Ixion in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Ixion

6 passages from 4 ancient authors that tell of Ixion, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Ixion was the king of the Lapiths in Greek mythology, the son of Ares and Perimele. He was the husband of Dia, daughter of Deioneus, to whom he promis... For the story in one place, read our article on Ixion.

Pindar (1)

Pindar, Pythian Odes 2.1–96Pythian 2: for Hieron — IxionPindar praises Syracuse and Hieron, victor in the chariot race, and recalls that Cinyras of Cyprus is honoured in song. He tells how Ixion, whom the gods had welcomed, tried to seduce Hera and was bound to a wheel; Zeus made a cloud in her likeness, and from it the Centaurs were born. The poet then warns against slanderers and flatterers, says that one must not fight against god, and prays to please the noble.

Sophocles (1)

Sophocles, Philoctetes 676–728Second stasimon: Ixion and the sufferer on LemnosThe Chorus say that they have heard of Ixion bound on the wheel, but that no one has suffered a harder fate than Philoctetes, who was left alone, wounded, hearing only the breakers around him. They describe his hunger and the pain which no one could ease, and sing that now his luck will turn, since he will go home to the Malian land and to Oeta.

Diodorus Siculus (1)

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Books 4 to 6 (the Greek myths) 4.67.1–4.70.4Aeolus and Boeotus, Salmoneus and Neleus, the Lapiths and CentaursAfter the Epigoni return home, Teiresias dies at Tilphossaeum and the Cadmeans leave it, and the historian gives the story of Arne, Aeolus and Boeotus. He then follows Salmoneus, Tyro and their descendants as far as Nestor, and turns to the Lapiths and Centaurs: the sons of Peneius, Ixion's crime against Eïoneus, and the origin of the Centaurs.

Ovid (3)

Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.396–562The Minyades become bats; Athamas and InoThe daughters of Minyas, who have scorned Dionysus (Bacchus), find their looms turning to vines and ivy, and they are changed into bats. Hera (Juno), angry at the honour done to Semele's sister Ino, goes down to the Underworld and sends the Fury Tisiphone to the house of Athamas, who goes mad and kills his son Learchus. Ino leaps from a cliff with her other son Melicertes, and Aphrodite (Venus) asks Poseidon (Neptune) to make them sea-gods, and Ino's Theban companions are changed into rocks and birds.
Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.1–85Orpheus and EurydiceHymen, called to the wedding of Orpheus and Eurydice, comes with a smoking torch and an ill omen, and Eurydice is bitten by a snake and dies. Orpheus goes down to the underworld and sings before Hades (Pluto) and Persephone (Proserpina), and the shades, even the Furies, weep, and Tantalus, Ixion and Sisyphus forget their torments. He is allowed to lead Eurydice back on condition that he does not look back, but as they near the light he turns to see her, and she slips away. Orpheus then shuns women and gives his love to the young men of Thrace.
Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.210–326The Lapiths and the Centaurs: the wedding feastNestor describes the wedding of Pirithous, king of the Lapiths, and Hippodame, to which the centaurs are invited as guests. The centaur Eurytus, drunk, seizes the bride, and the rest follow his example, and a general brawl begins. Theseus strikes Eurytus down with a bowl, and the centaurs seize tables and weapons, and the Lapiths fight them, with many dead on both sides.