Sinis
Bandit of the Isthmus of Corinth who tore travellers apart using bent pine trees
The Legend of Sinis
Sinis, called the Pine-Bender, was a notorious brigand who terrorised the road across the Isthmus of Corinth. His method of murder was to bend two pine trees to the ground, tie a traveller's limbs between them, and release the trees so they sprang apart, tearing the victim in two. In some accounts, he forced travellers to help him bend a single pine, then released it suddenly, catapulting them to their death. When the young Theseus set out on his journey from Troezen to Athens to claim his birthright, Sinis was one of the first villains he encountered. Theseus overpowered him and killed him by his own method, bending the pines and letting them rip the bandit apart.
Parents
Poseidon (or Polypemon)
Children
Perigune
Symbols
Fun Fact
Theseus killed him with his own technique, establishing a pattern of poetic justice that defined his early adventures
Explore Further
Procrustes
🗡 heroBandit who stretched or cut travellers to fit his bed
Procrustes was a bandit of Attica who forced travellers to lie in his iron bed, stretching the short and cutting the tall to make them fit — killed by Theseus.
Scyron
🗡 heroNone recorded
Robber who kicked travellers off a seaside cliff into the jaws of a giant turtle
Meleager
🗡 heroLeader of the Calydonian Boar Hunt
Meleager's life was bound to a burning log.
Meleager
🗡 heroHero whose life was bound to a burning log
The leader of the Calydonian Boar Hunt whose fate was tied to a charred brand — when it burned out, he died.
Cercyon
🗡 heroNone recorded
King of Eleusis who forced travellers to wrestle him to the death until Theseus arrived
Canthus
🗡 heroHerding, loyalty
Argonaut from Euboea who was killed in Libya while searching for stolen cattle
Eurytion
🗡 heroHunting, archery
Argonaut and skilled hunter who later participated in the Calydonian Boar Hunt
Iphitus
🗡 heroNone recorded
Son of Eurytus who gave Odysseus the great bow and was later murdered by Heracles
Phaea
🗡 heroNone recorded
Monstrous sow of Crommyon that terrorised the countryside until slain by Theseus
Odysseus
🗡 heroKing of Ithaca, hero of the Trojan War
The cleverest of the Greek heroes, whose ten-year journey home from Troy is one of the greatest stories ever told. Odysseus's cunning was his greatest weapon.
Odysseus
🗡 heroHero of endurance and cunning
The craftiest of all Greek heroes, whose ten-year voyage home from Troy tested every human capacity for survival and adaptation.
Odysseus
🗡 heroMan of many wiles
Odysseus was the most cunning of all Greek heroes — the man of polytropos (many turns), whose intelligence rather than strength defined a new kind of heroism.