Sisyphus

"Come no closer! I do not wish to catch another soul ablaze!" – Sisyphus’s warning.

"Must… regenerate…" – Sisyphus regaining health.

"The fire of my light is fading in my heart. You are strong, . You may take the block." – Sisyphus’s final words.

Sisyphus is the boss of the Colossus of Rhodes.

He is based off of the character from Greek mythology.

Early life
Sisyphus was born in the Kingdom of Iolcus, in present-day Volon, Thessaly, in Northeast Greece. He was the 3rd child of the 12 children of Aeolus.

Aeolus’s children, from oldest to youngest included:


 * 6 sons: Cretheus, Athamas, Sisyphus, Salmoneus, Deioneus (not Ixion’s father-in-law), and Perieres.


 * 5 daughters: Pisidice, Alcyone, Calyce, Canace, and Perimede.


 * 1 more son: Magnes.

King of Corinth
In 1397 B.C., Aeolus died. By right, the 27-year-old Sisyphus should have inherited the Kingdom of Iolcus upon Aeolus’s death. Despite this, his younger brother Salmoneus – whom Sisyphus detested – claimed the crown and throne before Sisyphus could claim his birthright.

Sisyphus set off to make his own kingdom, and came across the city of Ephrya. Ephyra had been established in 1520 B.C., on its previous ruins.

Sisyphus, who was a public robber known by many, seized the city of Ephyra and renamed it Corinth, and in 1376 B.C., he founded the Kingdom of Corinth, and ruled over it as the first king of the Kingdom of Corinth, beginning his reign the same year.

Sisyphus promoted and invested in navigation and commerce, and under his rule, trade routes were established across Greece, and Corinth become commercially successful.

He instituted the Pythian Games in 1376 B.C.

At some point after this, Sisyphus married Merope, one of the Pleides.

Reclaiming Iolcus
On consulting the Delphic Oracle for advice on avenging his usurpation by his brother, he started by seducing his niece – Salmoneus’s daughter – Tyro. She bore him two children, but murdered them upon realizing his true intentions to overthrow her father, and that Sisyphus never loved her anyway.

In the Larissa marketplace, Sisyphus publicly confronted Salmoneus about incest as well as his childrens’ murders, and the guilt was believed by everyone, resulting in Salmoneus being banished from the Kingdom of Thessaly. Sisyphus re-inherited the throne, and re-established political order.

Fooling The Cattle Rustler
Sisyphus’s main adversary was Autolycus, the son of Hermes. Autolycus was a cattle rustler who had the ability to change colors. Being a neighbor of Sisyphus, Autolycus would steal many of Sisyphus’s cattle, identifiable by being brown cattle with horns. He would transform them into white cattle without horns. Sisyphus became suspicious when he noticed that the quantities of his herd were decreasing in size, while Autolycus’s herd increased.

One day, because he could not prove that the cattle were his because they looked different, Sisyphus carved an identification mark, “SIS” (a shortened version of his name), into the hooves of his cattle, so that he would be able to identify them if they were stolen. That night, Autolycus stole more of Sisyphus’s cattle. Sisyphus then led an army onto Autolycus’s land, and even though the cattle had changed color and appearance, Sisyphus was able to identify them by the mark he had placed.

With the truth now revealed, Sisyphus kidnapped and raped Autolycus’s daughter Anticlea.


 * In some versions of the story, after Sisyphus raped Anticlea, he had conceived Odysseus inside her.

The Abduction of Aegina
In 1347 B.C., Zeus later kidnapped Aegina – the daughter of Asopus the river-god – because he fell in love with her. Having witnessed all of this from his town, Sisyphus crafted a plan: He would tell Asopus that he knew where Aegina was, but would tell him only if Asopus created a perennial freshwater spring to flow eternally in the Acrocorinth, Sisyphus’s Corinthian High Citadel in the mountains.

When Asopus arrived in Corinth, the plan was set in motion, and Asopus created the freshwater spring in exchange for information. Sisyphus then disclosed Aegina’s location. The freshwater spring would be known as the Upper Peirene, or simply Pirene. This spring would rise behind Aphrodite’s Temple, and supplied the citadel, as well as the Corinthian plains, and the town of Corinth.

Asopus tracked Zeus and Aegina down to the island of Oenone, later to be named Aegina. Upon seeing Zeus, Asopus flew into a ballistic fury and attacked Zeus, who had unfortunately left behind his thunderbolts while he ravaged Aegina. Weaponless and defenseless, Zeus ran away from Asopus. To escape his wrath, Zeus transformed into a giant rock to fool Asopus.

Regaining his real form, Zeus retrieved his weapons and – right as Asopus was charging towards him – blasted Asopus back to his streams. Zeus had blasted Asopus in the leg with a thunderbolt so strong that it left Asopus permanently lame.

First Death and Return
Shortly after this, Zeus eventually found out that Sisyphus disclosed the secret facts to Asopus, and became incensed, desiring to kill him. He consulted Thanatos – one of Hades’ main lieutenants, and the personification of death, as well as the god of peaceful deaths – to claim Sisyphus’s life and bring him to the Underworld. Sisyphus was curious that Hermes – who would usually guide the soul to the Underworld – was not there to do so and was instead replaced by Thanatos.

