Niobe
(Νιόβη).
1. A daughter of Phoroneus, and by Zeus the mother of Argus and Pelasgus. (Apollod. 2.1.1; Paus. 2.22.6; Plat. Tim. 22, b.) In other traditions she is called the mother of Phoroneus and wife of Inachus.
2. A daughter of Tantalus by the Pleiad Taygete or the Hyad Dione (Ov. Met. 6.174; Hyg. Fab. 9), or, according to others, a daughter of Pelops and the wife of Zethus or Alalcomeneus (Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1367), while Parthenius relates quite a different story (Erot. 33), for he makes her a daughter of Assaon and the wife of Philottus, and relates that she entered into a dispute with Leto about the beauty of their respective children. In consequence of this Philottus was torn to pieces during the chase, and Assaon fell in love with his own daughter; but she rejected him, and he in revenge burnt all her children, in consequence of which Niobe threw herself down from a rock (comp. Schol. ad Eurip. Phoen. 159). But according to the common story, which represents her as a daughter of Tantalus, she was the sister of Pelops, and married to Amphion, king of Thebes, by whom she became the mother of six sons and six daughters. Being proud of the number of her children, she deemed herself superior to Leto, who had given birth only to two children. Apollo and Artemis, indignant at such presumption, slew all the children of Niobe. For nine days their bodies lay in their blood without any one burying them, for Zeus had changed the people into stones; but on the tenth day the gods themselves buried them. Niobe herself, who had gone to mount Sipylus, was metamorphosed into stone, and even thus continued to feel the misfortune with which the gods had visited her. (Hom. Il. 24.603-617; Apollod. 3.5.6; Ov. Met. 6.155, &c.; Paus. 8.2. in fin.) Later writers, and especially the dramatic poets have greatly modified and enlarged the simple story related by Homer. The number and names of the children of Niobe vary very much in the different accounts, for while Homer states that their number was twelve, Hesiod and others mentioned twenty, Alcman only six, Sappho eighteen, Hellanicus six, Euripides fourteen, Herodotus four, and Apollodorus fourteen. (Apollod. l.c.; Ov. Met. 6.182; Aelian, Ael. VH 12.36; Gellius, 20.6; Schol. ad Eurip. Phoen. 159; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1367; Hyg. Fab. 11; Tzetz. ad Lyc. 520.) According to Homer all the children of Niobe fell by the arrows of Apollo and Artemis; but later writers state that one of her sons, Amphion or Amyclas, and one of her daughters, Meliboea, were saved, but that Meliboea, having turned pale with terror at the sight of her dying brothers and sisters, was afterwards called Chloris, and this Chloris is then confounded with the daughter of Amphion of Orchomenos, who was married to Neleus. (Apollod. l.c.; Hom. Od. 11.282; Paus. 2.21. in fin., 5.16.3.) The time and place at which the children of Niobe were destroyed are likewise stated differently. According to Homer, they perished in their mother's house; and, according to Apollodorus, the sons were killed by Apollo during the chase on mount Cithaeron (Hyg. Fab. 9, says on mount Sipylus), and the daughters by Artemis at Thebes, not far from the royal palace. According to Ovid, the sons were slain while they were engaged in gymnastic exercises in a plain near Thebes, and the daughters during the funeral of their brothers. Others, again, transfer the scene to Lydia (Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1367), or make Niobe, after the death of her children, go from Thebes to Lydia, to her father Tantalus on mount Sipylus, where Zeus, at her own request, metamorphosed her into a stone, which during the summer always shed tears. (Ov. Met. 6.303; Apollod. l.c.; Pauls. 8.2.3 Soph. Antiy. 823, Electr. 147.) In the time of Pausanias (1.21.5) people still fancied they could see the petrified figure of Niobe on mount Sipylus. The tomb of the children of Niobe, however, was shown at Thebes. (Paus. 9.16. in fin., 17.1; but comp. Schol. ad Eurip. Phoen. 159.) The story of Niobe and her children was frequently taken as a subject by ancient artists (Paus. 1.21.5, 5.11.2); but none of the ancient representations is more celebrated than the group of Niobe and her children which filled the pediment of the temple of Apollo Sosianus at Rome, and was found at Rome in the year 1583. This group is now at Florence, and consists of the mother, who holds her youngest daughter on her knees, and thirteen statues of her sons and daughters, independent of a figure usually called the paedagogus of the children. It is, however, not improbable that several of the statues which now compose the group, originally did not belong to it. Some of the figures in it belong to the most masterly productions of ancient art. The Romans themselves were uncertain as to whether the group was the work of Scopas or Praxiteles. (Plin. Nat. 36.4; comp. Welcker, Zeitschrift für die alter Kunst, p. 589, &c.) [L.S]
(Νιόβη). The daughter of Tantalus and Dioné. She was the sister of Pelops and wife of Amphion of Thebes. Like her father, she stood in close connection with the gods, especially with Leto, the wife of Zeus, and fell into misfortune by her own arrogance. In her maternal pride for her numerous progeny of six sons and six daughters, the ill-fated woman ventured to compare herself to Leto, who had only two children. To punish this presumption Apollo and Artemis slew with their arrows all Niobé's children in their parents' palace. For nine days they lay in their blood without any one to bury them, for Zeus had changed all people into stone. On the tenth day the gods buried them. Niobé, who was changed to stone on the lonely hills of Sipylus, could not, even in this form, forget her sorrow. So runs Homer's account (Il. xxiv. 612), in which we have the earliest reference to “a colossal relief roughly carved on the rocks” of Mount Sipylus, in Lydia, the face of which is washed by a stream in such a manner that it appears to be weeping (cf. Jebb on Antig. 831). Pausanias (i. 21, 5) declares that he saw this relief which modern archaeologists now regard as referable to the art of the Hittites.
The accounts of later writers vary greatly in respect of the number of the daughters of Niobé and of the scene of her death. Sometimes the spot where the disaster occurs is Lydia, sometimes Thebes, where, moreover, the grave of Niobé's children was pointed out; the sons perish in the chase, or on the race-course, while the daughters die in the royal palace at Thebes, or at the burial of their brethren. This story describes Niobé as returning from Thebes to her home on Sipylus, and as there changed into a stone by Zeus, at her own entreaty. The fate of Niobé was often, in ancient times, the theme both of poetry and of art. The group of the children of Niobé, discovered at Rome, near the Lateran Church, in 1583, and now (since 1775) at Florence, is well known; it is probably the Roman copy of a Greek work which stood in Pliny 's time in a temple of Apollo at Rome, and with regard to which it was a mooted point with the ancients whether it was from the hand of Scopas or of Praxiteles (Pliny , Pliny H. N. xxxvi. 28). See Stark, Niobe und die Niobiden (1863).
- mother of Argus and Pelasgus by Zeus: Paus. 2.22.5, Apollod. 1.9.28, Apollod. 2.1.1
- turned into stone: Paus. 8.2.5
- daughter of Tantalus, wife of Amphion: Apollod. 3.5.5
- her sons and daughters: Apollod. 3.5.5, Apollod. 3.5.6
- boasts herself happier than Latona: Apollod. 3.5.5
- children of Niobe slain by Apollo and Artemis: Apollod. 3.5.6, Paus. 1.21.3, Paus. 2.21.9, Paus. 5.11.2, but two of them survive: Paus. 5.16.4
- goes to her father at Sipylus and is turned to stone: Apollod. 3.5.6
- story of Niobe connected with Mount Sipylus: Paus. 8.38.10
- her figure in the rock on Mount Sipylus: Paus. 1.21.3
- sheds tears in summer: Paus. 8.2.7