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Sisyphus
Sisyphus, the king of Corinth, was the cleverest man in the world, and one of the few to ever come back frome Hades' domain. His city needed a source of fresh water, and one day, when Zeus was cavorting with the daughter of a river-god named Asopus, Sisyphus saw his chance to procure one.
Asopus was looking for his daughter Aegina, and Sisyphus made a deal with him. Sisyphus promised to tell him where his daughter was if he would create a freshwater spring in the city. The god reluctantly struck the ground, creating a spring, and Sisyphus told Asopus not only that Zeus had taken his daughter, but where to find them.
Zeus was caught off-guard, and had to save himself from the river-god's fury by changing himself into a rock, and Aegina into the island that bears her name.
Furious with Sisyphus, Zeus sent Hades to bring the king of Corinth to the underworld personally, for some severe punishment. Sisyphus was wise to Zeus' plans and pretended to be greatly honored by a visit from such a high ranking Olympian. When Sisyphus asked why Hermes, whose job it was to take shades to Hades, had not come for him, Hades thought about how to answer. In his distraction, Hades was unaware that chains were being placed around him, until it was too late. Hades had been captured by Sisyphus.
While the god of the dead was held prisoner, no one could die. The sick and old suffered, and the people could not sacrifice animals to eat meat. The world was in chaos, and the gods threatened to make life so miserable for Sisyphus, that he would wish he were dead.
Sisyphus let Hades go, and life and death went on as usual. Hermes soon came to escort Sisyphus to Hades, but the clever king had a plan. He had instructed his queen not to place a coin in his mouth and not to give him a propper burial. Hades was shocked to discover that the queen of Corinth had not fulfilled her wifely duties regarding her dead husband, and Sisyphus convinced Hades to let him go back and teach his disrespectful wife some manners.
The queen and King of Corinth then lived happily together for many more years until Sisyphus was too old to go on living. When he returned to Hades, he was given a task to keep him too busy to think up any more ingenious plans. Sisyphus is forced to forever push a boulder up a hill in Hades. But everytime he gets close to the top, the boulder slips from his hands and rolls back down again.
Sisyphus is punished forever, but he wasn't really a bad guy. He was just too clever for his own good, and a bit of a prankster. The Greeks recognized the complexity of individuals. People, like most gods, were a mixture of both positive and negative traits. Sometimes people with good intentions upset the gods and had to be punished.
There was one man who killed his father-in-law and was stricken with madness until Zeus himself pardoned him. But his later disloyalty to Zeus led him to be eternally punished. He's still hanging around in the underworld. Maybe he'll take you for a spin if you ask nicely.
