Lamia

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 The Kiss of the Enchantress (Isobel
commentators believe can be firmly traced to mythology from Lilian Gloag, c. 1890), inspired by
antiquity; they have found analogues in ancient texts that could be Keats's Lamia, depicts Lamia as
designated as lamiai (or lamiae) which are part-serpent beings. half-serpent, half-woman
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 (Crotopus).

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.

Contents
Etymology
Classical mythology
Lamia's eyes
Genealogy
Aristophanes
Hellenistic folklore
As children's bogey
As a seductress
 Apollonius of Tyana
Lamia the courtesan
Golden Ass
Kindreds
Poine of Argos
Libyan myth
Middle Ages
Interpretations
Identification as a serpent-woman
Hecate
Stench of a lamia
Mesopotamian connection
Modern age
Bestiary
Adaptations
Modern folk traditions
Fine arts
See also
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography

Etymology
A scholiast to Aristophanes claimed that Lamia's name derived from her having a large throat or gullet
(λαιμός; laimós).[3] Modern scholarship reconstructs a Proto-Indo-European stem *lem-, "nocturnal spirit",
whence also comes lemures.[4]

Classical mythology
In the myth, the Lamia was originally a beautiful woman beloved of Zeus, but Zeus's jealous wife Hera
robbed her of her children, either by kidnapping and hiding them away, killing them, or causing Lamia
herself to kill her own offspring.[7] She became disfigured from the torment, transforming into a terrifying
being who hunted and killed the children of others.[8]

Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC) gave a de-mythologized account of Lamia as a queen of Libya who
ordered her soldiers to snatch children from their mothers and kill them, and whose beauty gave way to
bestial appearance due to her savageness. The queen, as related by Diodorus, was born in a cave.[9][10]
Heraclitus Paradoxographus (2nd century) also gave a rationalizing account.[11]

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. An anonymous commentator on the
passage states this is a reference to the Lamia, but muddlingly combines this with Aristotle's subsequent
comments and describes her as a Scythian of the Pontus (Black Sea) area.[13][12]
Lamia's eyes

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. He also gifted her
with a shapeshifting ability in the process.[14][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.[9] Heraclitus's euhemerized account explains that Hera, consort of King Zeus,
gouged the eyes out of the beautiful Lamia.[16]

Genealogy

Lamia was the daughter born between King Belus of Egypt and Lybie, according to one source.[a][14][17]

According to the same source, Lamia was taken by Zeus to Italy, and that Lamos, the city of the man-eating
Laestrygonians, was named after her.[14] A different authority remarks that Lamia was once queen of the
Laestrygonians.[19][b][c]

Aristophanes

Aristophanes wrote in two plays an identically worded list of foul-smelling objects which included the
"Lamia's testicles", thus making Lamia's gender ambiguous.[21][d] This was later incorporated into Edward
Topsell's 17th-century envisioning of the lamia.[22]

It is somewhat uncertain if this refers to the one Lamia[23] or to "a Lamia" among many, as given in some
translations of the two plays;[24] a generic lamia is also supported by the definition as some sort of a "wild
beast" in the Suda.[25]

Hellenistic folklore

As children's bogey

The "Lamia" was a bogeyman or bugbear term, invoked by a mother or a nanny to frighten children into
good behavior.[18][26] Such practices are recorded by the 1st century Diodorus,[9] and other sources in
antiquity.[14][27]

Numerous sources attest to the Lamia being a "child-devourer", one of them being Horace.[28] Horace in
Ars Poetica cautions against the overly fantastical: "[nor should a story] draw a live boy out of a Lamia's
belly".[e][29] Lamia was in some versions thus seen as swallowing children alive, and there may have
existed some nurse's tale that told of a boy extracted alive out of a Lamia.[30]

The Byzantine lexicon Suda (10th century) gave an entry for lamia (Λαμία), with definitions and sources
much as already described.[31] The lexicon also has an entry under mormo (Μορμώ) stating that Mormo
and the equivalent mormolykeion[f] are called lamia, and that all these refer to frightful beings.[32][33][34]

