CHIMAERA  , in

Greek mythology, a fire-breathing female monster resembling a lion in the fore part, a goat in the middle, and a dragon behind (Iliad, vi . 179), with three heads corresponding . She devastated Caria and Lycia until she was finally slain by Bellerophon (see H . A . Fischer, Bellerophon, 1851) . The origin of the myth was the volcanic nature of the soil of Lycia (Pliny, Nat . Hist. ii . 1 io; Servius on Aeneid, vi 288), where works have been found containing representations of the Chimaera in the simple form of a lion . In modern art the Chimaera is usually represented as a lion, with a goat's head in the middle of the back, as in the bronze Chimaera of Arezzo (5th century) . The word is now used generally to denote a fantastic idea or fiction of the imagination .