Niobe

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Niobe

Niobe (???ß?) was the daughter of the semi-legendary ruler Tantalus

Tantalus

In Greek mythology Tantalus was a son of Zeus and the nymph Plouto. Thus he was a king in the primordial world, the father of a son Broteas whose very name signifies "mortals" ....
, called the "Phrygian

Phrygian

Phrygian can refer to:*A person from Phrygia*Phrygian cap once characteristic of the region* Phrygian language*Phrygian mode in music* Phrygian Valley, a historic location in northwestern Turkey...
" and sometimes even as "King of Phrygia

Phrygia

In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the Southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges, changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the Hellespont....
" . Although Tantalus ruled in Sipylus, a city located in the western extremity of Anatolia

Anatolia

Anatolia or Asia Minor is a region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. It is a geographic region bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Iranian plateau to the east and southeast....
where Lydia

Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkey provinces of Manisa Province and inland Izmir Province....
was to emerge as a state as of the 8th century BC, and not in the traditional heartland of Phrygia, situated more inland and centered around Gordion. The city of Tantalus carried the same name as the mountain on which it was founded, Mount Sipylus

Mount Sipylus

Mount Spil or Mount Sipylus is a mountain rich in legends and history situated near the city of Manisa in Turkey's Aegean Region, Turkey....
, and few traces remain of the settlement , An Anatolian princess, Niobe married Amphion

Amphion

There are several characters named Amphion in Greek mythology:* Amphion,son of Zeus and Antiope , and twin brother of Zethus . Together they are famous for building Thebes ....
of Thebes

Thebes

Thebes may refer to one of the following places:* Thebes, Egypt – Thebes of the Hundred Gates; one-time capital of the New Kingdom of Egypt...
and Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
acted as a vehicle for her historical record mixed with legends.

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Niobe (???ß?) was the daughter of the semi-legendary ruler Tantalus

Tantalus

Phrygian

Phrygia

Anatolia

Lydia

Mount Sipylus

Amphion

There are several characters named Amphion in Greek mythology:* Amphion,son of Zeus and Antiope , and twin brother of Zethus . Together they are famous for building Thebes ....
of Thebes

Thebes

Thebes may refer to one of the following places:* Thebes, Egypt – Thebes of the Hundred Gates; one-time capital of the New Kingdom of Egypt...
and Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Pelops

In Greek mythology, Pelops , king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus, was venerated at Olympia, Greece, where his cult developed into the founding myth of the Ancient Olympic Games, the most important expression of unity, not only for the Peloponnesus, "land of Pelops", but for all Hellenes....
, who gave his name to the Peloponnese

Peloponnese

The Peloponnese or Peloponnesus is a large peninsula and Regions of Greece in southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth....
.

Life

According to the Greek myth, Niobe boasted of her superiority to Leto

Leto

In Greek mythology, Let? is a daughter of the Titan Coeus and Phoebe : Kos claimed her birthplace. In the Olympian scheme of things, Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis, the Letoides....
because the goddess only had two children, the twins Apollo and Artemis, while Niobe had fourteen children (the Niobids

Niobids

In Greek mythology, the Niobids were the children of Amphion of Thebes, Greece and Niobe, slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe, born of the royal house of Phrygia, had boastfully compared the greater number of her own offspring with those of Leto, Apollo's and Artemis' mother....
), seven male and seven female. Her famously quoted speech which caused the indignation of the goddess is as follows:

By using poisoned arrows, Artemis

Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
killed Niobe's daughters and Apollo

Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
killed Niobe's sons, while they practiced athletics, with the last begging their lives. According to some versions, at least one Niobid was spared, (usually Meliboea

Chloris

There are many stories in Greek mythology about figures named Chloris . Some clearly refer to different characters; other stories may refer to the same Chloris, but disagree on details....
). Their father Amphion, at the sight of his dead sons, either killed himself or was killed by Apollo for having sworn revenge. A devastated Niobe fled to Mount Sipylus

Mount Sipylus

Mount Spil or Mount Sipylus is a mountain rich in legends and history situated near the city of Manisa in Turkey's Aegean Region, Turkey....
and was turned into stone and, as she wept unceasingly, waters started to pour from her petrified complexion. Mount Sipylus indeed has a natural rock formation which resembles a female face, and it has been associated with Niobe since ancient times . The rock formation is also known as the "Weeping Rock" (Turkish
Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other parts of Eastern Europe....
: Aglayan Kaya), since rainwater seeps through its porous

Pore

Pore may refer to:In animal biology and microbiology:* Sweat pore, an anatomical structure of the skin of humans used for secretion of sweat...
limestone

Limestone

File:Limestone Formation In Waitomo.jpgLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geology record....
pores.