"Lamia" has as synonyms "Mormo" and "Gello" according to the Scholia to Theocritus.[19]
Other bogeys have been listed in conjunction with "Lamia", for instance, the Gorgo, the eyeless giant
Ephialtes, a Mormolyce named by Strabo.[35]

As a seductress

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.[37][36]

Apollonius of Tyana

A representative example is Philostratus's novelistic biography Life of Apollonius of Tyana.[37]

It purports to give a full account of the capture of "Lamia of Corinth" by Apollonius, as the general
populace referred to the legend.[39] An apparition (phasma φάσμα[40][g]) which in the assumed guise of a
woman seduced one of Apollonius's young pupils.

Here, Lamia is the common vulgar term and empousa the proper term. For Apollonius in speech declares
that the seductress is "one of the empousai, which most other people would call lamiai and
mormolykeia".[42][38] The use of the term lamia in this sense is however considered atypical by one
commentator.[43]

Regarding the seductress, Apollonius further warned, "you are warming a snake (ophis) on your bosom,
and it is a snake that warms you".[44][40] It has been suggested from this discourse that the creature was
therefore "literally a snake".[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".[38] The last statement has led to the surmise that this lamia/empusa was a sort of blood-
sucking vampiress.[46]

Another aspect of her powers is that this empusa/lamia is able to create an illusion of a sumptuous mansion,
with all the accoutrements and even servants. But once Apollonius reveals her false identity at the wedding,
the illusion fails her and vanishes.[40]

Lamia the courtesan

A longstanding joke makes a word play between Lamia the monster and Lamia of Athens, the notorious
hetaira courtesan who captivated Demetrius Poliorcetes (d. 283 BC). The double-entendre sarcasm was
uttered by Demetrius's father, among others.[i][47][48] The same joke was used in theatrical Greek
comedy,[49] and generally.[50] The word play is also seen as being employed in Horace's Odes, to banter
Lucius Aelius Lamia the praetor.[j][51]

Golden Ass

In Apuleius's The Golden Ass[k] there appear the Thessalian "witches"[l] Meroe and her sister Panthia, who
are called lamiae in one instance.[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.[59]

Kindreds
Lamia's possible kindred kind appear in Classical works, but may be known by other names except for
isolated instance which calls it a lamia. Or they may be simply unnamed or differently named. And those
analogues that exhibit a serpentine form or nature have been especially noted.

Poine of Argos

One such possible lamia is the avenging monster sent by Apollo against the city of Argos and killed by
Coroebus. It is referred to as Poine or Ker[60] in classical sources, but later in the Medieval period, one
source does call it a lamia (First Vatican Mythographer, c. 9th to 11th century).[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. Apollo as punishment then sends the child-
devouring monster to Argos.

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.[63]
According to a scholiast to Ovid, it had a serpent's body carrying a human face.[64]

In Pausanias's version, the monster is called Poinē (ποινή), meaning "punishment" or "vengeance", but
there is nothing about a snake on her forehead.[65][66]

One evidence this may be a double of the Lamia comes from Plutarch, who equates the word empousa
with poinē.[67]

Libyan myth

A second example is a colony of man-eating monsters in Libya, described by Dio Chrysostom. These
monsters had a woman's torso, the lower extremities of a snake, and beastly hands.[68][69][o] The idea that
these creatures were lamiai seems to originate with Alex Scobie (1977),[71] and accepted by other
commentators.[72]

Middle Ages
By the Early Middle Ages, lamia (pl. lamiai or lamiae) was being glossed as a general term referring to a
class of beings. Hesychius of Alexandria's lexicon (c. 500 A.D.) glossed lamiai as apparations, or even
fish.[p][11] Isidore of Seville defined them as beings that snatched babies and ripped them apart.[11]

The Vulgate used "lamia" in Isaiah xxxiv:14 to translate "Lilith" of the Hebrew Bible.[73] Pope Gregory I
(d. 604)'s exegesis on the Book of Job explains that the lamia represented either heresy or hypocrisy.[73]

Christian writers also warned against the seductive potential of lamiae. 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.[75]
Interpretations
This Lamia of Libya has her double in Lamia-Sybaris of the legend around
Delphi, both indirectly associated with serpents. Strong parallel with the
Medusa has also been noted. These, and other considerations have
prompted modern commentators to suggest she is a dragoness.[76][77]

Another double of the Libyan Lamia may be Lamia, daughter of Poseidon.

