In Greek mythology, Ixion ( ; ) was king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly.Virgil, Aeneid 6.601 Ixion desired Hera, the queen of the gods and wife of Zeus, and his arrogant attempt to have sex with her led to his eternal punishment in Tartarus.
Family Ixion was the son of Perimele,Diodorus Siculus, 4.69.3 and either Ares, Leonteus,Hyginus, Fabulae 62 or Antion, or Phlegyas (whose name connotes "fiery").Strabo, 9, p. 442 Ixion had a son named PirithousPeirithoös also slew a kinsman, which occasioned his own wandering in search of catharsis.Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 4.63.1; Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.210; Apollodorus, 1.8.2; Hyginus, Fabulae 14.2, 79 & 257 Pirithous may have possibly instead been his stepson, if Zeus were Pirithous's father, as Zeus claims to his wife Hera in Iliad 14."come, let us turn to lovemaking. For never did such desire for goddess or woman ever flood over me, taming the heart in my breast, not even when I loved Ixion's wife, who bore Peirithoös, the gods' equal in counsel ..." Even more tactless, Zeus goes on to tell Hera of several more of his conquests. Iliad 14.
Background Ixion married Dia,Dia "is only another name for Hebe, the daughter of Hera, and indeed was probably the name for Hera herself, as 'she who belongs to Zeus' or 'the Heavenly one'". a daughter of Deioneus,Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 4.69.3 (English) GreekThe name is frequently misspelled as 'Deinoneus'. and promised his father-in-law a valuable present. However, he did not pay the bride price, so Deioneus stole some of Ixion's horses in retaliation. Ixion concealed his resentment and invited his father-in-law to a feast at Larissa. When Deioneus arrived, Ixion pushed him into a bed of burning coals and wood, concealed underneath wood and ash. These circumstances are secondary to the fact of Ixion's primordial act of murder of a kinsman and a guest. The crime could be accounted for quite differently: in the Greek Anthology, among a collection of inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus, is an epigrammatic description of Ixion slaying Phorbas and Polymelus, who had slain his mother, Megara because she had refused to marry one of them.The Greek Anthology 3.12 (Greek text)
Defiled by his act, Ixion went mad; the neighboring princes were so offended by his act of treachery and violation of xenia that they refused to perform the rituals that would cleanse Ixion of his guilt (see catharsis). Thereafter, Ixion lived as an outlaw and was shunned. By killing his father-in-law, Ixion was reckoned the first man guilty of kin-slaying in Greek mythology.
This act alone would have warranted Ixion a terrible punishment, but Zeus took pity on Ixion and brought him to Olympus and introduced him at the table of the gods. Instead of being grateful, Ixion grew lustful for Hera,He was already wedded to her double, Dia.Lucian, Dialogi Deorum 9 Zeus's wife, a further violation of guest–host relations and an act of hubris against the king of the gods. Zeus found out about his intentions and made a cloud in the shape of Hera, which became known as Nephele (from nephos "cloud") and tricked Ixion into coupling with it. From the union of Ixion and the false-Hera cloud came ImbrosTzetzes, Chiliades 9.20 lines 464, 469 & 477 or Centauros,Apollodorus, Epitome 1.20 who mated with the Magnesian mares on Mount Pelion, Pindar told,Pindar, Pythian Ode 2 engendering the race of Centaurs, who are called the Ixionidae from their descent.
Ixion was expelled from Olympus and blasted with a thunderbolt. Zeus ordered Hermes to bind Ixion to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning. Therefore, Ixion was bound to a burning solar wheel for all eternity, at first spinning across the heavens,The meticulous Pindar mentions the feathers. but in later myth transferred to Tartarus.Virgil, Georgics 3.39 & 4.486; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.461–465 & 10.42
Some versions of the myth portray Ixion as being trapped in Hades after his death.
Only when Orpheus played his lyre during his trip to the Underworld to rescue Eurydice did Ixion's wheel stop spinning for a while.
Analysis Robert L. Fowler observes that "The details are very odd, the narrative motivation creaks at every juncture ... the myth smacks of aetiology." He notes that Martin Nilsson suggestedNilsson, The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (1931) p. 135 note 19. an origin in rain-making magic, with which he concurs: "In Ixion's case the necessary warning about the conduct of magic has taken the form of blasphemous and dangerous conduct on the part of the first officiant."
In the fifth century, Pindar's Second Pythian Ode () expands on the example of Ixion, applicable to Hiero I of Syracuse, the tyrant of whom the poet sings. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Timasitheos each wrote a tragedy of Ixion though none of these accounts have survived.
Ixion was a figure also known to the Etruscans; he is depicted in an engraving on the back of the mirror, bound to an eight-spoked, winged wheel , now in the collection of the British Museum.BM GR 1900.6–11.3; C. Lochin (1990) Ixion in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Whether the Etruscans shared the Ixion figure with Hellenes from early times or whether Ixion figured among those Greek myths that were adapted at later dates to fit the Etruscan world-view is unknown.
See also Sisyphus Wanyūdō
Citations and footnotes
Sources
Apollodorus (1921) The Library. translation by J.G. Frazer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press / London, UK: William Heinemann. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website. Diodorus Siculus (1989) The Library of History. translated by C.H. Oldfather. Loeb Classical Library, Vol. 3. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press / London, UK: William Heinemann. Books 4.59–8. Online version at Bill Thayer's Web Site Diodorus Siculus (1888–1890) Bibliotheca Historica. Vol 1–2. Immanel Bekker; Ludwig Dindorf; Friedrich Vogel (eds.) Leipzig, DE: B.G. Teubneri. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Gaius Julius Hyginus (n.d.) Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
Lucian of Samosata (1905) Dialogues of the Gods. translated by H.W. Fowler & F.G. Fowler. Oxford, UK: The Clarendon Press. Online version at theoi.com Luciani Samosatensis (Lucian) (1896) Opera. Karl Jacobitz (ed). Leipzig, DE: B.G. Teubneri. Vol. I. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Pindar (1990) Odes translated by Diane Arnson Svarlien. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Pindar (1937) The Odes of Pindar including the Principal Fragments. translation by John Sandys. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press / London, UK: William Heinemann. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Strabo (1924) The Geography of Strabo. H.L. Jones (ed). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press / London, UK: William Heinemann, Ltd. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Strabo (1877) Geographica. A. Meineke (ed). Leipzig, DE: Teubner. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) (1910) Aeneid. translated by Theodore C. Williams. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) (1900) Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics. J.B. Greenough (ed). Boston. Ginn & Co. Online translated version at the Perseus Digital Library Online Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
External links
The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Ixion) Gaelle Ginestet, "Ixion" in A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Classical Mythology (2009–), ed. Yves Peyré. .