Niobe

Mortal-tier daughter of Tantalus, queen of Thebes through marriage to Amphion. Mother of twelve (Homer) or fourteen (Hesiod, Hellenistic) children, all but two killed by Apollo and Artemis after her boast against Leto. Transformed into a weeping stone on Mt. Sipylus per the canonical Greek-tradition aetiology — Pausanias 1.21.3 visited the rock-formation in the 2nd c. CE. The Iliadic-Homeric Niobe is one of the most-staged tragic figures of classical Greek tragedy (Aeschylus, Sophocles, both lost) and the most-iconographically-treated through the Niobid-Group sculptural cluster (c.440 BCE).

Parentage

• parent: Tantalus

Children

• Amyclas
• Chloris

Domains

• tragic paradigm of unjust suffering

Powers

• Boast of fertility against the goddess Leto
• Petrify into an ever-weeping stone

Epithets

• Νιόβη Ancient Greek · Niobe · literarythe snowy/weeping oneOvid, Metamorphoses 6.146-312 (primary)

Relations

• spouse: AmphionApollod. 3.5.6; Hom. Il. 24.602-617 (primary)
• mother of: ChlorisApollod. 3.5.6; Hom. Od. 11.281-284 (primary)
• mother of: AmyclasApollod. 3.5.6 (primary)
• killed by: Apollo and Artemis (slew her twelve or fourteen children except Chloris and Amyclas; she was transformed-rather-than-killed) · GreekNot directly killed; her children were killed and she was transformed into stone in grief.Apollod. 3.5.6; Hom. Il. 24.602-617 (primary)

Sources

• existence: Homer, Iliad 24.602-617 (the canonical Iliadic narrative, reported by Achilles to Priam); Hesiod fr. 183 M-W; Apollodorus 3.5.6; Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.146-312; Pausanias 1.21.3, 2.21.9, 8.2.5-7; Aeschylus, Niobe (fragmentary); Sophocles, Niobe (fragmentary); the Niobid-Group sculptural-cluster (c.440 BCE Roman copies in Florence Uffizi from Greek originals) (primary)
• parentage: Apollod. 3.5.6 (daughter of Tantalus) (primary)