Lamia

[1] The lamiai (Ancient Greek: λάμιαι, romanized: lámiai) 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.

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, daughter of King Crotopos.

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.

[8] Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (vii.5) refers to the lore of some beastly lifeform in the shape of a woman, which tears the bellies of pregnant mothers and devours their fetuses.

[9][10] According to one myth, Hera deprived Lamia of the ability to sleep, making her constantly grieve over the loss of her children, and Zeus provided relief by endowing her with removable eyes.

[15] Diodorus's rationalization was that the Libyan queen in her drunken state was as if she could not see, allowing her citizens free rein for any conduct without supervision, giving rise to the folk myth that she places her eyes in a vessel.

[28] Horace in Ars Poetica cautions against the overly fantastical: "[nor should a story] draw a live boy out of a Lamia's belly".

[19] Other bogeys have been listed in conjunction with "Lamia", for instance, the Gorgo (ἡ Γοργώ), the eyeless giant Ephialtes, a Mormolyce (μορμολύκη named by Strabo.

[35] In later classical periods, around the 1st century A. D.,[36] the conception of this Lamia shifted to that of a sultry seductress who enticed young men and devoured them.

[45][h] The empousa admits in the end to fattening up her victim (Menippus of Lycia) to be consumed, as she was in the habit of targeting young men for food "because their blood was fresh and pure".

[54][55][m][n] Meroe has seduced a man named Socrates, but when he plots to escape, the two witches raid his bed, thrust a knife in the neck to tap the blood into a skin bag, eviscerate his heart, and stuff the hole back with sponge.

[58] Some commentators, despite the absence of actual blood-sucking, find these witches to share "vampiric" qualities of the lamiae (lamiai) in Philostratus's narrative, thus offering it up for comparison.

[61][62] The story surrounds the tragedy of the daughter of King Crotopus of Argos named Psamathe, whose child by Apollo dies and she is executed for suspected promiscuity.

In Statius' version, the monster had a woman's face and breasts, and a hissing snake protruding from the cleft of her rusty-colored forehead, and it would slide into children's bedrooms to snatch them.

In his 9th-century treatise on divorce, Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, listed lamiae among the supernatural dangers that threatened marriages, and identified them with geniciales feminae,[74] female reproductive spirits.

[45] Philostratus's tale was reworked by Keats in his poem Lamia,[83] where it is made clear she bears the guise of a snake, which she wants to relinquish in return for human appearance.

[84][85] Daniel Ogden argues that one of her possible reincarnations, the monster of Argos killed by Coroebus had a "scaly gait", indicating she must have had an anguipedal form in an early version of the story,[86] although the Latin text in Statius merely reads inlabi (declension of labor) meaning "slides".

The examples are Aristophanes's reference to the "lamia's testicles", the scent of the monsters in the Libyan myth which allowed the humans to track down their lair, and the terrible stench of their urine that lingered in the clothing of Aristomenes, which they showered upon him after carving out his friend Sophocles's heart.

[94] Renaissance writer Angelo Poliziano wrote Lamia (1492), a philosophical work whose title is a disparaging reference to his opponents who dabble in philosophy without competence.

[97] In Edward Topsell's History of Four-footed Beasts (1607), the lamia is described as having the upper body (i.e., the face and breasts) of a woman, but with goatlike hind quarters with large and filthy "stones" (testicles) that smell like sea-calves, on authority of Aristophanes.

The 1982 novel Lamia by Tristan Travis sees the mythological monster relocated to 1970s Chicago, where she takes bloody vengeance on sex offenders while the cops try to figure out the mystery.

A gypsy curse associated with him has Lamia torment the victim for three days before having its minions drag them into Hell to burn in its fires for all eternity.

She is depicted as the daughter of Hecate and as having glowing green eyes with serpentine slits, shriveled-up hands with lizard-like claws on them, and crocodile-like teeth.

In Gerald Brom's Lost Gods, Lamia serves as the primary antagonist, depicted as an ancient succubus who prolongs her life by drinking the blood of her children and grandchildren.

The American TV series Raised by Wolves features a character named Lamia, an android mother, who has removable eyes and the ability to shapeshift.

[101] The 2024 British fantasy TV series Domino Day, set in modern-day Manchester, features Siena Kelly as the titular lead character, a witch who feeds on the energy of her dating-app hook-ups.

[104] Later traditions referred to many lamiae; these were folkloric monsters similar to vampires and succubi that seduced young men and then fed on their blood.

Although the lower body of Draper's Lamia is human, he alludes to her serpentine history by draping a shed snakeskin about her waist.