Mexican country road

So its in these ways Chimera effects and represented in our daily lives. A name for us as a group. A symbol to draw inspiration from. A totem to revere. A mascot to reflect us. A fursona to be creative with. And a way to organize us all to help keep us going. That is what Chimera means to us.

Etruscan women even prepared for the case of the event of the loss of her husband to deal with businesses and keep afloat the family patrimony. They were actively involved in banquets, feasts and religious and political events. They liked to dress with eye-cashing clothes and did so with good taste and pride without being for that reason labeled of licentious conduct by their own people, so liked it or not one that another Greek had to recognize in his Chronicles that they looked beautiful.

It is known that many cultures strongly criticized all that is different to them, the actions of those who are not acting like them following the dogmas that they believe as been the correct ones. That it was what happen with the Etruscan culture, and just because they were different from the others were judged harshly.

So, the main point here seems to be that turning moment in human history when, as pointed out - for instance - by Campbell (" The masks of God") a whole set of cosmic beliefs turned from a Goddess-ruled system to a male dominated system, where the main God is a father figure.

However, creative as our ancestors could have been, myths do not originate by chance. We have to think what it meant to them to transform wings into a goat's head. Why a goat head and not, say, a bird, or a fish, or whatever else? What is the meaning of a goat head? Why a female goat? And why is the goat so important to give the name to the whole three-headed creature?

One day, he decided that his victory over Chimera was enough to ascend to Mount Olympus and preside with the gods. He flew with Pegasus towards the heaven and when he nearly reached the gates of Olympus, Zeus decided enough is enough and sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus which caused the creature to unsaddle Bellerophon and made him fall all the way back to earth. Bellerophon had fallen into a bush on the plains of Aleion, hurting himself badly. He was crippled and blinded and left alone to live out the rest of his life in misery, grieving and shunning the haunts of men.

In the Middle Ages, between 400 and 1500 A.D., the Chimera became associated with lust, but it also represented initiation,

Homer, Iliad 6. 179 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) : "First he [King Iobates of Lykia (Lycia)] sent him [Bellerophon] away with orders to kill the Khimaira (Chimera) none might approach; a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire. He killed the Khimaira, obeying the portents of the immortals."

The fore part of her body was that of a lion, and the hind part that of a dragon, while the middle was that of a goat.

Amisodarus, king of Caria,

PARENTS TYPHOEUS & EKHIDNA (Hesiod Theogony 319, Homeric Hymn 3.356, Apollodorus 2.32 & Hyginus Pref & Fabulae 151) OFFSPRING SPHINX, NEMEIAN LION (by Orthos) (Hesiod Theogony 327)

Late classical writers believed the creature was a metaphor for a Lycian volcano.

Lykia (Lycia)

KHIMAIRA

But she [Keto (Ceto)] bore [to Phorkys (Phorcys)] another unmanageable monster like nothing human nor like the immortal gods either, in a hollow cave.

She probably represented the corruptions of the earth--rot, slime, fetid waters, illness and disease.