Chimaera. A fire-breathing monster, the Chimaera was said to be the offspring of Echidna and Typhon. According to Homer, she had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent, but in Hesiod she is lion-, goat-, and serpent-headed. Hesiod also says that the Chimaera was the mother of the Sphinx by her brother Orthus, although other sources suggest that Orthus was the Chimaera’s father. Because of her semidivine origin, the Chimaera was reputed to be invulnerable, but she was finally slain by Bellerophon.
     Postclassical treatments of the myth have come to incorporate the modern meaning of the word “chimaera”—a fleeting illusion, particularly dangerous because it cannot be dismissed.

See also Bellerophon.