In ancient Greek Mythology, Lamia was a beautiful Daemon queen of Libya who ate children and was the daughter of the god Poseidon and the mother of the sea monsters Skylla and Akheilos.
Aristophanes said her name came from the greek word for gullet (which refers to her child eating habits) and a lot of accounts say she has a serpent's tail below her waist while other accounts say she has nothing more than a distorted face.
Later traditions referred to many Lamiae which were folkloric monsters similar to Vampires and Succubi that seduced young men and fed on their blood.
One feature the Lamia has is that Zeus gave her the ability to remove her eyes because the Lamia was cursed with the inability to close her eyes so that she would always obsess over the image of her deceased children. Some accounts say Hera (Zeus' wife) got jealous of the affair between Zeus and Lamia, so Hera took Lamia's children away and the grief and pain of her missing kids caused Lamia to rip her eyes out. Zeus then transformed Lamia into a monster, allowing her to get her revenge by hunting the children of others.