The Chimera is a creature with a head and body of a lion, a head of a lion, a goat, and a dragon. It has snakes as tails. In some myths, it has wings of a eagle. In visual arts, the Chimera is commonly represented with the head of a lion in front, the head of a goat in the middle, and a serpent tail.

The earliest description of the creature comes from Homer’s “The lliad”, where it is said that the Chimera was “in the fore part a lion, in the hinder a serpent, and in the midst a goat, breathing forth in terrible wise the might of blazing fire.” Many sources claimed that is also breathed fire. Hesiod and later writers specified that it was only the goat’s head (the middle one) that held this power. The Chimera terrorized the inhabitants of the foothills where it had made its home—a reign that only ended with the arrival of the hero Bellerophon, a son of Poseidon. Riding the winged horse, Pegasus, Bellerophon tracked down the Chimera, fought it, and killed it.

The Chimera’s name comes from the Greek word chimaira, meaning “one-year-old animal” or “she-goat.” It is related to other Indo-European words for baby livestock, such as the Old Norse gymbr (“young sheep”). The name “Chimera” may also be related to the Greek cheimōn/cheima and the Indo-European ǵʰ-ei-m-, meaning “winter.”.

The Chimera is said to live in the mountains of Lycia, an ancient kingdom on the southwest coast of modern Turkey. The geographer Strabo traced the Chimera to an even more specific location: Mount Cragus on the coast of Lycia.

Note: Andrew made some adjustments. (I’m pretty sure there is only 1 Chimera)

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