Lamia

Who Was Lamia?

Lamia was a queen of Libya, famed for her beauty, who in Greek tradition lost all her children and became a child-snatching monster. Diodorus Siculus tells her story, Pausanias and Plutarch name her as the mother of the first Sibyl by Zeus, and Greek writers from Aristophanes to Lucian use her name as the bogey that frightened children.

Family and Background

Pausanias reports that, according to the Greeks, the first woman to chant oracles, who was named Sibyl by the Libyans, was a daughter of Zeus and of Lamia, daughter of Poseidon (Pausanias 10.12.1). Plutarch records the same tradition: some said the Sibyl came from the Malians and was the daughter of Lamia, whose father was Poseidon (Plutarch, The Oracles at Delphi 9). Diodorus Siculus, who tells her story at greater length, gives her no parents.

What Does the Name Lamia Mean?

“Lamia” was a personal name and also the name of a bogey. The geographer Strabo, discussing why myths are told to children, says that fabulous stories please and also frighten, and that the stories used to scare children are such as Lamia, the Gorgon, Ephialtes and Mormolyke (Strabo 1.2.8). Mormolyke is thus listed beside Lamia as a separate frightening figure and not another name for her.

Was Lamia a Real Queen?

Diodorus Siculus calls her a queen of surpassing beauty, and says that the myth placed her in a cave in Libya. He quotes Euripides to show that she belonged to Libya: “Who does not know the name, a reproach to mortals, of Lamia of the Libyan race?” (Diodorus Siculus 20.41.3–6). Diodorus treats her as a figure of myth and offers a rational explanation for parts of it.

Lamia, the Beautiful Queen of Libya

One of Zeus’s Lovers

Pausanias records Zeus as the father of Lamia’s child, the Sibyl (Pausanias 10.12.1). Neither Pausanias nor Diodorus describes how Zeus came to Lamia.

Hera’s Jealousy

The popular story that Hera, jealous of Zeus’s love for Lamia, destroyed her children is not told in the ancient texts. Diodorus says only that all the children she bore died, without naming a cause, and Pausanias and Plutarch mention Lamia only as the mother of the Sibyl (Diodorus Siculus 20.41.3; Pausanias 10.12.1; Plutarch, The Oracles at Delphi 9).

The Children of Lamia

A Mother’s Grief

According to Diodorus, all the children she bore died, and she was weighed down by grief at her misfortune (Diodorus Siculus 20.41.3). He does not say what killed them. The only child of Lamia named in the sources is the Sibyl, her daughter by Zeus (Pausanias 10.12.1).

Lamia, the Child-Eating Monster

Lamia’s Revenge

Envying other women their happiness in their children, Lamia ordered the babies to be snatched from their mothers’ arms and killed at once (Diodorus Siculus 20.41.3).

The Cave of Ivy and Briony

Diodorus places the story at a cave of good size at the foot of a smooth cliff, covered over with ivy and smilax, on the road through Libya. He says that her savagery of soul was reflected in her appearance, which in later time became bestial (Diodorus Siculus 20.41.2–3). He describes her only as a queen whose looks turned beast-like: he gives her no snake’s body, and he does not say that she ate the children.

The Removable Eyes

Diodorus gives a rationalizing reason for the eyes. When Lamia was drunk, she let everyone do what they wished without watching them, so the people of the country thought that she could not see; hence the tale that she put her eyes into a basket (Diodorus Siculus 20.41.5). Plutarch has the same tale as a simple image: in the story, Lamia sleeps at home blind, with her eyes laid away in a vessel, and when she goes out she puts them in and sees (Plutarch, On Being a Busybody 2). Neither author connects the eyes with Zeus or with sleeplessness.

Lamia, the Bogey-Woman

A Name to Frighten Children

Diodorus says that the story of Lamia lived on among children down to his own time, and that her name was the most frightening thing to them (Diodorus Siculus 20.41.4). Strabo says the same of Lamia as a tale used to scare the young (Strabo 1.2.8), and Lucian speaks of children who still dread Mormo and Lamia (Lucian, The Lover of Lies 2).

Mormo and the Empusae

Mormo, or Mormolyke, was another bogey of Greek children. Strabo and Lucian name her beside Lamia as a separate figure, not as another name for her (Strabo 1.2.8; Lucian, The Lover of Lies 2). The Empusa was a shape-changing phantom of the underworld, met by Dionysus and Xanthias in Aristophanes’ Frogs (Aristophanes, Frogs 285–305); the ancient texts do not identify Lamia with her.

Lamia in Ancient Literature

Diodorus Siculus’s Library of History

The longest ancient account is in Book 20 of Diodorus, who tells it as part of the march of Ophellas, a general who joined Agathocles against Carthage, through the Libyan desert, in the course of which his army passes the cave (Diodorus Siculus 20.41).

Aristophanes’s Wasps and Peace

Aristophanes twice describes the monster-like politician Cleon with the “unwashed testicles of Lamia”, as one of several grotesque parts that make up the creature (Wasps 1035; Peace 758). In Wasps 1177 he also refers to a story in which Lamia is caught and breaks wind.

Strabo’s Geography

Strabo names Lamia among the fabulous stories that frighten children (Strabo 1.2.8).

Pausanias and Plutarch

Pausanias, describing the rock at Delphi where the Sibyl Herophile was said to have chanted her oracles, gives the older Sibyl’s descent from Zeus and Lamia (Pausanias 10.12.1). Plutarch cites the same family in The Oracles at Delphi 9, and uses Lamia’s removable eyes as an image for the busybody who is blind at home and sharp-eyed abroad (On Being a Busybody 2).

Misconceptions and Lesser-Known Facts

Was Lamia Born a Monster?

No. Diodorus describes her as a queen of surpassing beauty whose face became bestial only later, because of the savagery of her soul after the deaths of her children (Diodorus Siculus 20.41.3).

Not the Same as Scylla or Echidna

Lamia is sometimes grouped with Echidna or Scylla, but her story is different. Hesiod makes Echidna half nymph and half serpent from birth (Hesiod, Theogony 295–305), and Homer describes Scylla as a many-headed monster in her cave (Odyssey 12.85–100); Lamia, in Diodorus, was a human queen before she became a terror.

Lamia Sources

Diodorus Siculus 20.41 (the cave in Libya, the death of her children, the eyes, and the quotation from Euripides); Pausanias 10.12.1 (Lamia, daughter of Poseidon, and the Sibyl); Plutarch, The Oracles at Delphi 9 and On Being a Busybody 2; Strabo 1.2.8; Lucian, The Lover of Lies 2; Aristophanes, Wasps 1035, 1177, Peace 758 and Frogs 285–305; Hesiod, Theogony 295–305; Homer, Odyssey 12.85–100.

See Also: Zeus, Hera, Echidna, Scylla, Monsters, Poseidon, Sibyl, Gorgons