in vile raiment, but looking like a queen, and the king cried, 'Go forward, woman: look at that beggar man; dost thou know thy son?'
She walked on, her head high, and Perseus whispered, 'Mother, stand thou beside me, and speak no word!' 'My mother knows me not, or despises me,' said Perseus, 'yet, poor as I am, I do not come empty-handed.
In my wallet is a gift, brought from very far away, for my lord the king.' He swung his wallet round in front of him; he took off the covering of goat-skin, and he held the Gorgon's head on high, by the hair, facing the king and the chiefs.
In one moment they were all grey stones, all along the hall, and the chairs whereon they sat crashed under the weight of them, and they rolled on the hard clay floor.
Perseus wrapped the head in the goat-skin, and shut it in the wallet carefully, and cried, 'Mother, look round, and see thy son and thine own revenge.'
Then Danae knew her son, by the sound of his voice, if not by her eyesight, and she wept for joy.
So they two went to the house of Dictys, and Perseus was cleansed, and clad in rich raiment, and Danae, too, was apparelled like a free woman, and embraced Andromeda with great joy.
Perseus made the good Dictys king of Seriphos; and he placed the winged shoes in the temple of Hermes, with the sword Herpê, and the Gorgon's head, in its goat-skin cover; but the polished shield he laid on the altar in the temple of Athênê.
Then he bade all who served in the temples come forth, both young and old, and he locked the doors, and he and Dictys watched all night, with the armed Cretans, the crew of his ship, that none might enter.
Next day Perseus alone went into the temple of Athênê. It was as it had been, but the Gorgon's head and the polished shield were gone, and the winged shoon and the sword Herpê had vanished from the temple of Hermes.

The Prophecy Fulfilled

An accidental throw fulfills fate and begins Perseus's afterlife.
Andrew Lang
With Danae and Andromeda Perseus sailed to Greece, where he learned that the sons of King Proetus had driven King Acrisius out of Argos, and that he had fled to Phthia in the north, where the ancestor of the great Achilles was king.
Thither Perseus went to see his grandfather, and he found the young men holding games and sports in front of the palace.
Perseus thought that his grandfather might love him better if he showed his strength in the games, which were open to strangers, so he entered and won the race, and the prize for leaping, and then came the throwing of the disc of bronze.
Perseus threw a great cast, far beyond the rest, but the disc swerved, and fell among the crowd. Then Perseus was afraid, and ran like the wind to the place where the disc fell.
There lay an old man, smitten sorely by the disc, and men said that he had killed King Acrisius. Thus the word of the prophetess and the will of Fate were fulfilled.
Perseus went weeping to the King of Phthia, and told him all the truth, and the king, who knew, as all Greece knew, how Acrisius had tried to drown his daughter and her child, believed the tale, and said that Perseus was guiltless.
Ashamed to rule the city of the grandfather he has accidentally killed, Perseus gives up his claim to Argos, trades kingdoms with a neighboring ruler, and settles instead in the hill-country fortress of Tiryns.
From there he helps raise and fortify the great citadels of Mycenae and Midea, turning rocky outcrops into walls and towers that will outlast him by centuries.
On the way east he leaves his son Perses behind as a local king (legend says he is the namesake of the Persians). Other descendants of Perseus and Andromedia form the Perseid line that will one day produce Heracles and the lords of the Trojan War.
After long and fortunate lives together, Perseus and Andromeda receive a final honor: the gods lift them into the night sky, setting them as constellations beside Andromeda's parents, Cassiopeia and Cepheus.

