Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss Bellerophon,
Poseidon’s son, tamer of Pegasus, and the hero who killed the chimaera.
At its core, this is a story of a heroic rise followed by a precipitous, ignoble fall.
Let’s get into it.
Bellerophon was a man of infamous lineage. Like most Heroes he was sired by a god,
in his case Poseidon, but raised by a mortal father, in his case Glaucus, king of Corinth.
Glaucus was a man of great equestrian prowess, and in one tradition, his methods brought down
the fury of Olympus upon him. He fed his horses human flesh to make them fiercer in battle,
and gruesome acts such as this were seldom overlooked by the gods. He fell from his chariot,
and his horses descended upon him like a pack of ravenous wolves, devouring him.
Glaucus’ demise wasn’t much of an aberration,
for his father, Sisyphus, was also a practiced hand at inciting the displeasure of the gods.
Sisyphus was too clever for his own good and a notorious troublemaker.
One of his stunts had him take Thanatos, the personification of death, captive. This prevented
people from dying until Ares stepped in and freed him. In the end, Sisyphus became the poster child
for mortal sinners in Greek mythology. He was condemned to an eternity in Tartarus,
constantly pushing a boulder uphill only to have it roll back down whenever he reached the top.
Bellerophon’s mother was Eurynome, who, though mortal,
was trained personally by Athena until her wisdom was on par with the gods themselves.
Given his impeccable pedigree - divine on his father’s side,
god-trained on his mother’s - Bellerophon was primed to take on the world, and
great deeds and courageous acts were expected of him.
Though the hero’s mantle had been placed on his shoulders,
his heart's sole desire was to mount Pegasus - the magical winged steed that sprung from the
gory stump of Medusa’s neck - and claim it, a steed without equal, for his own.
It was thought, however, that Bellerophon’s dream was the fancy of youth and discounted as futile,
for what man, even the son of a god, could catch and tame such a swift and superlative steed.
When Pegasus’ wings cut through the sky, it was like a piercing gale.
And Hippocrene, that spring most favoured by poets on Mt. Helicon, the sacred mountain of the Muses,
broke through the rock and began to flow after Pegasus’ hoof struck the ground.
Bellerophon knew that his desire bordered on the absurd, so a spell of depression took him;
yet still there was a ray of hope. He had confided in Polyidus, the seer of Corinth, who instructed
him to travel to Athena’s temple and spend the night. Bellerophon did what the seer said,
and lo and behold, the goddess Athena came to him that very night. She presented him
with a golden bridle, in all the world the only thing that could charm Pegasus.
Bellerophon took the bridle and immediately set out to the wilds,
where he began his search, checking every field he passed in pursuit of his quarry,
until at last he found Pegasus drinking from a spring.
With the bridle in hand, Pegasus didn’t startle and bolt away, instead, without any resistance,
allowing himself to be mastered. Bellerophon thanked the gods; then, fully outfitted in bronze
armour, he mounted Pegasus and immediately began putting his newly acquired steed
through his paces. Both delighted in the exercise, a close bond already formed between them.
Bellerophon became the envy of the land now that he could race across the sky.
And this great joy would also prove a great boon, for difficult times lay ahead;
and Pegasus would prove himself indispensable in the trials and tribulations that awaited.
Quite by accident, Bellerophon killed his brother. Filled with sorrow and guilt,
he took refuge with Proteus, king of Tiryns; but this was only a reprieve, for he quickly became
embroiled in a new series of challenges. Proteus’ wife, Stheneboea, fell in love with Bellerophon,
and when the hero rejected her advances, she took his lack of reciprocation very, very badly. She
went to her husband, telling him that Bellerophon had wronged her and must die for his crimes.
This put King Proteus in an awkward position. Bellerophon was a guest in his house and had
shared food with him at his table. People who killed those they had extended hospitality to
were treated harshly in Ancient Greece, particularly by the gods.
Perhaps no crime was considered more egregious other than the murder of one’s own family.
Rather than perpetrate the murder himself and risk the wrath of the gods, Proteus dispatched
Bellerophon on what was ostensibly an innocuous favour, asking him to deliver a letter to King
Iobates, the ruler of of Lycia. Such a favour hardly would have aroused suspicion: Bellerophon
flew where other men rode, so asking him to cover long distances wasn’t much of an imposition.
King Iobates welcomed Bellerophon graciously, and for nine days and nine nights he treated him with
royal hospitality; but after that time had passed, the king finally asked to see the letter. It asked
him to kill Bellerophon, but because the hero was a guest in his house, the same predicament that
Proteus found himself in now applied to Iobates as well. Transgressing against that sacred bond
between host and guest would put him in the gods’ crosshairs, so he resorted to the same tactic,
which was to dispatch Bellerophon and let his death come at the hands of someone else. However,
instead of sending him to visit another king, Bellerophon was sent to kill the Chimera:
a monstrous amalgamation of animals thought to spell certain death for any who crossed her path.
The front half of her body was that of a lion, the back half that of a goat,
and the tail a snake. And her breath was fell, not just fetid: she breathed fire,
unquenchable flame that could char flesh and blacken bone.
What was perilous for other men proved a minor obstacle for Bellerophon. Astride Pegasus,
he had no need to get close. He flew around the Chimaera, filling it with arrows from the sky
until she fell dead. He returned to Iobates, who was dismayed by the hero’s return,
so he sent him on what he thought was another virtually-suicidal mission, which was to
undertake a fighting expedition against the Solymi, warriors of great prowess and ferocity.
But again Bellerophon prevailed, having vanquished yet another formidable foe. He was then sent
against the Amazons, but after triumphing for the third time, defying death again,
Iobates resorted to a more direct approach. He rounded up his bravest and most ruthless soldiers
and had them ambush Bellerophon, but they, like all the others who came before,
weren’t up to the task. Bellerophon killed them, overcoming yet another attempt on his life.
The ill-will of Iobates was replaced with a grudging respect. They became friends,
and the king would even offer his daughter’s hand in marriage. When news of this reached the ears
of Stheneboea, the queen who started this whole ordeal, she killed herself. In another version,
she falls to her death from Pegasus’ back mid-flight after Bellerophon pushes her.
For a long time afterwards Bellerophon lived in peace and happiness,
but this was not to last until the end of his days. What the kings of this
story had gone to great lengths to avoid, Bellerophon would bring down upon himself,
for in his hubris, he would provoke the wrath of the gods.
The series of successes that characterized his life implanted in his mind the loftiest
of aspirations, to ascend to Mt. Olympus and to take his rightful place amongst the gods;
but unlike Hercules, the only mortal in all of Greek mythology
on whom this honour was bestowed, this was not to be Bellerophon’s fate;
for him, it was folly, an act of conceit that would not be taken lightly.
He tried to ride Pegasus to Olympus, but his winged-steed,
wiser than Bellerophon, threw him off and flew away.
Scorned by the gods, he spent the rest of his life in the shadow of their contempt.
From that moment on, he roamed the land alone as an outcast, hating himself until he died.
Quite a different fate awaited Pegasus. He was welcomed into the celestial abode of the gods,
and henceforth it was he who brought thunder and lightning to Zeus when there was need.
And that’s it for this video!
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