Lamia by Zeus gave birth to a Sibyl according to Pausanias, and this would
have to be the Libyan Lamia, yet there is a tradition that Lamia the
daughter of Poseidon was the mother of a Sibyl.[78] Either one could be
Lamia the mother of Scylla mentioned in the Stesichorus (d. 555 BC)
fragment, and other sources.[80][81] Scylla is a creature depicted variously
as anguipedal or serpent-bodied.

Identification as a serpent-woman
Lamia (first version) by John
Diodorus Siculus (fl.  1st century BC), for instance, describes Lamia of William Waterhouse
Libya as having nothing more than a beastly appearance.[9] Diodorus, (1905).[q]
Duris of Samos and other sources which comprise the sources for building
an "archetypal" picture of Lamia do not designate her as a dragoness, or
give her explicit serpentine descriptions.[82]

In the 1st-century Life of Apollonius of Tyana the female empousa-lamia is

also called "a snake",[40] which may seem to the modern reader to be just a
metaphorical expression, but which Daniel Ogden insists is a literal
snake.[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.

Modern commentators have also tried to establish that she may have
originally been a dragoness, by inference.[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".[63] Lamia (second version), with
snakeskin on her lap, John
One of the doubles of Lamia of Libya is the Lamia-Sybaris, which is William Waterhouse (1909)
described only as a giant beast by Antoninus Liberalis (2nd
century).[87][88] It is noted that this character terrorized Delphi, just as the
dragon Python had.[88]

Close comparison is also made with the serpentine Medusa. Not only is Medusa identified with Libya, she
also had dealings with the three Graeae who had the removable eye shared between them. In some
versions, the removable eye belonged to the three Gorgons, Medusa and her sisters.[89]

Hecate
Some commentators have also equated Lamia with Hecate. The basis of this identification is the variant
maternities of scylla, sometimes ascribed to Lamia (as already mentioned), and sometimes to Hecate.[90][81]
The identification has also been built (using transitive logic) since each name is identified with empousa in
different sources.[45][92]

Stench of a lamia

A foul odor has been pointed out as a possible common motif or attribute of the lamiai. 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.[93]

Mesopotamian connection

Lamia may originate from the Mesopotamian demoness Lamashtu.[94]

Modern age
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. It
alludes to Plutarch's use of the term in De curiositate, where the
Greek writer suggests that the term Lamia is emblematic of
meddlesome busybodies in society.[95] Worded another way, Lamia
was emblematic of the hypocrisy of such scholars.[96]

From around the mid-15th century into the 16th century, the lamia
came to be regarded exclusively as witches.[97]

Bestiary

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 A lamia-like creature on the cover of
Aristophanes. It is covered with scales all over.[22] Other Worlds, November 1949.

Adaptations

John Keats's Lamia in his Lamia and Other Poems is a reworking of the tale in Apollonius's biography by
Philostratus, described above. In Keats's version, the student Lycius replaces Menippus the Lycian. For the
descriptions and nature of the Lamia, Keats drew from Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy.[98] August
Enna wrote an opera called Lamia.[36]

English composer Dorothy Howell composed a tone poem Lamia which was played repeatedly to great
acclaim under its dedicatee Sir Henry Wood at the London Promenade concerts in the 1920s. It has been
recorded more recently by Rumon Gamba conducting the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra for Chandos
Records in a 2019 release of British tone poems.
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.[99]

Lamia is the main antagonist in the 2009 horror movie Drag Me to Hell
voiced by Art Kimbro. In the movie, Lamia is described as "the most
feared of all Demons" and having the head and hooves of a goat. A gypsy
curse associated with him have Lamia torment the victim for three days
before having its minions drag them into Hell to burn in its fires for all
A 17th-century depiction of
eternity.
Lamia from Edward Topsell's
The History of Four-Footed
Lamia appears in Rick Riordan's The Demigod Diaries, appearing in its
Beasts
fourth short story The Son of Magic. She is depicted as having glowing
green eyes with serpentine slits, shriveled-up hands with lizard-like claws
on them, and crocodile-like teeth.

