S8E10 - Ancient Greece's Most Wanted Part Deux

The stories featured in Greaking Out are original adaptations of classic Greek myths.

This week's story features someone being pushed into a fire, flirting with clouds, DIY weather, a wedding night murder, violations of hospitality, and double standards.

There are a lot of heroic figures in Greek mythology, and we've talked about many of them on this podcast.

There's Heracles and Achilles and Odysseus, and those guys are pretty cool.

They're strong, smart, charismatic.

But there's also a whole other group of people in Greek mythology that we hear a lot about.

The villains.

And today's episode is all about some of the baddest humans in Greek mythology.

Yep.

It's time once again to highlight some of the the members of the ancient Greece's most wanted crew.

We talked about other villains on the first ancient Greece's most wanted episode back in season two.

Yeah, and now we have a whole new batch of bad guys to talk about.

First up, Ixion, the mortal king of the Lapiths.

Ixion was the son of the god Ares and the nymph Peramele.

He ruled over the Lapiths, a tribe of people who lived in ancient Thessaly.

Exactly.

And like his father Aries, Ixion was known to have a bit of a temper.

If things didn't go his way, he would react without thinking.

He was a bit of a hothead, if we're being honest.

And there are many examples of Ixion losing his cool.

But the story we're going to tell today starts when he married his wife Dia, the daughter of a man named Dioneus.

Now, at this point in time, it was customary for a groom to pay for a bride in the form of money, livestock, or property.

This is called a dowry and can happen when a man pays a woman so he can marry her.

Or a woman pays a man so she can marry him.

Right, and in ancient Greece, it was the woman's family who had to pay up.

Even though this kind of makes women into a product to buy and sell and encourages people to think of women as property, it was apparently a very common practice throughout history.

This still exists in some cultures today.

While it is not legally recognized in the U.S.

or the UK, it is still legal there.

This practice is illegal in India, however.

Still weird, but okay.

Anyway, in this case, Ixion had promised to pay a large sum of money to his future father-in-law following the wedding to Dia.

Dionius agreed, and Ixion and Dia had a beautiful wedding.

Now, of course, Dioneus would have preferred that Ixion paid the money before the wedding, but he wasn't too worried when Ixion said he would pay it later.

I mean, after all, Ixion was a king and a prosperous one at that.

Money shouldn't be an issue.

It was an honor for his daughter to have been chosen as queen.

Dioneus was fine to wait until after the ceremony was complete.

But then the wedding was over, and Ixion still hadn't paid.

The couple went away on a honeymoon, and when they returned, nothing.

Months passed, and still

crickets.

The Greek marbled bush cricket is a common insect found throughout the world.

No, no, no, no, no, Oracle, not real crickets.

I just mean silence, nothing.

But male crickets chirp.

They make the sound by rubbing their wings together.

Yeah, I know.

That's the point of the expression.

Female crickets do not chirp.

Okay, that's interesting, but the point is, Ixion still hadn't paid up.

Dioneus was getting annoyed.

He was a patient man, but he wasn't a fool, and he wasn't going to let himself be hoodwinked even by the king himself.

So he tried talking to Ixion, but the conversation went nowhere.

I just wanted to ask about the money you owe me, he'd begin.

Oh, yes, no problem.

I'll give it to you soon.

Ixion would assure him and then change the subject.

Finally, Dioneus got so fed up that he decided to take matters into his own hands.

One night, he snuck into the royal stables and stole some of the king's most prized horses.

This wasn't nearly enough money to cover the cost of the dowry, but Dioneus figured he could get a decent chunk of change for the king's horses.

Plus, it was more a matter of principle, you know what I mean?

The king owed him money and he hadn't paid.

Dioneus wasn't going to let that go.

He wouldn't be taken advantage of even by the king himself.

He figured the horses would just serve as a reminder, a gentle nudge if you will that dioneus wasn't just going to drop the matter ixion needed to settle his debts

but of course ixion didn't see it that way he was enraged how dare dioneus steal his horses he would not tolerate such disrespect even from his father-in-law

Ixion actually had a fair point.

I mean, stealing wasn't the answer to this problem, and Ixion was king, after all.

Some respect was due there.

So if Ixion had decided to arrest Dioneus or sentence him to jail time or whatever, I'm sure this wouldn't even be a story we're telling today.

But he didn't do that.

What he did was worse.

Way worse.

He decided to invite his father-in-law over for dinner.

And not just your typical dinner.

This was a full-blown feast.

Complete with delicious food, talented musicians, and a massive fire to keep them warm and protected from the winter's chill.

When Dioneus arrived, Ixion was the perfect host.

He insisted that his guest had plenty of food and drink, and he sat by his side and talked all night long.

He even apologized for not paying the dowry earlier.

