Niobe

Niobe (; Ancient Greek: Νιόβη, romanized: Nióbē pronounced [ni.óbɛː]) was in Greek mythology a daughter of Tantalus and of either Dione or of Eurythemista or Euryanassa. She was the wife of Amphion and the sister of Pelops and Broteas. Niobe is mentioned by Achilles in Homer's Iliad, which relates her hubris, for which she was punished by Leto, who sent Apollo and Artemis to slay all of her children, after which her children lay unburied for nine days while she abstained from food. Once the gods had interred the slain, Niobe retreated to her native Sipylus, "where Nymphs dance around the River Acheloos, and though turned to stone, she broods over the sorrows sent by the Gods". Later writers asserted that Niobe was wedded to Amphion, one of the twin founders of Thebes, where there was a single sanctuary where the twin founders were venerated, but no shrine to Niobe.