In the anime Monster Musume, the character Miia is a lamaia.

Lamia are featured in the progressive rock album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis on the
track "The Lamia." They are depicted as female creatures with 'snake-like' bodies and seduce the
protagonist Rael in an attempt to devour him, but as soon as they 'taste' Rael's body, the blood that enters
the lamias' body causes their death.

Raised by Wolves features a character named Lamia, an android mother, who has removable eyes and the
ability to shapeshift.[100]

Modern folk traditions

In modern Greek folk tradition, the Lamia has survived and retained many of her traditional attributes.[101]
John Cuthbert Lawson remarks "the chief characteristics of the Lamiae, apart from their thirst for blood, are
their uncleanliness, their gluttony, and their stupidity".[102] The contemporary Greek proverb, "της Λάμιας
τα σαρώματα" ("the Lamia's sweeping"), epitomises slovenliness;[102] and the common expression, "τό
παιδί τό 'πνιξε η Λάμια" ("the child has been strangled by the Lamia"), explains the sudden death of young
children.[102]

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.[103]

Fine arts

In a 1909 painting by Herbert James Draper, the Lamia who moodily watches the serpent on her forearm
appears to represent a hetaera. Although the lower body of Draper's Lamia is human, he alludes to her
serpentine history by draping a shed snakeskin about her waist. In Renaissance emblems, Lamia has the
body of a serpent and the breasts and head of a woman, like the image of hypocrisy.

See also
Abyzou
Aswang
Banshee
 Ceto
La Llorona
Lamia (Basque mythology)
Lamnidae
Melusine
Moloch
Nāga
Undine
Vrykolakas

The Lamia
(1909),[r] a
painting by
Herbert James
Draper

Notes
a. Making her the granddaughter of Poseidon. Lybie is a personification of Libya.
b. The same scholium states that Mormo and Gello are equivalent to Lamia, therefore by
transference Mormo is queen of the Laestrygonians, hence: Stannish & Doran (2013),
p. 118.
c. Horace makes a related joke, referring to the aforementioned Lucius Aelius Lamia the
praetor as "Lamus", in this instance regarded as the founding figure of the city of the
Laestrygonians.[20]
d. This prompted Henderson (1998) to "humorlessly infer" that the Lamia must have been a
hermaphrodite. Ogden (2013a), p. 91, note 117.
e. Neu pransae Lamiae vivum puerum extrahat alvo (v. 340). Alexander Pope translates the
line: Shall Lamia in our sight her sons devour, /and give them back alive the self-same hour?
f. Begins with lower case
g. This phasma is a more "generic term for creatures".[41]
h. Keats's reworking makes this Lamia have serpent form for certain, which she wants to lose.
i. Demetrius's father Antigonus and Demochares of Soli.
j. Grandfather of his namesake, the consul Lucius Aelius Lamia (d. 33 CE).
k. Or Metamorphoses, thus abbreviated "Apu. Met."
l. They are not strictly speaking "witches", but they are referred to as such by convention.[52] In
the Latin text, Meroe is referred to as a saga, a wise woman or soothsayer.[53]
m. It has been cautioned that there may not be great import in the label "lamiae" here beyond
derogatory insult,[50] and Apuleius uses the label rather indescriminately elsewhere.[56]
n. The Elizabethan translator William Adlington rendered lamiae as "hags".[57]
o. Incidentally, Dio in Oration 37 quotes a Sibyl's song in which the Sibyl (Libyan Sibyl)
identifies her mother as Lamia (daughter of Poseidon).[70]
p. Aristotle says there is a shark called "lamia".Resnick & Kitchell (2007), p. 83
q. Note the snakeskin wrapped around her arm and waist.
 r. Lamia has human legs and a snakeskin around her waist. There is also a small snake on
her right forearm.