I know you have waited a long time, he said, but I promise you will get what's coming to you.

That doesn't sound good.

Yeah, you're right about that, Oracle.

When Dioneus was finally ready to leave, Ixion walked him out.

They stood by the fire in front of the palace doors and shook hands.

Ixion leaned in close and whispered in his guests' ears,

No one steals from me and gets away with it.

Enjoy your payment.

And with that, he pushed Dioneus straight into the fire.

While people began to scream and rush over to help, but Ixion refused to let anyone save Dioneus.

I am king, and this is the punishment I see fit.

If anyone helps him, they will suffer the same fate.

Now, obviously, pushing someone into a fire is never a good thing, but inviting someone into your home and then pushing them into a fire is especially bad, especially in ancient Greece.

The Greeks greatly valued hospitality.

They had several rituals and practices around making guests feel welcome in your home.

And I'm sure none of them involved pushing anybody into a fire.

I can confirm the validity of this statement.

And to make matters worse, Ixion didn't push just anyone into the fire.

He pushed his father-in-law, his own kin.

The Greeks also valued family.

The family structure was an integral part of Greek society.

Deliberately causing harm to your family was seen as a great crime.

The Lapiths were outraged that Ixion would do such a thing.

Even if he was their king, they rebelled against him and forced him to abandon his throne.

Ixion couldn't believe that his people would dare rise up against him, but they did.

And when he realized that he had a full-blown rebellion on his hands, he ran away and lived as an outcast.

Word quickly spread about what Ixion had done, and no other city would take him in.

Suddenly, Ixion went from being a powerful king to a wanderer who relied on the kindness of others to survive.

One day, he dropped to his knees and prayed to the gods for help.

Oh mighty Zeus, please have mercy on me.

I see the error of my ways now and I will never make the same mistake again.

Please help me.

Now, for reasons that aren't exactly clear, Zeus felt bad for Ixion.

I don't know.

Maybe he thought the guy was really sorry.

Maybe he saw a little bit of himself in Ixion, maybe he simply wanted to do a nice thing, but for whatever reason, Zeus decided to invite Ixion to live on Mount Olympus.

This is what today society would refer to as an upgrade.

Yeah, that's Royalty 3.0 right there.

But this proved to be a mistake.

Ixion's arrogance returned quickly and he once again believed he was entitled to whatever he wanted.

And unfortunately, what he wanted most of all was Hera, the queen of the gods, and the wife of Zeus.

Now, if you've been greaking out for a while now, you know this probably isn't going to end well for Ixion.

Zeus was very protective of Hera.

Yeah, and when he realized Ixion had his eyes on his wife, he was furious.

How dare he?

I saved him from a horrible life.

I invited him to live on Mount Olympus with the gods, and he repays me by making goo-goo eyes at my wife.

but instead of just kicking ixion out or you know striking him down with a thunderbolt or whatever zeus decided to test ixion to see just how far he would be willing to go would he really betray zeus if given the chance or was he just showing off to impress the goddess so zeus decided to make a fake hera out of a cloud i know that sounds kind of weird, but he's Zeus.

He can do these types of things.

And the fake cloud Hera looked exactly like the real thing.

There are four main types of clouds.

Cirrus, Cumulus, Nimbus, and Stratus.

It is unknown which type of cloud Zeus used to create the replica of Hera.

Yeah, they really don't write those kind of details down.

If I had to guess, I would pick the cumulus cloud because it is fluffy.

and the most aesthetically pleasing.

Okay, well, regardless of what type of cloud he used, Zeus made it look exactly like Hera.

You would never have known she was just water vapor.

He instructed the fake Hera to be open to Ixion's advances, and then he waited to see what happened.

Well, when Ixion saw Hera, he had no idea that she was just a cloud in a really good outfit.

Hello, beautiful, he said with a smile.

Hera just smiled back at him in return.

The hours passed as Ixion told Hera all about his time on Earth and how he was such an amazing king.

Finally, he leaned in for a kiss, and when his lips touched Hera, she immediately turned back into a cloud.

What's happening?

Where did she go?

He cried.

But that was the least of Ixion's problems.

Zeus appeared in a rage.

That isn't Hera, you arrogant fool.

Do you actually think Hera would ever be interested in the likes of you?

How dare you insult me after all I've done for you?

Get out!

And with that, Zeus threw Ixion out of Mount Olympus, killing him with a lightning bolt on the way down and sending him straight to the underworld.

But even that wasn't enough punishment for Zeus.

He was still furious at what Ixion had done, so he ordered Hermes to go down into the underworld and send Ixion further into Tartarus, where he was tied to a spinning spinning wheel that was on fire.

Ouch.

