Sisyphus. In Greek mythology Sisyphus or Sisyphos was the king of Ephyra. He was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down every time it neared the top, repeating this action for eternity. Through the classical influence on modern culture, tasks that are both laborious and futile are therefore described as Sisyphean. Linguistics Professor R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a pre-Greek origin and a connection with the root of the word sophos. German mythographer Otto Gruppe thought that the name derived from sisys, in reference to a rain-charm in which goats' skins were used. Sisyphus was the son of King Aeolus of Thessaly and Enarete and the brother of Salmoneus. He married the Pleiad Merope by whom he became the father of Glaucus, Ornytion, Thersander, Almus and Porphyrion. Sisyphus was the grandfather of Bellerophon through Glaucus, and Minyas, founder of Orchomenus, through Almus. Sisyphus was the founder and first king of Ephyra. King Sisyphus promoted navigation and commerce but was avaricious and deceitful. He also killed travellers and guests to his palace, a violation of xenia, which fell under Zeus' domain, thus angering the god. He took pleasure in these killings because they allowed him to maintain his iron-fisted rule. Sisyphus and his brother Salmoneus were known to hate each other, and Sisyphus consulted the Oracle of Delphi on just how to kill Salmoneus without incurring any severe consequences for himself. From Homer onward, Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men. He seduced Salmoneus's daughter Tyro in one of his plots to kill Salmoneus, only for Tyro to slay the children she bore him when she discovered that Sisyphus was planning on using them eventually to dethrone her father. King Sisyphus also betrayed one of Zeus's secrets by revealing the whereabouts of Aegina, an Asopid who was taken away by Zeus, to her father, the river god Asopus, in return for causing a spring to flow on the Corinthian acropolis. Zeus then ordered Death to chain King Sisyphus down below in Tartarus. Sisyphus was curious as to why Charon, whose job it was to guide souls to the Underworld, had not appeared on this occasion. King Sisyphus slyly asked Thanatos to demonstrate how the chains worked. As Thanatos was granting him his wish, Sisyphus seized the opportunity and trapped Thanatos in the chains instead. Once Thanatos was bound by the strong chains, no one died on Earth. This caused an uproar especially for Ares, and so he intervened. The exasperated Ares freed Thanatos and turned King Sisyphus over to him. In another version, Hades was sent to chain Sisyphus and was chained himself. As long as Hades was tied up, nobody could die. Because of this, sacrifices could not be made to the gods, and those that were old and sick were suffering. The gods finally threatened to make life so miserable for Sisyphus that he would wish he were dead. He then had no choice but to release Hades. Before King Sisyphus died, he had told his wife to throw his naked body into the middle of the public square. This caused King Sisyphus to end up on the shores of the river Styx. Then, complaining to Persephone, goddess of the Underworld, that this was a sign of his wife's disrespect for him, King Sisyphus persuaded her to allow him to return to the upper world. Once back in Ephyra, the spirit of King Sisyphus scolded his wife for not burying his body and giving it a proper funeral. When King Sisyphus refused to return to the Underworld, he was forcibly dragged back there by Hermes. In another version of the myth, Persephone was tricked by Sisyphus that he had been conducted to Tartarus by mistake, and so she ordered that he be released. In Philoctetes by Sophocles, there is a reference to the father of Odysseus upon having returned from the dead. Euripides, in Cyclops, also identifies Sisyphus as Odysseus' father.