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Lamia (/ˈleɪmiə/; Greek: Λάμια), in ancient Greek mythology, was a child-eating monster and, in later tradition, was regarded as a type of night-haunting spirit (daemon).
In the earliest stories, Lamia was a beautiful queen of Ancient Libya who had an affair with Zeus. Upon learning this, Zeus's wife Hera robbed Lamia of her children, the offspring of her affair with Zeus, either by kidnapping or by killing them. The loss of her children drove Lamia insane, and in vengeance and despair, Lamia snatched up any children she could find and devoured them. Because of her cruel acts, her physical appearance changed to become ugly and monstrous. Zeus gave Lamia the power of prophecy and the ability to take out and reinsert her eyes, possibly because she was cursed by Hera with insomnia or because she could no longer close her eyes, so that she was forced to always obsess over her lost children.[1]
The lamiai (Greek: λαμίαι) also became a type of phantom, synonymous with the empusai who seduced young men to satisfy their sexual appetite and fed on their flesh afterward. An account of Apollonius of Tyana's defeat of a lamia-seductress inspired the poem "Lamia" by John Keats.
Lamia has been ascribed serpentine qualities, which some commentators believe can be firmly traced to mythology from antiquity; they have found analogues in ancient texts that could be designated as lamiai (or lamiae) which are part-snake beings. These include the half-woman, half-snake beasts of the "Libyan myth" told by Dio Chrysostom, and the monster sent to Argos by Apollo to avenge Psamathe.
In previous centuries, Lamia was used in Greece as a bogeyman to frighten children into obedience, similar to the way parents in Spain, Portugal and Latin America used the Coco.
- ^ Bell, Robert E., Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary (New York: Oxford UP, 1991), s.v. "Lamia" (drawing upon Diodorus Siculus 22.41; Suidas "Lamia"; Plutarch "On Being a Busy-Body" 2; Scholiast on Aristophanes' Peace 757; Eustathius on Odyssey 1714).