References

Citations
1. 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).
2. West, David R. (1995), Some cults of Greek goddesses and female daemons of Oriental
origin (https://books.google.com/books?id=sZ9tAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Lamia's%22), Butzon &
Bercker, p. 293, ISBN 9783766698438
3. Scholiast on Wasps, 1035.[2]
4. Polomé, Edgar C.; Adams, Douglas Q. (1997). "Spirit". In Mallory, J. P.; Adams, Douglas Q.
(eds.). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Taylor & Francis. p. 538.
5. Johnston, Sarah Iles, ed. (2013). Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the
Dead in Ancient Greece (https://books.google.com/books?id=57MwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA17
4). Univ of California Press. p. 174. ISBN 9780520280182.
6. Ogden (2013b), p. 98: "Because of Hera ... she lost [or: destroyed] the children she bore".
7. Duris of Samos, Libyica, Book 2.[5][6]
8. Duris of Samos (d. 280 B. C.), Libyca, quoted by Ogden (2013b), p. 98
9. Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC), Library of History XX.41, quoted by Ogden (2013b),
p. 98
10. Bekker, Immanuel, ed., Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica (http://data.perseus.org/citati
ons/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0060.tlg001.perseus-grc2:20.41) XX.41
11. Ogden (2013b), p. 99.
12. Fisher, Elizabeth A. (2009), "The Anonymous Commentary on Nicomachean Ethics VII:
Language, Style and Implications" (https://books.google.com/books?id=-_tEnTJrUY0C&pg=
PA147), in Barber, Charles E.; Jenkins, David Todd (eds.), Medieval Greek Commentaries
on the Nicomachean Ethics, Brill, pp. 147–148, ISBN 978-9004173934
13. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0086.tlg01
0.perseus-eng1:1148b) 1148b.[12]
14. Scholium from the Byzantine-Hellenistic period to Aristophanes, Peace 758, quoted by
Ogden (2013b), p. 98
15. Bell, Robert E. (1993), Women of Classical Mythology, drawing upon Diodorus Siculus
XX.41; Suidas 'Lamia'; Plutarch 'On Being a Busy-Body' 2; Scholiast on Aristophanes's
Peace 757; Eustathius on Odyssey 1714)
16. Heraclitus Paradoxographus (2nd century) De Incredibilibus 34, quoted by Ogden (2013b),
p. 98
17. Diodorus Siculus, 20.41.3-6, Scholia to Aristophanes, Wasps 1035; Commentary 37 to
Heraclitus the Allegorist
18. Ogden (2013b), p. 98.
19. Scholium to Theocritus Idylls 15.40.[18][5]
20. Mulroy, D. (1994), Horace's Odes and Epodes (https://books.google.com/books?id=DotEVjz
bSHcC&pg=PA86), University of Michigan Press, p. 86, ISBN 978-0472105311
21. Aristophanes, The Wasps, 1035; Peace 758, cited by Ogden (2013a), p. 91, note 117.
22. Topsell, Edward (1607), "Of the lamia (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A13820.0001.001/
1:46?rgn=div1;view=fulltext), The historie of foure-footed beastes.
23. viz. Scholia to the passages whose annotations refer to her,[14]
24. "a Lamia's groin" (Benjamin Bickley Rogers, 1874), "a foul Lamia's testicles" (Athenian
Society, 1912), "sweaty Crotch of a Lamia" (Paul Roche, 2005).
25. "Lamia (http://www.stoa.org/sol-entries/lambda/85)", Suda On Line, tr. David Whitehead. 27
May 2008
26. Leinweber (1994), "Witchcraft and Lamiae in 'The Golden Ass'" Folklore 105, p. 77.
27. Tertullian, Against Valentinius (ch. iii)
28. Ogden (2013a), pp. 90–91, note 114.
29. Kilpatrick, Ross Stuart (1990). The Poetry of Criticism: Horace, Epistles II and Ars Poetica (h
ttps://books.google.com/books?id=R_cVPfDRx3QC&pg=PA80). University of Alberta. p. 80.
ISBN 9780888641465.
30. Member of the university (1894). A literal Translation of Horace's Art of Poetry. With
