Bellerophon

—Bellerophontic, adj.

/beuh ler"euh fon'/, n. Class. Myth.

a Corinthian hero who, mounted on Pegasus, killed the Chimera.

Also, Bellerophontes /beuh ler'euh fon"teez/.

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Legendary Greek hero.

The son of Glaucus and grandson of Sisyphus, as a youth in Corinth he tamed and rode the winged horse Pegasus. The wife of King Proteus of Argos fell in love with him, and when he rejected her, she falsely accused him of attempted rape. Proteus sent him to the king of Lycia with a message asking that he be killed. The king instead ordered him to kill the monster Chimera, and with the aid of Pegasus he succeeded. He married the king's daughter but later lost the favour of the gods and became an unhappy wanderer. Another version of the legend holds that he tried to fly up to heaven and was thrown from Pegasus and lamed.

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▪ Greek mythology

also called  Bellerophontes,  

 hero in Greek legend. In the Iliad he was the son of Glaucus, who was the son of Sisyphus of Ephyre (traditionally Corinth). The wife of King Proetus of Argos—named Anteia (in Homer's telling) or Stheneboea (in the works of Hesiod and later writers)—loved Bellerophon; when he rejected her overtures, she falsely accused him to her husband. Proetus then sent Bellerophon to Iobates, the king of Lycia, with a message that he was to be slain. That king sent him against some dangerous antagonists, but since he always triumphed, the king finally recognized Bellerophon as more than human and married him to his daughter. Bellerophon lived in prosperity until he fell out of favour with the gods, lost two of his children, and wandered grief-stricken over the Aleian Plain.

      Euripides and some later writers added that, while still at Corinth, Bellerophon tamed the winged horse Pegasus with a bridle given to him by Athena and that he used Pegasus to fight the Chimera and afterward to punish Stheneboea. He supposedly earned the wrath of the gods by trying to fly up to heaven and was thrown from Pegasus and lamed. This version is found in Euripides' Bellerophontes and is parodied in Aristophanes' Peace.

      Bellerophon's adventures were frequently represented in ancient art and formed the subject of the Iobates of Sophocles and of the Stheneboea of Euripides, as well as of the works mentioned above.

▪ fossil gastropod

      extinct genus of gastropods (snails) found as fossils in rocks from the Ordovician Period (488 million to 444 million years ago) to the Triassic Period (251 million to 200 million years ago). Bellerophon is characteristic of the bellerophontids, a large group of snails. The shell of Bellerophon was primitive in that it was coiled with the midline in a single plane; the upper half of the shell was the mirror image of the lower half. In Bellerophon, growth lines angled away from a raised ridge along the midline of the shell. The anterior margins of the shell were flared outward, and they were separated by a narrow slit, called the selenizone.

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