IXION was a king of Thessaly to
whom Zeus accorded the privilege of joining the festive banquets of the gods;
but, taking advantage of his exalted position, he presumed to aspire to the
favour of Hera, which so greatly incensed Zeus, that he struck him with his
thunderbolts, and commanded Hermes to throw him into Tartarus, and bind him to
an ever-revolving wheel.
The DANAÏDES were the fifty
daughters of Danaus, king of Argos, who had married their fifty cousins, the
sons of Aegyptus. By the command of their father, who had been warned by an
oracle that his son-in-law would cause his death, they all killed their
husbands in one night, Hypermnestra alone excepted. Their punishment in the
lower world was to fill with water a vessel full of holes,--a never-ending and
useless task.
