Sisyphus
Sisyphus was the craftiest mortal who ever lived — he cheated Death twice before Zeus condemned him to push a boulder uphill for eternity.
The Legend of Sisyphus
The craftiest king of Corinth, Sisyphus tricked Thanatos by asking Death to demonstrate the chains meant for him — then locked Death up, halting all mortality. Ares freed Death, and Sisyphus was dragged to the Underworld. But he had told his wife to leave his body unburied, and Hades released him to arrange proper rites. Sisyphus refused to return. Zeus finally condemned him to Tartarus: pushing a boulder uphill for eternity, watching it roll back each time. His cunning descended through Autolycus and Hermes's bloodline to Odysseus. His punishment stands alongside Tantalus, Ixion, and Prometheus as eternal justice from Olympus.
Parents
Aeolus
Children
Glaucus, Ornytion
Symbols
Fun Fact
Camus' 1942 essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" turned this punishment into an existentialist manifesto — the defining text of absurdism.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Sisyphus
🗡 heroKing condemned to roll a boulder forever
The cunning king of Corinth who cheated death twice, only to be condemned to an eternity of futile labor in Tartarus — forever rolling a boulder uphill only to watch it roll back down.
Sisyphus
🗡 heropunishment
Cleverest of mortals who cheated death twice and was condemned to push a boulder uphill in Tartarus forever.
Ixion
🗡 heropunishment
First human murderer of kin, who attempted to seduce Hera and was bound to an eternally spinning wheel of fire.
Palamedes
🗡 heroInventor framed by Odysseus
Palamedes was a brilliant inventor who exposed Odysseus's fake madness — Odysseus never forgave him and engineered his execution at Troy.
Tantalus
🗡 heroKing punished with eternal hunger and thirst
A king who offended the gods by serving them his own son as a meal. His punishment in Tartarus — standing in water that recedes when he tries to drink, beneath fruit that pulls away when he reaches for it — gave us the word "tantalize."
Myrtilus
🗡 herocurse
Charioteer of King Oenomaus bribed by Pelops to sabotage his master's chariot, then murdered by Pelops and the origin of the Pelopid curse.
Pelops
🗡 herokingship
Son of Tantalus, restored to life by the gods with an ivory shoulder, who won his bride by cheating in a chariot race and cursed his line.
Heracles
🗡 heroGreatest of all Greek heroes
The son of Zeus and Alcmene who performed twelve impossible labours and was the only hero to achieve full godhood after death.
Ixion
🗡 heroFirst murderer and first sinner
Ixion was the first human to murder a kinsman and the first to attempt seduction of a goddess — bound forever to a spinning wheel of fire.
Erysichthon
🗡 heropunishment
A Thessalian king cursed by Demeter with insatiable hunger after destroying her sacred grove — he devoured everything he owned, then consumed himself.
Perseus
🗡 heroHero who slew Medusa
The son of Zeus and Danae who beheaded Medusa, rescued Andromeda, and founded the Perseid dynasty of Mycenae.
Phineus
🗡 heroprophecy, punishment
A blind Thracian king and prophet punished by Zeus for revealing divine secrets, tormented by Harpies until rescued by the Argonauts.