As fontes antigas do vocábulo grego Lâmia: catalogação, tradução e comentário dos fragmentos

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to make a catalogation of the ancient sources of the Greek word lâmia, and point at its semantic possibilities. This word has a particularly long life in the Greek Culture, extending its use from around the seventh century B.C.E., until the Modern Greek Folklore, which had its formal study started in the beginnings of the twentieth century B.C.E. Besides that, this word crossed the Greek borders and was adopted by other western peoples. In Antiquity, was used in three main fields of the human knowledge: Mythology, as a monster that frightened disobedient children, something like the "bugbear" of Ancient Greece; Historiography, in two different ways: first as the name of the main city of the Malians, Lamia, the capital of the region of Phtiotida in Central Greece, and second as the proper names of three real women, two hetaerae and a noble; Natural History or Biology, as the name of a voracious Mediterranean fish, a shark. There are, still, possible iconographical sources.