Bellerophon

A battlefield genealogy becomes a concealed royal murder mission.
Cadmus and Perseus are considered early heroes, "before the days of Heracles." We'll now meet the final hero of this series: Bellerophon.
Bellerophon was the son of Eurynome and Poseidon. He was raised by his foster-father, King Glaucus of Corinth (which makes Sisyphus his foster-grandfather).
We're going to learn about Bellerophon from one of his descendants, also named Glaucus. This Glaucus of Lycia is the great-grandson of the original Glaucus of Corinth.
Our reading is from Homer's Iliad, where a Greek hero named Diomedes encounters Glaucus of Lycia on the battlefield in front of Troy.
Instead of attacking, Diomedes asks Glaucus about his family history. Glaucus then shares the story of Bellerophon, his famous ancestor who fought and slew the Chimaera.
Homer
Then Glaucus, the glorious son of Hippolochus spoke to Diomedes, and began to answer his question about his lineage and the house from which he sprang.
Glaucus
Diomedes, great-souled son of Tydeus, why do you ask about my lineage, when the generations of men are like the generations of leaves upon the trees?
The wind scatters some leaves upon the earth, yet the forest bursts forth with others when spring returns; so among men, one generation rises while another passes away.
Yet if you wish, hear this as well, so that you may know my lineage clearly, a lineage well known to many throughout the land.
There is a city Ephyre in the heart of horse-pastured Argos, where Sisyphus, craftiest of men, son of Aeolus, once dwelt; he begat Glaucus, and Glaucus begat peerless Bellerophon.
To Bellerophon the gods granted beauty and manliness, yet Proetus in his heart devised evil against him and drove him, though mightier, from Argive land that Zeus had placed beneath his sceptre.
Now Proetus’ wife, fair Anteia, lusted madly for Bellerophon and longed to lie with him in secret love, yet she could not sway wise-hearted Bellerophon, whose upright heart refused her.
So she wove a lying tale and went to king Proetus, twisting the truth in her favour against the innocent hero before she spoke her deadly accusation.
Anteia
Either die yourself, Proetus, or slay Bellerophon, for he was minded to lie with me in love against my will and has shamed your house.
Glaucus
So she spoke, and wrath seized the king at her words, yet he shrank from slaying Bellerophon outright, for his soul felt awe before such open blood-guilt.
Instead he sent him to Lycia, giving him tokens of doom, a tablet engraved with deadly signs, and ordered him to show it to his wife’s father so that he might be slain.
So under the blameless escort of the gods he journeyed to Lycia. For nine full days the Lycian king feasted him. On the tenth, the king questioned him and asked to see whatever token he carried from Proetus, his son-in-law.
When he had received the evil token from his daughter’s husband, he first ordered Bellerophon to slay the raging Chimaera, hoping that monstrous task would quietly destroy his guest.

Trials and Legacy

Bellerophon's impossible trials become glory, dynasty, desolation, and inheritance.
Glaucus
The Chimaera was of divine stock: her front a lion, her behind a serpent, her middle a goat, and she breathed out dreadfully the might of blazing fire.
Yet Bellerophon slew her, trusting in the signs and tokens of the gods that guided his steady hand in battle against the monstrous, fire-breathing beast.
Next he fought with the glorious Solymi. Thirdly he slew the Amazons, women the peers of men in war.
When the king perceived that he was truly the valiant offspring of a god, he kept him in Lycia, offered him his own daughter, and granted him half of all his kingly honours.
His lady bore to wise-hearted Bellerophon three children—Isander, Hippolochus, and Laodameia; with Laodameia lay Zeus the counsellor, and she bore godlike Sarpedon, a warrior harnessed in gleaming bronze.
Yet in time even Bellerophon came to be hated by all the gods, and he wandered alone over the Aleian plain, devouring his own soul and shunning utterly the paths of men.
Hippolochus begat me, and from him I declare that I am sprung; he sent me to Troy and laid a strict charge upon my heart.
He told me to be bravest and pre-eminent, never to bring shame upon the race of my fathers, noblest in Ephyre and wide Lycia; such is the blood I claim.

Guest-Friends at Troy

Ancestral hospitality interrupts battle and produces a famously costly trade.
Homer
So he spoke, and Diomedes, good at the war-cry, rejoiced at his words, feeling sudden gladness kindle in his heart toward the son of Hippolochus.
He planted his spear in the bounteous earth and, with gentle words, addressed Glaucus, shepherd of the host, before the gathered warriors and chariots.
Diomedes
Truly now you prove yourself a friend of my father’s house from of old, for goodly Oeneus once welcomed peerless Bellerophon in his halls and kept him there for twenty days.
Therefore now I am a dear guest-friend to you in Argos, and you to me in Lycia, whenever I journey to the land of your people.
So let us avoid each other’s spears even amid battle; there are many to slay—Trojans and allies—whomever a god shall grant me and my feet overtake.
And there are many Achaeans again for you to strike down, whomever you can, so that each of us may win glory without staining the bond between our houses.
Let us also exchange armour with one another, so that all these men may know we declare ourselves friends from our fathers’ days and honour the ancient tie between our families.
Homer
When they had thus spoken, the two warriors leapt down from their chariots, clasped each other’s hands, and pledged their faith, sealing the guest-friendship of their fathers on the field of war.
Then Zeus, son of Cronos, took wit away from Glaucus, for he exchanged his golden armour with Diomedes' bronze, trading gear worth a hundred oxen for that worth but nine.
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