King Ixion- king of the Lapiths in Thessaly, was a nefarious man who ruled his kingdom with an iron fist. In Thesally, the best horses in Greece were bred and only the best resided in the king's stud farm. The king fell in love with the beautiful Día-daughter of Ionius-a nobleman of the region. Ixion promised Ionius that he would give him some of his famous horses in exchange for the hand of the beautiful young woman however, after marrying Día, Ixion didn't fulfil his part of the agreement which outraged the now father-in-law and so he decided to take justice into his own hands and stole Ixion's horses.
Ixion was furious and came up with a plan to get revenge on his own father-in-law and so he invited him to a meeting in his palace under the pretext of making peace and he received his father-in-law cordially, but the king secretly had a plan against his wife's father and so the king invited Ionius to visit a new division of his palace and this part of the palace had a moat-(A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defense) and so when Ionius stretched his neck to see what was inside it, he was pushed in by his son-in-law and so Ionius fell into the ditch that was full of embers, he was consumed by the flames and cried out in pain much to Ixion's satisfaction and just before he was devoured by the flames, Ionius saw his daughter's charred body lying beside him.
Such atrocious acts would not be forgiven the king was dethroned and became a vagabond who was stoned and spat at, everywhere he went and after years of suffering, Ixion seemed to repent, and he asked the gods for forgiveness. Zeus took pity on the man who had once been a great king and he invited him to visit Olympus where Ixion participated in celestial banquets and fraternized with Olympian deities, but his lack of character emerged again. Ixion fell in love with the goddess Hera, queen of the gods and the wife of Zeus his host and he even had the effrontery to confess to the goddess his lustful desire to be carnally united with the goddess.
Hera not only rejected him, but she also told her husband everything, but Zeus refused to believe that his guest would be capable of doing such a thing and so to test Ixion, Zeus molded a cloud with the same outline as the goddess Hera and so the goddess's imitation was made to flirt with Ixion and with no hesitation at all, Ixion united with the Hera outline cloud and so from this sin against the hospitality of Zeus, bizarre creatures were born, creatures that were a mixture of man and horse and that would later become known as Centaurs.
Zeus expelled Ixion from Olympus, but he wasn't extremely ruthless because he felt some empathy for Ixion Afterall as everyone knows, the great god also struggled to contain his great lust, but Zeus would later come to regret his Lenience. Ixion after returning back to the world of men, boasted that he had been with the queen of heaven and that utterly enraged Zeus and so the supreme god struck Ixion with one of his mighty lightning bolts and his spirit was thrown into the depths of Tartarus and Ixion was put on a burning wheel and bound to it by serpents and he would spend eternity burning in the spinning wheel.