Ixion
Encyclopedia
In Greek mythology
, Ixion (icon ; , Ixīōn; gen.: Ἰξίωνος) was king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly
, and a son of Ares
, or Leonteus
, or Antion and Perimele
, or the notorious evildoer Phlegyas
, whose name connotes "fiery". Peirithoös
was his son (or stepson, if Zeus
were his father, as the sky-god claims to Hera in Iliad 14). Ixion married Dia
, a daughter of Deioneus
(or Eioneus
) 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. These circumstances are secondary to the fact of Ixion's primordial act of murder; it could be accounted for quite differently: in the Greek Anthology
(iii.12), among a collection of inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus is an epigrammatic description of Ixion slaying Phorbas
and Polymelos, who had slain his mother, Megara, the "great one".
Ixion went mad, defiled by his act; the neighboring princes were so offended by this 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 shunned. By killing his father-in-law, Ixion was reckoned the first man guilty of kin-slaying in Greek mythology. That alone would warrant him a terrible punishment.
However, Zeus
had 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
, Zeus's wife, a further violation of guest-host relations. Zeus found out about his intentions and made a cloud in the shape of Hera, which became known as Nephele
(nephos "cloud") and tricked Ixion into coupling with it. From the union of Ixion and the false-Hera cloud came Centauros
, who mated with the Magnesia
n mares on Mount Pelion
, Pindar told, engendering the race of Centaur
s, 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 is bound to a burning solar wheel for all eternity, at first spinning across the heavens, but in later myth transferred to Tartarus
Only when Orpheus
played his lyre during his trip to the Underworld to rescue Eurydice
did it stop for a while. "The details are very odd, the narrative motivation creaks at every juncture," observes Robert L. Fowler; "the myth smacks of aetiology
." He notes that Martin Nilsson
suggested 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 (ca. 476-68 BCE) expands on the example of Ixion, applicable to Hiero I of Syracuse
, the tyrant of whom the poet sings; and Aeschylus
, Euripides
and Timasitheos each wrote a tragedy of Ixion: none have survived.
Ixion was a figure also known to the Etruscans, for he is depicted bound to the spoked wheel, engraved on the back of a bronze mirror, ca 460-450 BCE, in the British Museum
. 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, the figure on the mirror-back is shown as winged, a characteristic shared with Etruscan daimon
es and Underworld figures rather than human heroes.
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, Ixion (icon ; , Ixīōn; gen.: Ἰξίωνος) was king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
, and a son of Ares
Ares
Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and...
, or Leonteus
Leonteus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, the name Leonteus referred to the following individuals:* Leonteus, son of Coronus was one of the commanders of the Lapiths during the Trojan War. Together with his associate, Polypoetes , he led the soldiers from the Thessalian cities of Argissa, Gyrtone, Orthe, Elone and...
, or Antion and Perimele
Perimele
In Greek mythology, Perimele or Perimela is the name of three mythical personages:*Daughter of Hippodamas, who was loved by Achelous and lay with him secretly. When her father discovered that, he pushed her off a cliff into the sea. Achelous kept her floating on the waves for a while, imploring...
, or the notorious evildoer Phlegyas
Phlegyas
Phlegyas , son of Ares and Chryse or Dotis, was king of the Lapiths in Greek mythology. He was the father of Ixion and Coronis, one of Apollo's lovers. While pregnant with Asclepius, Coronis fell in love with Ischys, son of Elatus. When a crow informed Apollo of the affair, he sent his sister...
, whose name connotes "fiery". Peirithoös
Pirithous
In Greek mythology, Pirithous - Πειρίθοος was the King of the Lapiths in Thessaly and husband of Hippodamia, at whose wedding the famous Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs occurred....
was his son (or stepson, if Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
were his father, as the sky-god claims to Hera in Iliad 14). Ixion married Dia
Dia (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Dia was the daughter of Deioneus or Eion, sister of Callisto and mother of the Lapith Pirithous, whose marriage to Hippodameia was the occasion of the Lapiths' battle with the Centaurs...