explanatory notes (https://books.google.com/books?id=SD9WAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA22).
Cambridge. p. 22.
31. "Lamia (http://www.stoa.org/sol-entries/lambda/84)", Suda On Line, tr. David Whitehead. 1
April 2008
32. Suidas (1834), Gaisford, Thomas (ed.), Lexicon: post Ludolphum Kusterum ad codices
manuscriptos. K - Psi (https://books.google.com/books?id=XupCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA2523),
vol. 2, Typographeo Academico, p. 2523: "Μορμώ: λέγεται καὶ Μορμώ, Μορμοῦς, ὡς
Σαπφώ. καὶ Μορμών, Μορμόνος. Ἀριστοφάνης: ἀντιβολῶ σ', ἀπένεγκέ μου τὴν Μορμόνα.
ἄπο τὰ φοβερά: φοβερὰ γὰρ ὑπῆρχεν ἡ Μορμώ. καὶ αὖθις Ἀριστοφάνης: Μορμὼ τοῦ
θράσους. μορμολύκειον, ἣν λέγουσι Λαμίαν: ἔλεγον δὲ οὕτω καὶ τὰ φοβερά. λείπει δὲ τὸ
ὡς, ὡς Μορμώ, ἢ ἐπιρρηματικῶς ἐξενήνεκται, ὡς εἰ ἔλεγε, φεῦ τοῦ θράσους".
33. Ogden (2013a), p. 91, note 114
34. "Mormo (http://www.stoa.org/sol-entries/mu/1212)", Suda On Line, tr. Richard Rodriguez. 11
June 2009.
35. Hamilton, H.C.; Falconer, W. edd., Strabo, Geography (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:ct
s:greekLit:tlg0099.tlg001.perseus-eng2:1.2) I.2.8
36. Skene, Bradley (2016). Lamia (https://books.google.com/books?id=PHbeCwAAQBAJ&pg=P
A369). The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters. Routledge. pp. 369–
370. ISBN 9781317044260.
37. Schmitz, Leonhard (1873), Smith, William (ed.), "La'mia" (https://books.google.com/books?id
=nVkoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA713), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and
mythology, London: John Murray, vol. 2, pp. 713–714 Perseus Project "La'mia (https://www.p
erseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aentry%3Dlamia-bi
o-2)".
38. Philostratus (1912). "25" (https://books.google.com/books?id=qTcIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA26).
In Honour of Apollonius of Tyana. Vol. 2. Translated by Phillimore, J. S. Clarendon Press.
pp. 24–26.
39. This is given in the concluding paragraph of the chapter, Vit. Apollon. 4.25. Phillimore tr., p.
26.[38]
40. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 4.25, quoted by Ogden (2013a), pp. 106–107.
41. Felton (2013), p. 232, n15.
42. In Greek: "μία τῶν ἐμπουσῶν ἐστιν, ἃς λαμίας τε καὶ μορμολυκίας οἱ πολλοὶ ἡγοῦνται", Vit.
Apollon. 4.25. Where Felton gives "mormolyces",[41] Ogden "renders as "bogey".[40]
43. Stoneman, Richard (1991). Vampire (https://books.google.com/books?id=v9woAAAAYAAJ&
q=%22lamia%22). Greek Mythology: An Encyclopedia of Myth and Legend. Aquarian Press.
pp. 178–179. ISBN 9780850309348.: "Lamia (not the usual application of this term)".
44. Ogden (2013a), p. 90.
45. Ogden (2013b), p. 107.
46. Schmitz, Leonhard (1849), Smith, William (ed.), "Lamia" (https://books.google.com/books?id
=nVkoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA713), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and
mythology, London: John Murray, vol. 2, pp. 713–714 Perseus Project "La'mia (2) (https://ww
w.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aentry%3Dlami
a-bio-2)".
47. Kapparis, Konstantinos (2017), Prostitution in the Ancient Greek World (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=RsM7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA118), Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, p. 118,
ISBN 9783110557954
48. Plutarch, Demetrius (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg057.perseus
-eng1:19) 19, Perrin, Bernadotte, ed.
49. Kapparis (2017), p. 118, citing Lamia O'Sullivan, Lara (2009), pp. 53–79, esp. p. 69
