Sisyphus

Sisyphus consulted the Delphic Oracle after Salmoneus usurped the Thessalian throne. The oracle told him, ‘Sire children on your niece; they will avenge you.’ Sisyphus seduced Tyro, Salmoneus’s daughter, because he hated her father rather than loved her. Tyro discovered his motive and killed the two sons she bore him before he could use them to fulfil the oracle against Salmoneus. Sisyphus then entered the market-place of Larissa, displayed the dead bodies, falsely accused Salmoneus of incest and murder, and had him expelled from Thessaly.

Salmoneus had ruled in Thessaly before he led an Aeolian colony to the eastern confines of Elis. He founded Salmonia near the source of the river Enipeus, a tributary of the Alpheius. He claimed to be Zeus, transferred sacrifices from Zeus to his own altars, and drove a chariot with bronze vessels bound behind it to imitate thunder. He threw burning oak torches into the air as false lightning, and some torches scorched his subjects when they fell. Zeus then struck Salmoneus with a real thunderbolt. The bolt destroyed the king and his chariot and burned down Salmonia. Alcidice, Salmoneus’s wife, died when she gave birth to Tyro, and Cretheus, Salmoneus’s brother, raised her.

In another telling, Tyro loved the river Enipeus. Poseidon took the river’s form and fathered twin sons with her. She exposed the children, and passing horse-trainers found them. A mare struck one child in the face, and the horse-trainer raised the twins as Pelias and Neleus. The telling of Sisyphus’s revenge instead made Sisyphus their father and ended with Tyro’s killing of the boys and his expulsion of Salmoneus from Thessaly.

On the morning of Anticleia’s wedding to Laertes, Sisyphus seduced her. Anticleia was the daughter of Autolycus, the master thief who lived near Sisyphus and was said to have Hermes as his father. Sisyphus had accused Autolycus of stealing his cattle after marking their hooves with signs that identified the theft. One account presents the seduction as revenge for this theft. Another says that Autolycus connived in it, having become friendly with Sisyphus.

Anticleia then became the mother of Odysseus. In this version, Sisyphus, rather than Laertes, was Odysseus’s father. Sisyphus was the son of Aeolus and was associated with Corinth. He was also said to have married Merope, the daughter of Atlas, and to have had children by her, including Glaucus and Ornytion. The account of Odysseus’s birth therefore places him among the descendants of Sisyphus, while giving him a different paternal line from the one found elsewhere.

The Homeric tradition presented Odysseus as a positive and heroic figure. Later authors gave him a less favourable character, treating his cleverness as a means of treachery. In that setting, including Sophocles’s play Philoctetes, Odysseus was called the son of Sisyphus rather than the son of Laertes. Other traditions retained Laertes as his father and Anticleia as his mother. The version involving Sisyphus explains Odysseus’s birth through the encounter between Sisyphus and Anticleia before her marriage.

Asopus came to Corinth searching for his daughter Aegina, who had disappeared. Sisyphus, king of Corinth, knew what had happened. He told Asopus that Zeus had carried Aegina away, but demanded payment for the information. In return, Asopus caused a spring to rise on the Acrocorinth. Sisyphus then revealed that Zeus was the abductor.

Asopus pursued Zeus and found him embracing Aegina in a wood. Zeus was unarmed and fled through the thickets. When he was out of sight, he changed himself into a rock and waited until Asopus had passed. He then returned to Olympus. From the safety of its ramparts, Zeus threw thunderbolts at the river god and drove him back to his own stream. Asopus continued to move slowly because of the wounds he received, and lumps of burned coal were said to be gathered from his river bed.

Zeus took Aegina to the island then called Oinone. He slept with her there, and she bore him a son, Aeacus. Zeus later renamed the island Aegina after her. The account also says that Aegina was the youngest of Asopus's daughters and the twin sister of Thebe. Several of Asopus's daughters had previously been carried off by Zeus, Poseidon, or Apollo.