was son of Glaucus, King of Corinth, and named at first Hipponous. The
murder of Beller, his brother, by him, procured his second name of
Bellerophon or the murderer of Beller; after he had committed which, he
fled to the court of Proetus, King of Argos, where being of a noble and
fine person, he won the affections of the wife of the king; he refused to
listen to her passion, and in revenge he was accused by her to her husband,
of attempting her virtue.
Proetus, was very unwilling to trespass upon the laws of hospitality by
punishing him, but sent him with a letter to Jobates the father of his
queen, entreating him to put to death the man who would have insulted the
honour of his daughter.
Jobates to satisfy his son-in-law, sent Beller to attack a monster called
Chimaera, in the full expectation that he would be destroyed. By the
assistance of Minerva, however, who lent him Pegasus the winged horse, he
succeeded in conquering the monster, and returned victorious to the court
of Jobates.
[Illustration]
After this he was sent on various expeditions of great danger, in all of
which he was so successful, that Jobates imagined he was {267} under the
protection of the gods, and gave him the hand of his daughter Cassandra in
marriage, naming him as his successor to the throne.
It has been asserted by some that he attempted to fly to Olympus upon
Pegasus, but that Jupiter sent an insect which stung the horse, who threw
his rider headlong to the earth; and that for many years he remained
melancholy, languishing, and full of pain and weakness.
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