50. Stannish & Doran (2013), p. 117:"This is a pejorative expression, not a formal classification,
but it is still meaningful"; "..labeling of a dangerous woman as a lamia was not uncommon..
Aelian records.. a notorious prostitute.. (Miscellany 12.17, 13.8)".
51. Griffiths, Alan (2002), "The Odes: Just where do you draw the line?" (https://books.google.co
m/books?id=ZfDxfG0O9VUC&pg=PA72), Traditions and Contexts in the Poetry of Horace,
Cambridge University Press, p. 72, ISBN 9781139439312
52. Frangoulidis, Stavros (2008). Witches, Isis and Narrative: Approaches to Magic in Apuleius'
"Metamorphoses" (https://books.google.com/books?id=oHtjrI9KMGkC&pg=PA116). Walter
de Gruyter. p. 116. ISBN 9783110210033.
53. Apul. Met.1.8 (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi1212.phi002.perseus-lat1:1.
8)
54. Apul. Met. 1.17. Leinweber (1994), p. 78: "Admittedly, Apuleius' use of the term "Lamiae" is
an isolated occurrence. Elsewhere, Meroe and her sister are referred to as witches or
sorcerer".
55. Leinweber (1994), pp. 77, 79–81.
56. Cupid refers to Psyche's sisters as Lamiae, Apul. Met. 5. 11(Stannish & Doran (2013), p.
117, note 26)
57. [Apuleius] (1989), Metamorphoses, Harvard University Press
58. Apul. Met. 1.12 (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi1212.phi002.perseus-lat1:
1.12)–17 (in Latin)
59. Stannish & Doran (2013), pp. 115–118.
60. Greek Anthology 7.154, cited by Pache (2004), pp. 72–73
61. Pache (2004), p. 70.
62. Ogden (2013a), p. 87.
63. Statius, Thebaid, I. 562–669, quoted by Ogden (2013b), pp. 100–102; Latin text: Thebais (htt
ps://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a2008.01.0498) I; Bailey, D.
R. Shackleton tr. (2003) Thebaid (https://books.google.com/books?id=_3ExP-WzkJYC&pg=
PA83), Book I.
64. Fontenrose (1959), p. 104.
65. Ogden (2013a), p. 102.
66. Pausanias, translated by Jones, W.H.S.; Ormerod, H.A., Description of Greece (http://data.pe
rseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng1:1.43), 1. 43. 7 - 8
67. Plutarch, Moralia 1101c, cited by Ogden (2013b), p. 107.
68. Dio Chrysostom, Orations, 5.1, 5–27, quoted by Ogden (2013b), pp. 103–104
69. Cohoon, J. W. tr., ed. Orations (https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dio_C
hrysostom/Discourses/5*.html) 5 (Loeb Classics).
70. Crosby, Henry Lamar ed., tr., Orations (https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Text
s/Dio_Chrysostom/Discourses/37*.html) 37.13 (Loeb Classics).
71. Scobie, Alex (1977), "Some Folktales in Graeco-Roman and Far Eastern Sources",
Philologus, 121: 1–23, doi:10.1524/phil.1977.121.1.1 (https://doi.org/10.1524%2Fphil.1977.
121.1.1), S2CID 201808604 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:201808604), cited by
Resnick & Kitchell (2007), p. 82
72. Felton (2013), pp. 231–232.
73. Lea, Henry Charles (1986) [1939], Materials toward a History of Witchcraft (https://books.goo
gle.com/books?id=Ael9AAAAMAAJ&q=%22Gregory%22), vol. 1, AMS Press, p. 110,
ISBN 9780404184209
74. Hincmar, De divortio Lotharii ("On Lothar's divorce"), XV Interrogatio, MGH Concilia 4
Supplementum, 205, as cited by Bernadotte Filotas, Pagan Survivals, Superstitions and
Popular Cultures in Early Medieval Pastoral Literature (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, 2005, p. 305.
75. In his 1628 Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, Du Cange made note of the geniciales
feminae, and associated them with words pertaining to generation and genitalia; entry
online. (http://ducange.enc.sorbonne.fr/GENICIALES)
76. Ogden (2013b), p. 105.
