Because of this, sacrifices could not be made to the gods, and those that were old and sick were suffering.
As long as Hades was tied up, nobody could die. In another version, Hades was sent to chain Sisyphus and was chained himself. The exasperated Ares freed Thanatos and turned King Sisyphus over to Thanatos. This caused an uproar especially for Ares (who was annoyed that his battles had lost their fun because his opponents would not die), and so he intervened. Once Thanatos was bound by the strong chains, no one died on earth. As Thanatos was granting him his wish, Sisyphus seized the opportunity and trapped Thanatos in the chains instead. King Sisyphus slyly asked Thanatos to demonstrate how the chains worked. Sisyphus was curious as to why Hermes, whose job it was to guide souls to the Underworld, had not appeared on this occasion. Zeus then ordered Thanatos, Death, to chain King Sisyphus down below in Tartarus. King Sisyphus also betrayed one of Zeus' secrets by revealing the whereabouts of Aegina (an Asopid who was taken away by Zeus) to her father (the river god Asopus) in return for causing a spring to flow on the Corinthian acropolis. He seduced Salmoneus's daughter Tyro in one of his plots to kill Salmoneus, only for Tyro to slay the children she bore by him when she discovered that Sisyphus was planning on eventually using them to dethrone her father. From Homer onward, Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men.
Sisyphus and his brother Salmoneus were known to hate each other, and Sisyphus consulted with the Oracle of Delphi on just how to kill Salmoneus without incurring any severe consequences for himself. He took pleasure in these killings because they allowed him to maintain his iron-fisted rule. He also killed travellers and guests, a violation of xenia, which fell under Zeus's domain. King Sisyphus promoted navigation and commerce but was avaricious and deceitful.
Sisyphus was the founder and first king of Ephyra (supposedly the original name of Corinth). He was the father of Glaucus, Ornytion, Almus, and Thersander by the nymph Merope, the brother of Salmoneus, and the grandfather of Bellerophon through Glaucus. Sisyphus was the son of King Aeolus of Thessaly and Enarete. Otto Gruppe thought that the name derived from sisys (σίσυς, "a goat's skin"), in reference to a rain-charm in which goats' skins were used.
Beekes has suggested a pre-Greek origin and a connection with the root of the word sophos (σοφός, "wise").