Then Zeus ordered the wheel to never stop spinning, and it continued to do so for the rest of eternity.

Some myths claim that the only time the wheel stopped spinning was when Orpheus came down to the underworld and played his lyre.

Interesting, but that's still a lot of spinning.

It reminds me of one of those non-stop spinning carnival rides, you know?

There are many spinning carnival rides that can can produce a nauseous type feeling, but none involve the use of fire.

At least, not on purpose.

Yeah, that's probably not a good thing.

Listeners should know by now that insulting the gods is never a good idea.

But even worse, was violating the sacred oath of hospitality that a host and a guest make to each other.

And when you are violating an oath in front of Zeus, that's just downright dangerous.

Dangerous side, we're going to take a little break.

We'll do a commercial thing and we'll come back on the other side with more of ancient Greece's most wanted right here on Greaking Out.

Okay, that was a nice little break.

We're back.

Ancient Greece's most wanted continuing on with a fella named Salmonius.

Salmonius was a king and ruled over the kingdom of Salmonia.

His name is spelled like the word salmon.

Incidentally, salmon are one of the healthiest fish that humans can consume.

They are high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids.

Okay, but let's not get too deep into the salmon lore here, okay?

There's a whole story to tell that has nothing to do with fish.

But I have so many interesting salmon facts.

Did you know there is something called a salmon?

You know what?

I don't care.

It doesn't matter because, well, sorry, wait, hold on.

A salmon cannon?

Now, is that like a cannon that fires salmon or is it like a cannon that's made for a fish?

You know, actually, it doesn't matter.

Forget it.

We got to focus on the story.

But I will need details on that later.

Anyway, Salmonius wasn't the best king.

He was rude to his subjects and didn't really care at all about their well-being or the prosperity of his kingdom.

But the real trouble with Salmonius was that he was arrogant.

He thought he was the best king of all time.

He thought he was even better than the gods.

Salmonius was so convinced of this fact that he ordered the people of his kingdom to worship him with the same respect and reverence that they did with the gods.

This was kind of weird, but you know, the people went along with it as best as they could.

They left him offerings and included him in their daily prayers.

Salmonius has some Akhenaten vibes.

Yeah, he does.

But even with this, Salmonius wasn't satisfied.

I am just as powerful and important as as the gods, he declared.

Why should my people bother with worshiping Zeus when I am just as powerful?

This is empirically false.

Zeus was undeniably more powerful than a mortal king.

Very true.

And the gods don't like to have their power diminished.

They thrive on things like respect and reverence.

What Salmonius was doing was the complete opposite of that.

But it actually gets worse.

He decided that any offering left at the temples for the gods should be given to him instead.

So every night, his guards would pack up what the people had left for the gods and deliver it to Salmonius.

Now, this kind of arrogance really got to the gods.

Are you going to do something about this?

Athena asked her father.

Do you want me to handle it?

Oh, please let me handle it.

I could handle it.

But Zeus just shook his head.

I want to see how far he's going to take this little charade.

And as it turned out, Salmonius was just getting started.

When people began to beg him to let them worship Zeus, he was outraged.

Zeus, what does he have that I don't?

Well, he's immortal, for one, and you know, there's that whole lightning bolt and thunder thing.

The people tried to explain.

How hard is it to do that?

He muttered.

Lightning occurs when negative electrons in clouds rub up against positive charges called protons in the ground.

Right, and it's kind of hard to manufacture that on your own.

Hephaestus was said to produce the lightning bolts on Mount Olympus, but not much is known about the scientific method behind his manufacturing.

Well, the point is that Salmonius was not a god, so producing thunder and lightning was pretty much impossible to do.

But that didn't stop the arrogant king from trying.

He drove his chariot around and tied bronze kettles to the back to mimic the sound of thunder.

Then he threw torches up in the air to act as lightning.

That is an embarrassing attempt at weather.

Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous, and Zeus thought so too.

This guy has got to go.

He's just making a fool out of himself now, and my lightning bolts look way better than that.

Let me show him.

And with that, Zeus sent down a storm of lightning, killing Salmonius immediately and wiping his kingdom off the earth entirely.

Now no one will ever remember the mortal Salmonius,

he said with a laugh.

But they will remember salmon, a fish very low in saturated fats.

Okay, thanks, Oracle.

You are quite welcome.

Moving on to our last story of the day, the tale of the Daniides.

The Daniades were a group of 50 daughters originally of Egyptian descent.

The name Daniades translates to the daughters of Danaeus.

Danaeus was a prince of Egypt who believed he was entitled to the throne and would one day become king.

But there was just one problem.

Danaeus had a twin brother named Aegiptus, and he thought he was entitled to the throne.

Twins occur naturally in about one out of every 250 pregnancies.

