Ixion
First human murderer of kin, who attempted to seduce Hera and was bound to an eternally spinning wheel of fire.
The Legend of Ixion
He tried to seduce Zeus's wife at the dinner table — and Zeus tested him by creating a cloud shaped like Hera to see how far he would go. Ixion murdered his father-in-law (the first kinslaying in myth), and no god or mortal would purify him except Zeus, who pitied him. At the divine feast, Ixion repaid this by lusting after Hera. Zeus shaped a cloud (Nephele) into Hera's likeness. Ixion slept with the cloud, fathering the Centaurs. Zeus bound him to a fiery wheel spinning forever through Tartarus. His punishment combines three crimes: kinslaying, violation of xenia, and attempted divine adultery. The centaurs — savage, lustful, half-human — are literally the offspring of a cloud deception and human depravity.
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Ixion
🗡 heroFirst murderer and first sinner
Ixion was the first human to murder a kinsman and the first to attempt seduction of a goddess — bound forever to a spinning wheel of fire.
Tantalus
🗡 heroKing punished with eternal hunger and thirst
A king who offended the gods by serving them his own son as a meal. His punishment in Tartarus — standing in water that recedes when he tries to drink, beneath fruit that pulls away when he reaches for it — gave us the word "tantalize."
Tantalus
🗡 heropunishment
King invited to dine with the gods who stole nectar and ambrosia and served his son Pelops as a stew to test divine omniscience.
Acastus
🗡 herovengeance
King of Iolcus and Argonaut who tried to murder Peleus through treachery on Mount Pelion — a tale of false accusation and sacred hospitality violated.
Aerope
🗡 heroAdultery, royalty
Queen of Mycenae whose adultery with Thyestes caused the devastating curse upon the House of Atreus
Tityos
🗡 heropunishment
Giant who attempted to rape Leto and was condemned to have two vultures eat his regenerating liver in Tartarus forever.
Erysichthon
🗡 heropunishment
A Thessalian king cursed by Demeter with insatiable hunger after destroying her sacred grove — he devoured everything he owned, then consumed himself.
Tityos
🗡 heroGiant punished for assaulting Leto
Tityos was a giant whose attempt to assault Leto earned him one of the underworld's most graphic eternal punishments — two vultures feeding on his liver.
Thyestes
🗡 herocurse
Brother of Atreus who seduced his sister-in-law and was tricked into eating his own children at the feast of Atreus.
Sisyphus
🗡 heroKing condemned to roll a boulder eternally
Sisyphus was the craftiest mortal who ever lived — he cheated Death twice before Zeus condemned him to push a boulder uphill for eternity.
Atreus
🗡 herovengeance
King of Mycenae who murdered his nephews and fed them to his brother Thyestes, establishing the bloodiest family curse in myth.
Sisyphus
🗡 heropunishment
Cleverest of mortals who cheated death twice and was condemned to push a boulder uphill in Tartarus forever.