Niobe (nī′ ṓ-bē), according to Homer’s story of mythology, was the daughter of Tantalus and wife of Amphion, king of Thebes, to whom she bore six sons and six daughters. She was proud of her children, and despised Latona, who had only two. For this, Latona caused her children to slay all Niobe’s with arrows, and Niobe herself was turned into stone on Mount Sipylus from which tears flowed all summer. A statue of Niobe and her children was discovered in Rome in 1583.
