Sisyphus’s Family Tree

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Family

• Anticlea(spouse),Odysseus(child)— Consort

  Sisyphus seduced Anticlea before her marriage to Laertes, and Odysseus was born from this union as their biological son.

  ⚠ The dominant tradition (Homer, Odyssey) names Laertes as Odysseus's father. The Sisyphean paternity is a rival account found in later sources including pseudo-Apollodorus and various scholia.

• Merope(spouse),Glaucus of Corinth(child)— Marriage

  Sisyphus and Merope, one of the Pleiades, married and ruled Corinth. Their son Glaucus of Corinth fathered the hero Bellerophon. Merope aided Sisyphus's escape from the underworld by neglecting his funeral rites.

Enemy of

• Autolycus

  Sisyphus outwitted Autolycus by marking his cattle's hooves, catching the master thief red-handed. In some traditions, their rivalry led to Sisyphus receiving Anticlea, connecting him to Odysseus's disputed paternity.

• Hades

  Sisyphus twice cheated death and defied Hades' authority. He was condemned to roll a boulder uphill in Tartarus for eternity, only for it to roll back down each time.

• Thanatos

  Sisyphus chained Thanatos when Death came for him, preventing any mortal from dying until Ares freed Thanatos to restore the natural order.

• Zeus

  Sisyphus betrayed Zeus's secret abduction of the nymph Aegina to her father Asopus in exchange for a spring on the Acrocorinth. Zeus sent Thanatos to punish him, beginning Sisyphus's defiance of the gods.

Associated with

• Anticlea

  In a variant tradition, Anticlea lay with Sisyphus before her marriage to Laertes, making the master trickster of Corinth the biological father of Odysseus rather than Laertes.

• Hermes

  After Sisyphus tricked Persephone into releasing him from the Underworld, Hermes was sent to drag the cunning king back to the realm of the dead, ending his second escape from death.

• Persephone

  Sisyphus tricked Persephone into releasing him from the underworld by claiming his wife had failed to perform proper burial rites.

• Pleiades

  Sisyphus married Merope of the Pleiades, the only one of the seven sisters to wed a mortal. According to Hyginus, Merope's star shines faintest in the cluster because she hides her face in shame at being the only Pleiad without a divine consort.

• Tartarus

  Sisyphus endures eternal punishment in Tartarus, rolling a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back each time he nears the summit. His torment embodies the futility of mortal cunning against divine justice.

• Underworld

  Sisyphus suffers eternal punishment in the Underworld, condemned to roll a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down each time he nears the summit.