← Back to the front page

The Dark Origins of Mermaids and Other Mysterious Folk Lore

Khalid Elhassan September 30, 2023 29 min

Odysseus and the sirens. Greek Gods and Goddesses

The Lore of Sisyphus

Sisyphus in ancient Greek lore was a king of Corinth, and the founder of the Isthmian Games – one of the four major games, which included the Olympics. Sisyphus was extremely smart, and a trickster who fathered the hero Odysseus, of Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey. Unfortunately, Sisyphus’ smarts were combined with questionable ethics: among other things, he was greedy, deceitful, and liked to rob people.

That got him in trouble with the gods, especially Zeus. The greatest of Sisyphus’ sins was his violation of Xenia, the sacred laws of hospitality that protected travelers and guests, when he murdered some of his guests to demonstrate his ruthlessness. That angered Zeus, whose portfolio included the promotion of Xenia.

Lore - Ancient Greek depiction of Zeus chasing Aegina — Ancient Greek depiction of Zeus chasing Aegina. The History Junkie

On another occasion, Zeus kidnapped Aegina, daughter of the river god Asopus. When her distraught father tried to find her, Sisyphus told him where she was. In exchange, Asopus created a spring and sent it to flow into the city of Corinth. Zeus was already upset with Sisyphus for his violation of the sacred laws of hospitality. He grew livid when the Corinthian ruler snitched to Asopus about where the chief Olympian god had hid the river god’s kidnapped daughter.

So he sent Thanatos, the god of death, to seize Sisyphus and chain him in the underworld. Sisyphus however tricked Thanatos and got him to explain how the chains worked. He then used that knowledge to chain the death god. With Thanatos chained, the mortally ill could no longer find release from earthly suffering, and no sacrifices could be made.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.