This insolent parody so incensed Jupiter, that he grasped one of his deadliest thunderbolts, brandished it aloft for a moment, and then hurled it with vindictive force at the arrogant king. In Tartarus, Salmoneus was placed beneath an overhanging rock, which momentarily threatened to fall, and crush him under its mass.
“He was doomed to sit under a huge stone,
Which the father of the gods
Kept over his head suspended.
Thus he sat
In continual dread of its downfall,
And lost to every comfort.”
Pindar.
Tityus.
Still farther on was the recumbent form of Tityus, a giant whose body covered nine acres of ground. He had dared offer an insult to Juno, and in punishment was chained like Prometheus, while a vulture feasted on his liver.
“There Tityus was to see, who took his birth
From heav’n, his nursing from the foodful earth:
Here his gigantic limbs, with large embrace,
Infold nine acres of infernal space.
A rav’nous vulture in his open side
Her crooked beak and cruel talons try’d:
Still for the growing liver digg’d his breast,
The growing liver still supply’d the feast.”
Virgil (Dryden’s tr.).
Ixion.
Here in Tartarus, too, was Ixion, king of the Lapithæ, who had been given the hand of Dia in marriage on condition that he would give her father a stipulated sum of money in exchange, but who, as soon as the maiden was his, refused to keep his promise. The father-in-law was an avaricious man, and clamored so loudly for his money, that Ixion, to be rid of his importunities, slew him. Such an act of violence could not be overlooked by the gods: so Jupiter summoned Ixion to appear before him and state his case.
Ixion pleaded so skillfully, that Jupiter was about to declare him acquitted, when he suddenly caught him making love to Juno, which offense seemed so unpardonable, that he sent him to Tartarus, where he was bound to a constantly revolving wheel of fire.
“Proud Ixion (doom’d to feel
The tortures of the eternal wheel,
Bound by the hand of angry Jove)
Received the due rewards of impious love.”
Sophocles (Francklin’s tr.).
Elysian Fields.