Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

Ixion

199

To Ixion and his offence we must return at a later stage of our
argument: it is the peculiar character of his punishment that is
here in point. Since Theodor Panofka first discussed the matter
in 18531, it has been commonly agreed that Ixion bound to his
blazing wheel and sent spinning through the upper air or under
the nether gloom must be the sun-god and no other2. Hence his
constant association with fire : he was called the son of Phlegyas,
the 'Flaming,' by Euripides3, the son of AitJwii, the 'Glowing,' by
Pherekydes4; and it was by means of a fiery pit thinly covered
with logs and dust that he entrapped and slew Eioneus the father
of Dia5. ;

Moreover, Ixion's wheel as represented in Greek, Etruscan, and
Roman work is possibly solar. At least, its claims to be regarded
as solar are deserving of further investigation. The extant repre-
sentations include the following:

A brown chalcedony scarab from the Castellani collection, now
in the British Museum, shows Ixion as a nude bearded figure,
whose hands are bound to the rim of a large wheel. Between the
spokes is the Etruscan inscription Ichsiun. This gem
(fig. 144)6 may be assigned to the second half of the
fifth century.

Contemporary with it, if not somewhat earlier (about
450—440 B.C.), is a red-figured kdntharos of fine style,
likewise in our national collection. Its reverse design
(fig. 145)7 depicts the preparations for the punishment Fig. i44.
of Ixion. The culprit, held fast by Ares and Hermes,
stands before the throne of Hera, while Athena8 brings up a four-
spoked wheel fitted with a pair of wings.

1 T. Panofka ' Zufiuchtsgottheiten' in the Abh. d. berl. Akad. 1853 Phil.-hist. Classe
p. 285 ff.

2 Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 770. L. Laistner Das Rdtsel der Sphinx Berlin 1889 i. 299 ff.
holds that the myth of Ixion is essentially akin to German folk-tales of elves appearing in
the form of a fiery wheel, which creaks, pipes, screams etc. But such tales are themselves
meteorological in origin (E. H. Meyer Germanische Mythologie Berlin 1891 p. 62).

3 Eur. Ixion frag. 424 Nauck2. Strab. 442 makes him the brother of Phlegyas.

4 Pherekyd. loc. cit. Mtwvos, which Midler corrected into AtBwvos.

5 Pherekyd. ib.

6 Brit. Mus, Cat. Gems pp. 22, 68 no. 334 pi. e, Furtwangler Ant. Gemmen i pi. 18,
10, ii. 87.

7 Brit. Mus. Cat. Vases iii. 143 f. no. E 155. The most satisfactory interpretation of
the vase as a whole is that propounded by Sir Cecil Smith in the Class. Rev. 1895 ix.
277—280. I have borrowed his fig. b, which is more accurate than Raoul-Rochette
Monumens inedits d^antiquite figuree Paris 1833 pi. 40, 1, being based on a'tracing by
Mr F. Anderson.

8 Infra p. 231 n. 8.