How Would a God Punish a Guest Who Tried to Seduce His Wife?
Although promotion of Xenia was part of the chief Olympian god’s portfolio, Zeus took pity on Ixion. He cleansed him of defilement, and invited him to Mount Olympus to dine at the table of the gods. However, when Ixion was introduced to Zeus’ wife, Hera, he was overcome with lust, and behind Zeus’ back, hit on and pursued her. That was another big breach of Xenia. To pursue your host’s wife was a major violation of a guest’s obligations to his host. In Homeric lore, the Trojan War began because Paris seduced Helen while a guest of her husband.
Zeus could not believe that Ixion, whom he had rescued and cleansed of his guilt, then honored by hosting him in heaven, could be so ungrateful and brazen. So he made a cloud in the shape of Hera, and sent her Ixion’s way to see what his guest would do. Sure enough, Ixion ravished the fake Hera – a union that ultimately produced the centaurs. The livid Zeus expelled the ingrate from Olympus, and blasted his former guest with a thunderbolt. He then ordered the messenger god, Hermes, to seize Ixion and bind him to a wheel of fire, that was then set to spin forever across the heavens.
