Niobe

The Weeping Rock in Mount Sipylus, Manisa, Turkey, is associated with Niobe's legend

Niobe (Νιόβη) was the daughter of the semi-legendary ruler Tantalus, called the "Phrygian" and sometimes even as "King of Phrygia" ^[1]. However, Tantalus ruled in Sipylus, a city located in the western extremity of Anatolia where Lydia 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, and few traces remain of the settlement ^[2], An Anatolian princess, Niobe married Amphion of Thebes and Greek mythology acted as a vehicle for her historical record mixed with legends. Niobe was the sister of Pelops, who gave his name to the Peloponnese ^[3].

Life

Niobe's Rock may assume very different appearances according to the distance of observation and the air and light conditions.

According to the Greek myth, Niobe boasted of her superiority to Leto because the goddess only had two children, the twins Apollo and Artemis, while Niobe had fourteen children (the Niobids), seven male and seven female.^[4] Her famously quoted speech which caused the indignation of the goddess is as follows:

It was on occasion of the annual celebration in honor of Latona and her offspring, Apollo and Diana, when the people of Thebes were assembled, their brows crowned with laurel, bearing frankincense to the altars and paying their vows, that Niobe appeared among the crowd. Her attire was splendid with gold and gems, and her face as beautiful as the face of an angry woman can be. She stood and surveyed the people with haughty looks. "What folly," said she, "is this! to prefer beings whom you never saw to those who stand before your eyes! Why should Latona be honored with worship rather than I? My father was Tantalus, who was received as a guest at the table of the gods; my mother was a goddess. My husband built and rules this city, Thebes; and Phrygia is my paternal inheritance. Wherever I turn my eyes I survey the elements of my power; nor is my form and presence unworthy of a goddess. To all this let me add, I have seven sons and seven daughters, and look for sons-in-law and daughters-in-law of pretensions worthy of my alliance. Have I not cause for pride? Will you prefer to me this Latona, the Titan's daughter, with her two children? I have seven times as many. Fortunate indeed am I, and fortunate I shall remain! Will any one deny this?^[5]

By using poisoned arrows, Artemis killed Niobe's daughters and Apollo 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). 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 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 ^[6]. The rock formation is also known as the "Weeping Rock" (Turkish: Ağlayan Kaya), since rainwater seeps through its porous limestone pores.

This rock formation associated with Niobe is not to be confused with a full-faced sculpture carved into the rock-face of a nearby crag, and which is located north of the mountain. This sculpture was attributed by Pausanias to Broteas, the ugly brother of Niobe, and it is in fact of Hittite workmanship and represents Cybele.

Niobe in Literature

The story of Niobe is an ancient one. She is mentioned by Achilles to Priam in Homer's Iliad 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, who was killed and not buried for several days. Niobe is also mentioned in Sophocles's Antigone where, as she is marched toward her death, she compares her own loneliness to that of Niobe. The Niobe of Aeschylus, set in Thebes, survives in fragmentary quotes that were supplemented by a papyrus sheet containing twenty-one lines of text.^[7] From the fragments it appears that for the first part of the tragedy the grieving Niobe sits veiled and silent. Sophocles 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 was part of the repertory of Attic vase-painters and inspired sculpture groups and wall frescoes as well as relief carvings on Roman sarcophagi.

Niobe's iconic tears were also mentioned in Hamlet'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 ^[8] .

Among works of modern literature which have Niobe as a central theme, Kate Daniels' "Niobe Poems" can be cited. ^[9]

Niobe in Art

Picture of a hellenistic sculpture representing Niobe by Giorgio Sommer

1591 painting by Abraham Bloemaert

1770 painting by Anicet Charles-Gabriel Lemonnier

See also

• Niobids
• Mount Sipylus

References

Sources

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Modern scholarship

Classical authors

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