in fabulous history, according to the fictions of the poets, was the daughter of Tantalus, and wife of Amphion king of Thebes; by whom she had seven sons and as many daughters. Having become so proud of her fertility and high birth, as to prefer herself before Latona, and to slight the sacrifices offered up by the Theban matrons to that goddess, Apollo and Diana, the children of Latona, resented this contempt. The former slew the male children and the latter the female; upon which Niobe was struck dumb with grief, and remained without sensation. Cicero is of opinion, that on this account the poets feigned her to be turned into stone.

The story of Niobe is beautifully related in the sixth book of the Metamorphoses of Ovid. That poet thus describes her transformation into stone.

Widow'd and childless, lamentable state! A doleful sight, among the dead she sat; Harden'd with woes, a statue of despair, To ev'ry breath of wind unmov'd her hair; Her cheek still redd'ning, but its colour dead, Faded her eyes, and set within her head. No more her plaintive tongue its motion keeps, But stands conceal'd within her frozen lips. Stagnate and dull, within her purple veins, Its current stopp'd, the lifeless blood remains. Her feet the usual offices refuse, Her arms and neck their graceful gestures lose; Action and life from ev'ry part are gone, And ev'n her entrails turn to solid stone. Yet still she weeps; and whirl'd by stormy winds, Borne thro' the air, her native country finds; There fixed, she stands upon a bleakly hill; There yet her marble cheeks eternal tears distil.

Niobe in this statue is represented as in an ecstacy of grief for the loss of her offspring, and about to be converted into stone herself. She appears as if deprived of all sensation by the excess of her sorrow, and incapable either of shedding tears or of uttering any lamentations, as has been remarked by Cicero in the third book of his Tusculan Questions. With her right hand she clasps one of her little daughters, who throws herself into her bosom; which attitude equally shows the ardent affection of the mother, and expresses that natural confidence which children have in the protection of a parent. The whole is executed in such a wonderful manner, that this with the other statues of her children, is reckoned by Pliny among the most beautiful works of antiquity; but he doubts to whom of the Grecian artists he ought to ascribe the honour of them (A). We have no certain information at what period this celebrated work was transported from Greece to Rome; nor do we know where it was first erected. Flaminius Vacca only says, that all these statues were found in his time not far from the gate of St John, and that they were afterwards placed by the grand duke Ferdinand in the gardens of the Villa de Medici near Rome.—An ingenious and entertaining traveller (Dr Moore), speaking of the statue of Niobe, says,

"The author of Niobe has had the judgment not to exhibit all the distress which he might have placed in her countenance. This consummate artist was afraid of disturbing her features too much, knowing full well that the point where he was to expect most sympathy was there, where distress co-operated with beauty, and where our pity met our love. Had he sought it one step farther in expression, he had lost it."

In the following epigram this statue is ascribed to Praxiteles:

Ἐκ Τάνταλος ἡ Θυγατρὸς ἐπιστάτη. Ἐκ τῆς Ἀμφίωνος ἡ Μήτηρ. Ταύτης ἡ παῖδες ἀποκτημένης, Πραξιτέλης ἔποικος ἔργον ἔκτισεν.

While for my children's fate I vainly mourn'd, The angry gods to massy stone me turn'd; Praxiteles a nobler feat has done, He made me live again from being stone.

The author of this epigram, which is to be found in the 4th book of the Anthology, is unknown. Scaliger the father, in his Farrago Epigrammatum, p. 172, ascribes it to Callimachus, but this appears to be only conjecture.

Cicero

(A) Par hesitatio in templo Apollinis Sosiani, Niobem cum liberis morientem, Scopas an Praxiteles fecerit. Cælius Calcagninus has made a happy translation of it into Latin.

Vivam olim in lapideum vertentum numina; sed me Praxiteles vivam reddidit ex lapide.

And perhaps the following French version of it will appear no less happy:

De vive que j'étois, les Dieux M'ont changée en pierre massive : - Praxitéle a fait beaucoup mieux, De pierre il m'a su rendre vive.