lauren mcgeorge. niobe - queen of thebes; has 14 children: 7 sons and 7 daughters; father is...

Lauren McGeorge

• Niobe - Queen of Thebes; has 14 children: 7 sons and 7 daughters; father is Tantalus

• Amphion – Niobe’s husband and King of Thebes; father is Jove

• Latona – Mother of Apollo and Diana

• Niobe is proud of her royal husband’s talent, high birth, and power of place, and mostly of her children.

• She comes along a ceremony honoring the goddess Latona and breaks up the ceremony.

• She dared to suggest that she was more worthy of worship than Latona because she had 14 children, whereas Latona had only 2.

• Latona wants to punish Niobe and calls on her two children, Apollo and Diana.

• While Niobe’s sons are riding their horses, Apollo kills all seven with poisonous arrows.

• In response, Amphion drives a sword through his own heart.

• Niobe keeps insulting Latona by saying she is still the winner, even with her sons and husband dead

• All daughters are killed by Diana’s arrows

• The people dreaded Latona’s wrath and they were even more zealous in their worship

• Start telling stories of Latona• Gave birth to twins, feared Juno, so she took

her children with her to Lycia. She was very thirsty when she came to a pond, but wasn’t allowed to drink from it. She turned the country people into frogs.

• Marsyas, the satyr who challenges Apollo to a flute-playing contest, whom Apollo flays as punishment when the satyr loses.

• Niobe lies weeping among killed family• She turns to rock and is taken to her native

mountains, where she still weeps.• The people mourned the deaths of Amphion

and children. They blamed it on Niobe.• Only one man wept for her – her brother

Pelops• The neighboring rulers came and offered

consolation, all except Athens with war at her gates.

• Niobe became the symbol of eternal mourning, weeping even to this day.

• Carved on a rock cliff on Mt. Sipylus is the fading image of a female that the Greeks claim is Niobe

• Composed of porous limestone, the stone appears to weep as the water after a rain seeps through it.