Bellerophon

Yóbates, Belerofonte, Pegasus and Athena represented in a painting of 1829, work of Aleksandr Andréyevich Ivánov.

Bellerophon (Βελλεροφῶν) or Bellerophon, also called Bellerophons (Βελλεροφόντης), was a hero of Greek mythology, whose greatest feats were killing the Chimera and taming the winged horse Pegasus. He was the son of King Glaucus of Corinth and of Eurynome, although some traditions make him the son of Poseidon and Eurynome.

His original name was Hipponous or Leophons, but he changed it to Bellerophon (meaning “slayer of Belleros”) later of having accidentally killed a Corinthian tyrant named Belero. In other versions, he accidentally killed his brother who is called Deliades, Pirén or Alcímenes.

Exile to Tiryns

When he involuntarily killed his brother, he left Corinth and went as a supplicant, to purify himself, to the city of Tiryns, to the court of King Preto. King Preto welcomed Bellerophon as a guest and purified him. The king's wife, called Estenebea (or Antea according to other sources) falls in love with him and tries to seduce him, but Bellerophon refuses her wishes.

Estenebea, offended, to take revenge for this slight, falsely accuses him of trying to seduce or rape her. The King of Tiryns becomes furious, believing the story of Estenebea to be true, but not wanting to break the sacred laws of hospitality with the direct death of a guest, he orders Bellerophon to take a sealed letter of recommendation, as he says, to his father-in-law the King Iobates (or Iobates) of Lycia, father of Estenebea. In the letter, he actually asked King Iobates to put Bellerophon to death.

Bellerophon brings the letter to Lycia

Unaware of Black's intentions, Bellerophon arrives in Lycia. King Iobates extended an affectionate welcome to Bellerophon, with great signs of hospitality. The first nine days she spent in festivities. On the morning of the tenth day, King Iobates opened the letter given to him by his guest.

To fulfill the order, he asked Bellerophon to kill the Chimera in the hope that the beast would kill him. The Chimera was the daughter of Typhon and Echidna or of the Hydra of Lerna and she had the head of a goat that exhaled fire, the body of a lion and the tail made of a serpent.

Bellerophon confronts the Chimera

The wild beast devastated the fertile fields and devoured the cattle. Before undertaking this difficult task, Bellerophon consulted the soothsayer Poliidos, who advised him to capture the winged horse Pegasus. Pegasus was loved by the muses of Mount Helicon, since with a blow with his paw he had made the Hippocrene water source sprout from the earth.

Bellerophon did not find Pegasus on Mount Helicon, but in the Pirene fountain on the Corinthian Acropolis. The goddess Athena gave Bellerophon a golden bridle to tame him, and that Bellerophon placed on her head. In other versions, Athena delivered Pegasus directly after taming him herself or it was Poseidon who delivered Pegasus to her.

Armed, he went to confront the Chimera. He mounted Pegasus and flying over the beast, he began to shoot arrows at it. Then he thrust the point of his spear into the jaws of the monster, whose fiery breath melted the leaden tip; it slipped down his throat burning the vital organs and in this way Bellerophon managed to defeat her.

Other missions

After that, Iobates commissioned her to fight the Solimos, a warrior people that devastated the region, and later against the Amazons, warrior women. Both ventures were successful. Despite everything, Iobates wanted to kill him and prepared an ambush against him, sending his best men, but Bellerophon annihilated them in combat. Finally Iobates, reconciled, offered his own daughter Philonoe as a wife with whom the hero had three children: Laodamía, Isandro and Hipóloco.

Revenge against Preto's wife

In some traditions, Antea committed suicide after learning of Bellerophon's wedding. In another tradition, he decided to make her pay for her betrayal, so he pretended to be in love with her and thus convinced her to flee with him to Tiryns. Flying on the back of Pegasus, Bellerophon headed towards the sea and pushed Antea into the waters, who fell on the rocks of the coast.

Death

Bellerophon was later hated by the gods for unknown reasons, presumably due to an act of hubris (ὕβρις), since his victories made him proud and made him conceive an inordinate feat: to ascend, mounted on Pegasus, to the abode of the gods on Mount Olympus. However, the god Zeus sent against him a gadfly (οἶστρος) which stuck its sting into Pegasus. Bellerophon could not calm the horse, which, rearing up, caused his rider to lose her balance and fall into the void.

According to a tradition, Bellerophon managed to survive the fall. However, he was left lame or blind and ended up wandering the Aleya plain. Pegasus, for his part, soared into the sky where he immortalized himself as a constellation. In another version, Bellerophon fell to the ground from vertigo or terror and died in the fall.