Most twins develop a close bond at some point in their lives, and 40% of twins even create their own language to communicate.

Interesting.

But it doesn't seem like Danius and Aegiptis were that kind of twins.

For them, everything was a rivalry, especially when it came to the throne.

By some twist of fate, both Danius and Aegiptus ended up having a lot of kids.

Danius, of course, had his 50 daughters, and as luck would have it, Aegiptus had 50 sons.

Currently, the average American family has 1.92 children in the household.

These numbers vary slightly, but it is safe to say that 50 children would be an outlier by today's standards.

Yeah, I mean, I have seven kids, and that's challenging enough.

50 would be ridiculous.

But aegiptys thought that the twin brothers could use their children to their advantage what if we married our children together your daughters could marry my sons and then our family would be in power together

but danias didn't like that idea he didn't want to share power with anyone even his brother but he decided to pretend to agree to the marriage anyway I think it's our best option.

I would be honored to see our children wed, he said.

This was clearly a trap.

Yeah, nothing gets past you, Oracle.

It was indeed a trap.

Immediately following the weddings, Danius asked for a moment in private with his daughters.

They thought he was about to give them his blessing, make some instructions for creating a new and happy life.

Instead, he pulled out a blade.

Tonight, I want you to kill your husband in his sleep, he said.

This will be your marriage gift.

While many brides do choose to give their new husbands a gift on their wedding day, murder is not typically recommended.

The women were horrified.

They knew their father hated Aegiptis, but why had they been forced to marry if this was going to be the end result?

Why do they have to commit such a heinous crime?

The Daniades begged their father to reconsider, but he had made up his mind.

If you do not kill your husbands, you will find yourselves on the other end of that blade.

The threat was clear.

Kill or be killed.

They had no choice.

And so, the women did the horrible thing they were asked to do.

Well, almost all of the women.

One of the daughters, Hypermnestra, refused to kill her new husband, a man named Lyncius.

She decided to help him escape instead.

But when Danius found out that Hypermnestra had betrayed him, he locked her up in the house and refused to let her leave.

Her sisters took pity on her and actually admired her for the bravery they weren't able to summon.

Eventually, Lyncius came back for Hypermnestra.

He broke into Danius' house and stood over the man with his own dagger.

This is revenge for what you did to my brothers, he said to Danius before he killed the man.

Then, Lyncius rescued Hypermnestra, and as fate would have it, The two fell in love and became powerful rulers of their kingdom.

Their love would be remembered for years to come.

But as for the other Daniades, well, they lived out the rest of their lives plagued by grief and regret.

They couldn't forgive themselves for what they had done to their innocent husbands, and no one else seemed ready to forgive them either, as they were never able to marry or find love again.

But their real punishment began after their death.

To pay for their crimes, they were sent to Tartarus.

There, they were forced to carry heavy jugs of water and fill up a large basin.

When the basin was full, they would be released from their punishment.

The only problem was, the basin was filled with cracks and holes, making it impossible to fill up.

This is very similar to Sisyphus's punishment of rolling a boulder up a hill, an exercise in futility.

Yep, so that is how the 49 Daniades spent the rest of eternity trying to fill up a basin that that would never be filled.

It is worth noting that Dinaeus did not receive any punishment after his death.

This is incredibly unfair.

Yeah, that's not cool at all.

I mean, he should get an equally awful punishment, right?

Maybe he could stub his toe every day for eternity or something.

That does not seem like a similar punishment.

Or I don't know.

Maybe he could get a really bad paper cut every day.

Paper cuts are the worst.

Have you ever noticed that?

They're like

paper cuts are a minor injury that require little to no.

Oh, wait, he could drink spoiled milk every morning for breakfast because one of his daughters forgot to twist the cap far enough on.

And I hate it when that happens, you know, because you think, yeah, you got.

You are very bad at this.

Yeah, you're right.

Maybe I should just leave the punishment thing to the gods.

But anyway, that brings us to the end of today's Roundup of Villains.

Thank you for joining us for another season of Greaking Out.

And if you happen to be going to San Diego Comic-Con this year, that's 2023, we are going to have a live show there with a brand new story.

It's all a part of supporting our book that's coming out in September.

So I hope we can see some of you there.

Greaking Out.

This episode was brought to you by The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan and Marco Shiro.

That's it for this season of Greaking Out.

We'll be back in October with more stories from ancient Greece.

Listen, and you'll see it swearing out.

National Geographic Kids Greaking Out is written by Kenny Curtis and Jillian Hughes and hosted by Kenny Curtis with Tori Kerr as the Oracle of Wi-Fi, audio production and sound design by Scotty Beam, and our theme song was composed by Perry Gripp.

Emily Everhart is our producer and Becky Baines is our executive producer.