, a daughter of Deioneus
Deioneus
In Greek mythology, Deioneus or Deion is a name attributed to the following individuals:*Son of Aeolus, king of Phocis, and father of Cephalus, Actor, Aenetus, Phylacus, Nisus and Asterodia....
(or Eioneus
Deioneus
In Greek mythology, Deioneus or Deion is a name attributed to the following individuals:*Son of Aeolus, king of Phocis, and father of Cephalus, Actor, Aenetus, Phylacus, Nisus and Asterodia....
) and promised his father-in-law a valuable present. However, he did not pay the bride price
Bride price
Bride price, also known as bride wealth, is an amount of money or property or wealth paid by the groom or his family to the parents of a woman upon the marriage of their daughter to the groom...
, 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
Larissa
Larissa is the capital and biggest city of the Thessaly region of Greece and capital of the Larissa regional unit. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transportation hub, linked by road and rail with the port of Volos, the city of Thessaloniki and Athens...
. When Deioneus arrived, Ixion pushed him into a bed of burning coals and wood. These circumstances are secondary to the fact of Ixion's primordial act of murder; it could be accounted for quite differently: in the Greek Anthology
Greek Anthology
The Greek Anthology is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature...
(iii.12), among a collection of inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus is an epigrammatic description of Ixion slaying Phorbas
Phorbas
In Greek mythology, Phorbas or Phorbaceus may refer to:*Phorbas, a prince of the Thessalian Phlegyes who emigrated to Elis in the Peloponnesos. Phorbas was the son of Lapithes and Orsinome, and a brother of Periphas. He assisted Alector, king of Elis, in the war against Pelops, and shared the...
and Polymelos, who had slain his mother, Megara, the "great one".
Ixion went mad, defiled by his act; the neighboring princes were so offended by this act of treachery and violation of xenia
Xenia (Greek)
Xenia is the Greek concept of hospitality, or generosity and courtesy shown to those who are far from home. It is often translated as "guest-friendship" because the rituals of hospitality created and expressed a reciprocal relationship between guest and host.The Greek god Zeus sometimes referred...
that they refused to perform the rituals that would cleanse Ixion of his guilt (see catharsis
Catharsis
Catharsis or katharsis is a Greek word meaning "cleansing" or "purging". It is derived from the verb καθαίρειν, kathairein, "to purify, purge," and it is related to the adjective καθαρός, katharos, "pure or clean."-Dramatic uses:...
). Thereafter, Ixion lived as an outlaw and shunned. By killing his father-in-law, Ixion was reckoned the first man guilty of kin-slaying in Greek mythology. That alone would warrant him a terrible punishment.
However, Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
had pity on Ixion and brought him to Olympus
Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks. The highest peak Mytikas, meaning "nose", rises to 2,917 metres...
and introduced him at the table of the gods. Instead of being grateful, Ixion grew lustful for Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
, Zeus's wife, a further violation of guest-host relations. Zeus found out about his intentions and made a cloud in the shape of Hera, which became known as Nephele
Nephele
In Greek mythology, Nephele was a cloud nymph who figured prominently in the story of Phrixus and Helle.Greek myth also has it that Nephele is the cloud whom Zeus created in the image of Hera to trick Ixion to test his integrity after displaying his lust for Hera during a feast as a guest of Zeus...
(nephos "cloud") and tricked Ixion into coupling with it. From the union of Ixion and the false-Hera cloud came Centauros
Centaurus (Greek mythology)
Centaurus is the father of the race of mythological beasts known as the centaurs or Ixionidae. The centaurs are half man, half horse; having the torso of a man extending where the neck of a horse should be. They were said in Greek mythology to be wild, savage, and lustful...
, who mated with the Magnesia
Magnesia Prefecture
Magnesia Prefecture was one of the prefectures of Greece. Its capital was Volos. It was established in 1899 from the Larissa Prefecture. The prefecture was disbanded on 1 January 2011 by the Kallikratis programme, and split into the peripheral units of Magnesia and the Sporades.The toponym is...
n mares on Mount Pelion
Pelion
Pelion or Pelium is a mountain at the southeastern part of Thessaly in central Greece, forming a hook-like peninsula between the Pagasetic Gulf and the Aegean Sea...
