Ixion- Greek FigureMortal"King of the Lapiths"

The First Kinslayer

Ixion was a Thessalian king of the Lapiths, a warlike tribe around Mount Pelion. When he married Dia, daughter of Deioneus, he promised lavish bride-gifts but refused to deliver them. Deioneus seized some of Ixion's horses as collateral, and in retaliation Ixion invited his father-in-law to a feast and prepared a concealed pit filled with burning coals, into which Deioneus fell and perished. This made Ixion the first mortal in Greek myth to murder a kinsman — a crime so unprecedented that no god or mortal would purify him.

Ixion wandered as a polluted outcast until Zeus himself, moved by pity, purified him and invited him to dine at the table of the gods on Olympus.

The Cloud and the Centaurs

Seated among the gods, Ixion conceived a desire for Hera, queen of the gods and wife of his benefactor. Zeus fashioned a cloud in the exact likeness of Hera and placed it where Ixion would find it. Ixion, believing the phantom to be the goddess, lay with the cloud-image, confirming his guilt. The union produced Centaurus, a wild being who later mated with the Magnesian mares on the slopes of Mount Pelion, begetting the race of centaurs.

The Wheel

For his kinslaying and attempted seduction of a goddess, Zeus struck Ixion with a thunderbolt and bound him to a winged fiery wheel that spins eternally through the sky. Zeus commanded him to proclaim to all: "Honour your benefactor with gentle repayment." The wheel never ceases its turning. When Orpheus descended to the underworld to retrieve Eurydice, his music momentarily stilled Ixion's wheel — a brief respite from an agony without end.