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

Ixion

209

Sir G. Rawlinson1 and Monsieur J. Menant2 have argued that
the winged disk of Mesopotamia had its prototype in a sacred bird.
And it is certainly possible to

arrange an evolutionary series of
extant forms, if we may assume
the successive loss of head, legs,
and tail (fig. 155)3. But it is
doubtful whether such a series
affords the best explanation of
the scrolls and curvilinear ap-
pendages noticed above. These
suggest rather a combination of
snake-forms with bird-forms, as
was demonstrably the case in
Egyptian art.

However that may be, the
various types of solar disk do
make it possible to believe that
Ixion's wheel stood for the sun.
And this possibility is raised to
a probability, when we take into
account certain other features of
his myth to be discussed later

and certain other myths to be Fig. 155.

considered almost immediately.

Assuming, then, that Ixion's wheel in some sense stood for
the sun, we have yet to explain the peculiar use that is made of it
in the myth. A mortal man, raised to the abode of Zeus and gifted
with immortality, aspires to the hand of Hera. He expiates his
sacrilege by being bound to a solar wheel, on which he is both
lashed with a whip and burnt with fire. Prof. G. Lafaye has
recently argued that the punishment meted out to Ixion was
but the mythological echo of a punishment actually inflicted on
delinquents4. The culprit was stretched upon a wheel and, while
it revolved, was flogged, burnt, and on occasion beheaded. This

1 Sir G. Rawlinson The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World London
1862—1867 ii. 235.

2 J. Menant Lespierres gravies de la Haute-Asie Paris 1883—1886 ii. 17.

3 Fig. 155 contains five of the symbols collected by F. Lajard in the Mon. d. Inst, iv
pi. 13, viz. (a)=no. 1 from the cylinder figured id. no. 34, (d)~no. 8 from a relief at
Persepolis (?) supra fig. 153, (c) — no. 2 from a cylinder (?), cp. id. no. 26, (^) = no. 9 from
a cylinder formerly owned by Lajard, (e) — no. 5 from a relief at Naksch-i-Roustem. See
further Ann. d. Inst. 1845 xvii. [3 ff.

4 G. Lafaye in Daremberg—Saglio Diet. Ant. iv. 896 s.v. 'rota.'