Sisyphus
（
Σίσυφος). The son of Aeolus and Enareté,
whence he is called
Aeolĭdes. He was
married to Meropé, a daughter of Atlas or a Pleiad, and became by her the father of
Glaucus, Ornytion (or Porphyrion), Thersander, and Halmus. In later accounts he is also called
a son of Autolycus, and the father of Odysseus by Anticlea (see
Anticlea); whence we find Odysseus sometimes called
Sisyphides (
Philoct. 417). He is said to have built the town of
Ephyra, afterwards Corinth. As king of Corinth he promoted navigation and commerce, but he was
fraudulent, avaricious, and deceitful. His wickedness during life was severely punished in the
lower world, where he had to roll up hill a huge marble block, which as soon as it reached the
top always rolled down again. The special reasons for this punishment are not the same in all
authors: some relate that it was because he had betrayed the designs of the gods; others
because he attacked travellers, and killed them with a huge block of stone; and others again
because he had betrayed to Asopus that Zeus had carried off Aegina, the daughter of the
latter. The more usual tradition related that Sisyphus requested his wife not to bury him, and
that, when she complied with his request, Sisyphus in the lower world complained of this
seeming neglect, and obtained from Pluto or Persephoné permission to return to the
upper world to punish his wife. He then refused to return to the lower world, until Hermes
carried him off by force; and this piece of treachery is said to have been the cause of his
punishment (Theog. 703; Eustath.
ad Hom. pp. 631, 1702).
