Lamia

One of the first vampire like creatures is from a Greek myth.  The Greek gods always seem to be creating monsters and mayhem.  This is no less true for Zeus.  During a messy love affair that Zeus has with Princess Lamia [ley-mee-uh] , his jealous wife ends up capturing and killing all of the Princesses children.

Lamia takes her revenge by stealing the babies of mortals and sucking the life out of them.  This myth, like any other,  changes throughout time.  In a later version, Lamia evolves into a " legion of unearthly beings with the upper body of a woman and lower shapes of a serpent."  These creatures were called lamaie [ley-mee-ee] and they sucked blood of children and could alter what they looked like so they could seduce men to lead them to their death.

The main lesson of this myth....don't cheat on your spouse.