Niobe
in Greek mythology, the daughter of Tantalus and wife of Amphion, King of Thebes, to whom she bore six sons and six daughters. Proud of her children, she despised Leto or Latona, who had only two children, Apollo and Artemis; whereupon Latona, enraged at her presumption, moved her children to destroy all the children of Niobe with their arrows. Niobe was changed into stone on Mount Sipylus, in Lydia. Such mausoleum; and a Roman gateway. is the Homeric legend, which, however, Nimes (ancient Nemausus) is supposed was afterward much varied and enlarged. to have been built by a Greek colony, and was afterward for about 500 years in the possession of the Romans. In the 16th century it became a stronghold of Calvinism, and suffered much during the civil wars, as also by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and during the Revolution; but latterly it has become a busy manufacturing center. It is the birthplace of Daudet and Guizot. Pop. about 80,000.
Only fragments exist of the tragedies of Æschylus and Sophocles on this theme, which was a favorite subject of ancient art. A noble group representing Niobe and her children was discovered at Rome in 1583, and is now in the Uffizi Palace at Florence. It is a Roman copy of a Greek work.