Articles relating to Lamia and her depictions. She is a child-eating monster of Greek mythology and, in later tradition, was regarded as a type of night-haunting spirit ( daemon). 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.