, Pindar told, engendering the race of Centaur
Centaur
In Greek mythology, a centaur or hippocentaur is a member of a composite race of creatures, part human and part horse...
s, who are called the Ixionidae from their descent.
Ixion was expelled from Olympus and blasted with a thunderbolt
Thunderbolt
A thunderbolt is a discharge of lightning accompanied by a loud thunderclap or its symbolic representation. In its original usage the word may also have been a description of meteors, or, as Plato suggested in Timaeus, of the consequences of a close approach between two planetary cosmic bodies,...
. Zeus ordered Hermes
Hermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
to bind Ixion to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning. Therefore, Ixion is bound to a burning solar wheel for all eternity, at first spinning across the heavens, but in later myth transferred to Tartarus
Tartarus
In classic mythology, below Uranus , Gaia , and Pontus is Tartarus, or Tartaros . It is a deep, gloomy place, a pit, or an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the underworld. In the Gorgias, Plato In classic mythology, below Uranus (sky), Gaia (earth), and Pontus...
Only when Orpheus
Orpheus
Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...
played his lyre during his trip to the Underworld to rescue Eurydice
Eurydice
Eurydice in Greek mythology, was an oak nymph or one of the daughters of Apollo . She was the wife of Orpheus, who loved her dearly; on their wedding day, he played joyful songs as his bride danced through the meadow. One day, a satyr saw and pursued Eurydice, who stepped on a venomous snake,...
did it stop for a while. "The details are very odd, the narrative motivation creaks at every juncture," observes Robert L. Fowler; "the myth smacks of aetiology
Etiology
Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" ....
." He notes that Martin Nilsson
Martin P. Nilsson
Martin Persson Nilsson was a Swedish philologist, mythographer, and a scholar of the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman religious systems...
suggested 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
Pindar
Pindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...
's Second Pythian Ode (ca. 476-68 BCE) expands on the example of Ixion, applicable to Hiero I of Syracuse
Hiero I of Syracuse
Hieron I was the son of Deinomenes, the brother of Gelon and tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily from 478 to 467 BC. In succeeding Gelon, he conspired against a third brother Polyzelos. During his reign, he greatly increased the power of Syracuse...
, the tyrant of whom the poet sings; and Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
, Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
and Timasitheos each wrote a tragedy of Ixion: none have survived.
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. 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, the figure on the mirror-back is shown as winged, a characteristic shared with Etruscan daimon
Daimon
Daimon is an Ancient Greek word referring to lesser supernatural beings, including minor gods and the spirits of dead heroes.It may also refer to:- People :* Daimon Shelton , professional American football player...
es and Underworld figures rather than human heroes.
Primary sources
- PindarPindarPindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...
. Pythian Odes, II.21-48. - The story of Ixion is also told by Pseudo-Apollodorus Epitome of the Bibliotheca, 1.20; Diodorus SiculusDiodorus SiculusDiodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...
, 4.69.3-.5; HyginusGaius Julius HyginusGaius Julius Hyginus was a Latin author, a pupil of the famous Cornelius Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Caesar Augustus. He was by Augustus elected superintendent of the Palatine library according to Suetonius' De Grammaticis, 20...
, Fabulae 33 (mention) and 62; VirgilVirgilPublius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
in GeorgicsGeorgicsThe Georgics is a poem in four books, likely published in 29 BC. It is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. It is a poem that draws on many prior sources and influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present...
4 and AeneidAeneidThe Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
6, and by OvidOvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
in MetamorphosesMetamorphoses (poem)Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature...
12. - Lucian of Samosata, Dialogues of the Gods (On-line text in English)
Secondary sources
- Graves, RobertRobert GravesRobert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
, (1955) 1960. The Greek Myths, Section 63 passim. - Kerenyi, KarlKarl KerényiKároly Kerényi was a Hungarian scholar in classical philology, one of the founders of modern studies in Greek mythology.- Hungary 1897–1943 :...
. The Gods of the Greeks. London: Thames & Hudson, 1951 (pp. 158–160).
External links
- Gaelle Ginestet. “Ixion.” 2009. In A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Classical Mythology (2009-), ed. Yves Peyré. http://www.shakmyth.org/myth/131/ixion