77. Fontenrose (1959), p. 44, as the female counterpart of the Python, also of Delphi; and
passim.
78. Fontenrose (1959), p. 107.
79. Cook, Erwin F. (2006), The Odyssey in Athens: Myths of Cultural Origins (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=NpIjr5U4kocC&pg=PA89), Cornell University Press, p. 89,
ISBN 0801473357
80. Campbell, David A., tr., ed. (1991), Stesichorus, Frag 220 (https://books.google.com/books?i
d=iZRfAAAAMAAJ&q=Lamia+Poseidon), ISBN 9780674995253, p. 133, and note 2. This
fragment = Scholios on Apollonius Rhodius 4.828.[79]
81. While Odyssey 12.124 itself says Scylla's mother was Crataeis, its scholiast mentions the
non-Homeric tradition that Lamia was her mother.[79]
82. Ogden (2013b), pp. 98, 99, 105: "Nothing here explicitly declares.. a serpentine element"
(Duris and Scholium), p. 98; "nothing here, again, speaks directly of a serpentin nature"
(Diodorus and Heraclitus Paradoxographus), p. 98.
83. Stoneman (1991), pp. 178–179 "Vampire"
84. Ogden (2013b), p. 102: "This is not to say that the notion of an archetypal Lamia preceded
the notion of lamiai as a category of monster".
85. Fontenrose (1959).
86. Ogden (2013b), pp. 97, 102.
87. Antoninus Liberalis (2nd century), Metamorphoses 8, paraphrasing Nicander, 2nd century
B.C., quoted by Ogden (2013b), p. 105
88. Fontenrose (1959), pp. 44–45.
89. Fontenrose (1959), pp. 284–287.
90. Odyssey 12.124 and scholia, noted by Karl Kerenyi, Gods of the Greeks 1951:38 note 71.
 91. Scholia to Aristophanes, Frogs 393: Rutherford, Willam G., ed. (1896), Scholia
Aristophanica (https://books.google.com/books?id=JDY_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA312), vol. 1,
London: Macmillan, pp. 312–313
92. Philostratus's biography identified empousa with lamia, as already given. Empusa is
equated with Hecate in a fragment of Aristophanes's lost play, Tagenistae.[91]
93. Ogden (2013a), p. 91.
94. Ogden (2013b), p. 97.
95. Candido, Igor (2010), Celenza, Christopher S. (ed.), "The Role of the Philosopher in Late
Quattrocento Florence: Poliziano's Lamia and the Legacy of the Pico-Barbaro Epistolary
Controversy", Angelo Poliziano's Lamia: Text, Translation, and Introductory Studies, BRILL,
p. 106
96. Fernández-Armesto, Felipe (2011), 1492: The Year Our World Began (https://books.google.c
om/books?id=Duo_AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA129), p. 129, ISBN 9781408809501
97. Brauner, Sigrid (2001). Fearless Wives and Frightened Shrews: The Construction of the
Witch in Early Modern Germany (https://books.google.com/books?id=bY7DIOa_YZEC&pg=
PA123). University of Massachusetts Press. p. 123. ISBN 9781558492974.
98. Keats made a note to this effect at the end of the first page in the fair copy he made: see
William E. Harrold, "Keats' 'Lamia' and Peacock's 'Rhododaphne'" The Modern Language
Review 61.4 (October 1966:579–584) p 579 and note with bibliography on this point.
99. "Lamia" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6635346-lamia).
100. "Raised by Wolves: Mother's Real Name Has TERRIFYING Implications" (https://www.cbr.c
om/raised-by-wolves-mother-real-name-lamia-child-killer/). CBR. 2020-09-03. Retrieved
2021-01-04.
101. Lamia receives a section in Georgios Megas and Helen Colaclides, Folktales of Greece
(Folktales of the World) (University of Chicago Prtes) 1970.
102. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals
(Cambridge University Press) 1910:175ff.
103. Jøn, A. Asbjørn (2003). "Vampire Evolution" (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2833
18599). METAphor (August): 19–23.

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