As Thanatos was about to manacle Sisyphus to the enchanted steel chains of Tartarus, Sisyphus tricked him into showing him how the chains worked. Thanatos – not knowing how clever Sisyphus was – complied. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Sisyphus swiftly chained him up, shanghaied him, took him back to his palace in Corinth, and stuffed him into a crate under the bed, imprisoning him for an entire month.

After this, Sisyphus used his intelligence to craft a plan. Sisyphus told Merope, in case he was forced to free Thanatos, to forget the traditional burial rites and hurl his dirtied, naked corpse onto a street in the middle of the dusty town square of Corinth. This would deny him any passage across the River Styx, where souls would need to cross.

Second Death and Return
Ares, who had been fighting in Thrace alongside the Amazonians and against the Thracians, was so bored with the wars where nobody could die. Arriving at the Palace of Hades, Ares demanded to know why Hades wasn’t doing his job, and Hades told him that it was Thanatos’s job, and that he had not returned from Corinth. With this information revealed, Ares decided to rescue Thanatos.

Wrathful, Ares smashed down the door to Sisyphus’s palace, confronted Sisyphus and threatened Sisyphus to release Thanatos and turn himself in, and if not, then Ares would strangle him, and if that didn’t work, then he would decapitate Sisyphus and then hide the head. Terrified, Sisyphus reluctantly opened the chest, freeing Thanatos. Ares then used his sword to slay Sisyphus, and Sisyphus became a prisoner of Hades once again.


 * In another version, both Ares and Thanatos vaporized Sisyphus with double blasts of godly wrath.

In the Underworld, Thanatos led Sisyphus over the Acheron River, where dead people would pay the ferryman Charon. But because Thanatos was the God of Death, he did not need to pay the ferryman. As they arrived at the forecourt of the Palace of Hades, Sisyphus awaited the judgement from the 3 Judges of the Dead. Before the Judges made their decision, Sisyphus crafted another fiendish plan: to manipulate Hades’ wife Persephone.

Sisyphus ended up on the banks of the far side of the River Styx, unable to cross the river, as souls could only cross the river if their bodies received the proper burial rites.

Realizing that his wife had followed his orders not out of love, but out of obedience, Sisyphus manipulated Persephone into freeing him, by explaining that his wife never gave him a proper burial, and that he wanted to confront her for not giving him a proper funeral. Persephone complied and released Sisyphus on a 3-day stay of execution.

Third death and Punishment
Sisyphus did confront his wife, but had no intention to return to the Underworld, so he lived many more years.

While back on Earth for the third time, Sisyphus founded the Isthmian Games in 1326 B.C. The Isthmian Games is an athletics festival held in the spring every two years at the Isthmus of Corinth. It was held to honor Poseidon, the god of the sea, as well as the death of Sisyphus’s nephew Melicertes, who drowned at sea. These games would be held in the spring once every 2 years, and the winners of the games would receive a crown of parsley.

In 1286 B.C., Sisyphus finally died from natural causes and advanced old age. This was because Thanatos did not want to go anywhere near him after his experience in chains. Hermes – who had seen the three Fates cutting his Thread of Life – dragged Sisyphus by the collar from his citadel back to the Underworld when he refused to return again.

When Sisyphus arrived again, Zeus, Hades, and The Judges of the Dead all devised a fiendish punishment: for his arrogance, self-aggrandizing persona, and huge hubris, Sisyphus was carried out to the Fields of Punishment and ordered to push a large heavy boulder – that was also shaped like the one Zeus transformed into to escape Asopus – up a barren mountain 500 feet in height, sloped at a 45 degree angle. Every time Sisyphus reached the top of the mountain, the boulder would roll back down the mountain.

If Sisyphus stopped to rest, the Furies would arrive and whip him until he moved again, and Sisyphus would have to do the task of carrying the boulder up to the top of the mountain and the boulder rolling back down the mountain again, forever.

On his first and second death, Sisyphus died at age 77, but on his second lease of a long, prolonged life, Sisyphus died at age 138.

When Sisyphus was buried, he was buried on the Isthmus of Corinth.

Aftermath
The Sisyphid Dynasty – Sisyphus’s descendants – continued to rule the Corinthian throne until 1084 B.C., when the crown fell to conquering Dorians: Hercules’s descendants.

Return
Sisyphus returned as a blaze and seized the Colossus of Rhodes.

Physical Description
Sisyphus was a sly, deceitful, clever man with a large hubris: he believed that he was cleverer than the other gods, including Zeus.

Sisyphus is a blaze, and so he bears no armor, and no weapons.

Trivia

 * It is possible that in the game, Sisyphus is the most reluctant and remorseful of the villains, mostly by his messages.
 * His introduction reads "I do not want to catch another soul ablaze", possibly implying that he has killed many people before, has experienced guilt for his actions, and does not want to continue killing people.
 * Also, except for a wave of fire covering his entire body, he carries no weapons or armor.
 * Also, he may be the most sickly of the villains, as he struggles to regenerate.