Peerless Bellerophon of Corinth — grandson of Sisyphus, purified at Proetus' court — refused the queen's lust and was sent to Lycia bearing a sealed death-token; there he slew the fire-breathing Chimera, survived every trial Iobates set against him, and won half a kingdom before hubris drove him to fly toward Olympus and wander alone on the Aleian plain, hated of all the gods.1
The Corinthian line
In horse-rearing Ephyra — the city men now call Corinth — dwelt Sisyphus, craftiest of men, son of Aeolus; and he begat Glaucus, and Glaucus begat peerless Bellerophon. To him the gods granted beauty and lovely manliness, the third generation of the Aeolid line. Apollodorus names Glaucus' wife Eurymede and adds that before his exile the young hero had accidentally killed his own brother — Deliades, or as some say Piren, or others Alcimenes — and so came to Proetus at Tiryns to be purified of blood-guilt.2
The lying letter⚖
At the court of Proetus the king's wife lusted madly for the upright guest and could in no wise prevail upon wise-hearted Bellerophon, for that his heart was upright. So she made a tale of lies, telling Proetus to slay Bellerophon or die himself. Wrath seized the king, yet awe of murdering a suppliant stayed his hand: he graved baneful tokens in a folded tablet and sent the hero to Lycia, bidding him show them to his own wife's father, that he might be slain. Homer names the queen Anteia; Apollodorus and Hyginus call her Stheneboea — daughter of Iobates, whom Proetus had wed when driven from Argos.3
Nine days at Xanthus
Bellerophon came to Lycia and the stream of Xanthus, where for nine days Iobates feasted him before reading the murderous tablet from his daughter's husband. Fear of the Erinyes kept the Lycian king from killing a guest outright; instead he ordered the stranger to slay the raging Chimera — a creature of divine stock, not of men, 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. Apollodorus says Iobates believed the beast would destroy him, for it was more than a match for many, let alone one; Homer adds that Amisodarus had reared the Chimera, a bane to many men.4
The winged kill⚖
Whether a winged horse bore him to the deed, the sources part ways. Homer's hero kills the Chimera on foot, trusting in the signs of the gods, with no mention of Pegasus. But Hesiod sings that Pegasus and noble Bellerophon together slew her; Apollodorus has him mount the winged steed, offspring of Medusa and Poseidon, and shoot the monster down from on high; and at Corinth Pausanias tells how Athena Chalinitis, the Bridler, herself broke in Pegasus and delivered him into the hero's hands. Hyginus agrees that he rode Pegasus to the kill and fell afterward in the Aleian plains, dislocating his hip.5
The Lycian trials
The Chimera was only the first snare. Iobates ordered Bellerophon to war upon the glorious Solymi, then to combat the Amazons, and when those tasks also failed to kill him, picked out the bravest Lycians and bade them lay an ambush — but the hero cut them down as well. When the king saw that his guest was the valiant offspring of a god, he kept him, gave him his daughter Philonoe and half of all his kingly honour, and dying bequeathed his realm. She bore Isander, Hippolochus, and Laodameia; with Laodameia lay Zeus the counsellor, and she bore godlike Sarpedon, the bronze-harnessed warrior who would fall at Troy. Hyginus adds that Stheneboea, hearing of the marriage, killed herself out of love and shame.6
The fall from heaven
Glory soured. Bellerophon, grown overbold, sought to ride Pegasus up to heaven — Hyginus says he had almost reached it when terror at the earth below unseated him and he was killed; Pausanias records the Corinthian cult of Athena who had bridled the horse for that ascent. Homer knows another ending: when even Bellerophon came to be hated of all the gods, then verily he wandered alone over the Aleian plain, devouring his own soul and shunning the paths of men — while Ares slew Isander among the Solymi and golden-reined Artemis struck down Laodameia in wrath. The Lycian captain Glaucus at Troy would trace his guest-friendship to Oeneus, who once hosted Bellerophon twenty days — the hero's fame outliving his ruin.7
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