Sisyphus’s wife Merope was one of the Pleiades, the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas who were later turned into stars. The giant hunter Orion had wanted to marry Merope, but instead she chose Sisyphus. Some accounts tell how Merope was humiliated to be the only one of her sisters who had married a mortal and that, as a result, her star was the dullest of all the Pleiades since she hid her face in shame. With Merope, Sisyphus had four sons, including Glaucus, who became the father of the hero Bellerophon.
Sisyphus had affairs with a number of other women.
One affair was with his niece Tyro, the daughter of his brother Salmoneus, whom he hated. Sisyphus learned from an oracle that if Tyro bore him children, they would kill Salmoneus. In some versions of the story Sisyphus married
Right: Sisyphus by Italian artist Titian (c. 1488—1576).The painting depicts Sisyphus pushing a heavy boulder up a steep hill— a never-ending task set as a punishment by the gods, since the boulder always rolled back down to the bottom again.
His niece; in others, he raped her. Either way, Tyro and Sisyphus had two sons. To stop the prophecy from coming true Tyro killed her children, but her act was in vain: Zeus, angry at Salmoneus for considering himself the god’s equal, struck him dead with a thunderbolt.
Another story about Sisyphus tells how his cattle were stolen by Autolycus, a famous thief. The cunning Sisyphus aimed to catch the culprit red-handed: he fastened lead tablets, imprinted with the words “stolen by Autolycus,” to his beasts’ hooves, and then followed their tracks when they went missing. In revenge he seduced—or in some versions raped—Autolycus’s daughter Anticlia. Anticlia later gave birth to the hero Odysseus, whom many believed was the son of Sisyphus, and not of Anticlia’s husband Laertes. This alternative account of Odysseus’s parentage would help explain the Greek hero’s own cunning and ruthless nature.
Above: The ruins of Corinth, including this Temple of Apollo, date to the sixth century BCE. Sisyphus was believed to have founded the city.
World History
