s work. The historian Pliny
tells us that they stood in the temple of Apollo Sosianus at Rome.
Sosius was the legate of Antony in Syria and Cilicia; he erected this
temple in his own honor, and brought many beautiful works from the East
for its decoration. It is believed that he brought the Niobe group from
Cilicia, and displayed it when celebrating his victory over Judea, B.C.
35.

In A.D. 1583 a large number of statues representing this subject were
found in Rome, and were purchased by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who
placed them in the Villa Medici. In 1775 they were removed to the Palace
of the Uffizi, in Florence, where an apartment was assigned to them. The
figures were restored, and each one placed on its own pedestal, which
work was not completed until 1794.

The group must have had originally seventeen figures--Niobe and fourteen
children, a pedagogue and a female nurse. Now there are but
twelve--Niobe, six sons, four daughters, and the pedagogue. At first it
was supposed that these figures ornamented the temple pediment, but it
is now thought that they stood on an undulating rocky base, with a
background at a little distance. Niobe is the central figure, in any
case, and the children were fleeing toward her from either side; she is
the only one represented in such a way as to present the full face to
the beholder (Fig. 43). But we shall better understand our subject if I
recount as concisely as possible the story of Niobe, which, as you know,
is a Grecian myth. Niobe was the daughter of Tantalus, and was born on
Mount Sipylus. When a child Niobe played with Lato, or Latona, who
afterward married the great god Jupiter, or Zeus. Niobe became the wife
of Amphion, and had a very happy life; she was the mother of seven sons
and seven daughters, and all this prosperity made her forget that she
was mortal, and she dared to be insolent even to the gods themselves.
Lato had but two children, the beautiful Apollo and the archer-queen of
heaven, called Diana, or Artemis.

[Illustration: FIG. 43.--NIOBE AND HER YOUNGEST DAUGHTER.]

[Illustration: FIG. 44.--BROTHER AND SISTER.]

Amphion and Niobe were the King and Queen of Thebes, and when the
worship of Lato was established in that city Niobe was very angry. She
thought of Lato as her playmate and not a goddess, and was so imprudent
as to drive in her chariot to the temple and command the Theban women
not to join in this worship. Niobe also asserted that she was superi