Source-groundedThe Iliad
All entities

Character · Collective

Niobe’s sons

Published entity metadata

Read-only identity and editorial metadata.

Canonical name
Niobe’s sons
Disambiguator
None
Kind
Character
Scope
Collective
Editorial note
The six sons are established as a remembered collective; the source gives no individual names.

Aliases

0

No aliases recorded.

Location presence

Phase 6 currently covers 24 processed books.

0

No presence observations in the processed scope.

Claims

1
·Reported

Achilles recounts Apollo killing Niobe’s six sons with arrows.

See evidence text
“six lusty sons—had been all slain in her house. Apollo killed the sons with arrows from his silver bow”

Additional evidence

Evidence records not already represented by a claim.

2
·Remembered
“Even lovely Niobe had to think about eating, though her twelve children—six daughters and six lusty sons—had been all slain in her house.”
·Remembered
“Apollo killed the sons with arrows from his silver bow, to punish Niobe”

Passage preview

Book 24 · Passage 42

Achilles then went back into the tent and took his place on the richly inlaid seat from which he had risen, by the wall that was at right angles to the one against which Priam was sitting. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘your son is now laid upon his bier and is ransomed according to desire; you shall look upon him when you him away at daybreak; for the present let us prepare our supper. Even lovely Niobe had to think about eating, though her twelve children—six daughters and six lusty sons—had been all slain in her house. Apollo killed the sons with arrows from his silver bow, to punish Niobe, and Diana slew the daughters, because Niobe had vaunted herself against Leto; she said Leto had borne two children only, whereas she had herself borne many—whereon the two killed the many. Nine days did they lie weltering, and there was none to bury them, for the son of Saturn turned the people into stone; but on the tenth day the gods in heaven themselves buried them, and Niobe then took food, being worn out with weeping. They say that somewhere among the rocks on the mountain pastures of Sipylus, where the nymphs live that haunt the river Achelous, there, they say, she lives in stone and still nurses the sorrows sent upon her by the hand of heaven. Therefore, noble sir, let us two now take food; you can weep for your dear son hereafter as you are bearing him back to Ilius—and many a tear will he cost you.’