Ixion Bound to the Wheel

Catalogue ID: 03-heroes/197-ixion-wheel-punishment-pindar

Cycle: Heroes — Thessalian / underworld punishment

Version line: Pindaric / Apollodorean — wheel sentence after Nephele

Sources: Pindar, *Pythian* 2.21–48; Apollodorus, *Epitome* 1.20; cf. Homer, *Iliad* 14.317 (Ixion named among Zeus’s loves’ kin background)

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/03-heroes/197-ixion-wheel-punishment-pindar.md

Characters

Amphitrite — host, deceiver with Nephele, judge and binder
Artemis — object of Ixion’s desire
Centaurus — son of Ixion and Nephele (cross-ref)
Deioneus — slain father-in-law (background crime)
Ixion — Lapith king; murderer; would-be adulterer; wheel-bound
Nephele — cloud-image; mother of Centaurus

Places

Mount Pelion — Ixion’s mortal kingdom (background)
Olympus — hospitality betrayed
Underworld or mid-air — eternal circuit of the wheel

Themes

Narrative

After Ixion murders his father-in-law and is purified by Zeus, he desires Hera. Zeus forms Nephele (a cloud-image) in Hera’s likeness; Ixion lies with the cloud and begets Centaurus, ancestor of the centaurs. For this betrayal of the god’s hospitality and for the intended adultery, Zeus blasts him and binds him to a wheel—winged or fiery in later description—that turns forever in the air or in the underworld. Pindar makes Ixion the paradigm of the ungrateful guest who cannot bear good fortune. Catalogue the wheel as its own entry: the sentence that follows the cloud-deception, distinct from the genealogy of Centaurus already filed under Hera–Ixion.