{"id":355,"date":"2018-07-19T23:22:26","date_gmt":"2018-07-19T20:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/villa\/?page_id=355"},"modified":"2018-07-22T22:53:08","modified_gmt":"2018-07-22T19:53:08","slug":"myth-of-chimera","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/arcadiavilla-apart.com\/en\/myth-of-chimera\/","title":{"rendered":"Myth of Chimera"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"chimera<\/a><\/span><\/div>
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CHIMERA THE MYTH<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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\u00a0 The\u00a0Chimera\u00a0was, according to\u00a0Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing\u00a0hybrid\u00a0creature of\u00a0Lycia\u00a0in\u00a0Asia Minor, composed of the parts of more than one animal. It is usually depicted as a\u00a0lion, with the head of a\u00a0goat\u00a0arising from its back, and a tail that might end with a\u00a0snake\u2019s head,\u00a0and was one of the offspring of\u00a0Typhon\u00a0and\u00a0Echidna\u00a0and a sibling of such monsters as\u00a0Cerberus\u00a0and the\u00a0Lernaean Hydra.<\/p>\n

The term chimera has come to describe any mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals, or to describe anything composed of very disparate parts, or perceived as wildly imaginative, implausible, or dazzling.<\/p>\n

The seeing of a Chimera was an omen for disaster.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0 <\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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\u00a0 Mount Chimera<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Mount Chimaera\u00a0was the name of a place in ancient\u00a0Lycia, notable for constantly burning fires. It is thought to be the area called\u00a0Yanarta\u015f\u00a0in Turkey, where methane and other gases emerge from the rock and burn. Some ancient sources considered it to be the origin of the myth of the monster called the\u00a0Chimera, because of similarities described below.<\/p>\n

Ctesias\u00a0is the oldest traceable author to offer this\u00a0euhemerizing\u00a0theory. We know of this because of a citation by\u00a0Pliny the Elder, who in his second book of\u00a0Historia Naturalis\u00a0identified the Chimaera with the permanent gas vents in Mount Chimera, in the country of the ancient Lycian city of\u00a0Phaselis, which he described as being \u201con fire\u201d, adding that it\u00a0\u201c\u2026indeed burned with a flame that does not die by day or night\u201d<\/i>. Pliny was quoted by\u00a0Photius\u00a0and\u00a0Agricola.<\/p>\n

Strabo\u00a0and Pliny are the only surviving ancient sources who would be expected to discuss a Lycian\u00a0toponym, but the placename is also attested by\u00a0Isidore of Seville\u00a0and\u00a0Servius, the commentator on the\u00a0Aeneid.\u00a0Strabo\u00a0held the Chimaera to be a ravine on a different mountain in Lycia, placing it unhesitatingly in the vicinity of the Cragus Mountains, the southern part of the present\u00a0Babada\u011f, some 75\u00a0km due west as the crow flies, and Isidore quotes writers on natural history (see below) that Mount Chimaera was on fire here, had lions and goats there, and was full of snakes over there. Servius goes so far as to arrange these with the lions on the peak of the mountain, pastures full of goats in the middle, and serpents all about the base, thus imitating\u00a0Homer\u2019s description of the\u00a0monster.<\/p>\n

The site was identified by Sir\u00a0Francis Beaufort\u00a0in 1811, as the modern Turkish\u00a0Yanar<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0Yanarta\u015f, which was described by\u00a0Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt\u00a0in his\u00a0Travels in\u00a0Lycia,\u00a0Milyas, and the\u00a0Cibyratis, in company with the late Rev. E. T. Daniell.<\/i>\u00a0The discussion on the connection between the myth and the exact location of Mount Chimera was started by\u00a0Albert Forbiger\u00a0in 1844, and\u00a0George Ewart Bean\u00a0was of the opinion that the name was allochthonous and could have been transferred here from its original location further west, as cited by Strabo, owing to the presence of the same phenomenon and the fires.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

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