This rock formation associated with Niobe is not to be confused with a full-faced sculpture carved into the rock-face of a a nearby crag, and which is located north of the mountain. This sculpture was attributed by Pausanias

Pausanias

Pausanias *Pausanias , lover of the poet Agathon and a character in Plato's Symposium*Pausanias , Spartan general and regent of the 5th century BC...
to Broteas

Broteas

In Greek mythology, Broteas was the ugly son of Tantalus, whose other offspring were Niobe and Pelops. He carved the most ancient image of the Great Mother of the Gods , an image that in Pausanias ' day was still held sacred by the Magnesia ad Sipylum....
, the ugly brother of Niobe, and it is in fact of Hittite

Hittites

The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a Hittite language of the Anatolian languages of the Indo-European languages family, and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca....
workmanship and represents Cybele

Cybele

Cybele , was the Phrygian deification of the Earth Mother. As with Greek Gaia , or her Minoan civilization equivalent Rhea , Cybele embodies the fertile Earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals ....
.

Niobe in Literature

The story of Niobe is an ancient one. She is mentioned by Achilles

Achilles

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greeks hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad, which takes for its theme ; the Wrath of Achilles....
to Priam

Priam

In Greek mythology, Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous"....
in Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
's Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
book XXIV, as a stock type for mourning. Priam is not unlike Niobe in the sense that he was also grieving for his son Hector

Hector

In Greek mythology, Hector , or Hektor, is a Troy prince and one of the greatest fighters in the Trojan War. He is the son of Priam and Hecuba, descendant of Dardanus, who lived under Mount Ida, and of Tros, the founder of Troy....
, who was killed and not buried for several days. Niobe is also mentioned in Sophocles

Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
's Antigone
Antigone

Antigone is the name of two different women in Greek mythology. The name may be taken to mean "unbending", coming from "anti-" and "-gon / -gony" , but has also been suggested to mean "opposed to motherhood" or "in place of a mother" based from the root gone, "that which generates" ....
where, as she is marched toward her death, she compares her own loneliness to that of Niobe. The Niobe of Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
, set in Thebes, survives in fragmentary quotes that were supplemented by a papyrus sheet containing twenty-one lines of text. From the fragments it appears that for the first part of the tragedy the grieving Niobe sits veiled and silent. Sophocles

Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
too contributed a Niobe that is lost. Furthermore, the conflict between Niobe and Leto is mentioned in one of Sappho's poetic fragments, ("Before they were mothers, Leto and Niobe had been the most devoted of friends.") The subject of Niobe and the destruction of the Niobids

Niobids

In Greek mythology, the Niobids were the children of Amphion of Thebes, Greece and Niobe, slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe, born of the royal house of Phrygia, had boastfully compared the greater number of her own offspring with those of Leto, Apollo's and Artemis' mother....
was part of the repertory of Attic vase-painters and inspired sculpture groups and wall frescoes as well as relief carvings on Roman sarcophagi

Sarcophagus

A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek language sa?? sarx meaning "flesh", and fa?e?? phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos the word came to refer to the limestone t...
.

Niobe's iconic tears were also mentioned in Hamlet

Hamlet

Hamlet is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle King Claudius, who has murdered King Hamlet, the King, and then taken the throne and married Gertrude ....
's soliloquy (Act 1, Scene 2), in which he contrasts his mother's grief over the dead King, Hamlet's father - "like Niobe, all tears" - to her unseemly hasty marriage to Claudius .

Among works of modern literature which have Niobe as a central theme, the following can be cited:

Niobe

Life

Niobe in Literature

Niobe in Art

See also

Sources

Modern scholarship

Classical authors

General reading

Popular reading