Sisyphus is the king of Ephyra and, according to Philoctetes, the biological father of Odysseus. Per some versions of the myth of Odysseus, Sisyphus seduced Anticlea, Odysseus’s mother, before she married Laertes, Odysseus’s recognized father. Sisyphus is known for his deception and even escaped Hades, or the underworld, by persuading Persephone, the goddess of the underworld, to let him return to earth to haunt his wife. Sisyphus represents deception in Sophocles’s play, and Philoctetes refers to him multiple times, calling Odysseus “a cheat like Sisyphus.”