3. Amphion and Zethus.—Besides the royal family of Cadmus, which was continued in Thebes after his departure by his son Polydorus, we come across the scions of another ruling family of Thebes which came from Hyria, or Hysia, in Bœotia, in the persons of Amphion and Zethus. Nycteus, king of Thebes, had a wonderfully beautiful daughter called Antiope, whose favours Zeus enjoyed on approaching her in the form of a Satyr. On becoming pregnant, she fled from the resentment of her father to Sicyon, where the king, Epopeus, received her and made her his wife. This enraged Nycteus, who made war on Epopeus in order to compel him to deliver up his daughter Antiope. He was obliged to retire without accomplishing his purpose, but, on his death, he entrusted the execution of his vengeance to his brother Lycus, who succeeded him. Lycus defeated and slew Epopeus, destroyed Sicyon, and took Antiope back with him as prisoner. On the way, at Eleutheræ on Cithæron, she gave birth to the twins Amphion and Zethus. These were immediately exposed, but were subsequently discovered and brought up by a compassionate shepherd. Antiope was not only kept prisoner in the house of Lycus, but had also to submit to the most harsh and humiliating treatment at the hands of his wife Dirce. At length she managed to escape, and by a wonderful chance discovered her two sons, who had grown, on lonely Cithæron, into sturdy youths. The story of her wrongs so enraged them that they resolved to wreak a cruel vengeance on Dirce. After having taken Thebes and slain Lycus, they bound Dirce to the horns of a wild bull, which dragged her about till she perished. According to another story, Dirce came to Cithæron to celebrate the festival of Bacchus. Here she found her runaway slave, whom she was about to punish by having her bound to the horns of a bull. Happily, however, Amphion and Zethus recognised their mother, and inflicted on the cruel Dirce the punishment she had destined for another. Her mangled remains they cast into the spring near Thebes which bears her name.
Fig. 52.—Farnese Bull. Naples.
The punishment of Dirce forms the subject of numerous pieces of sculpture. The most important among them is the Farnese Bull (Toro Farnese) in the museum at Naples (Fig. 52). This world-renowned marble group is supposed, with the exception of certain parts which have been restored in modern times, to have been the work of the brothers Apollonius and Tauriscus, of Tralles in Caria, Apollonius and Tauriscus belonged to the Rhodian school, which flourished in the third century B.C. This colossal group—undoubtedly the largest which has descended to us from antiquity—was first erected in Rhodes, but came, during the reign of Augustus, into the possession of Asinius Pollio, the great art-patron. It was discovered in 1547 in the Thermæ of Caracalla at Rome, and was set up in the Palazzo Farnese. It was thence transferred to Naples in 1786, as a portion of the Farnese inheritance. The following is a brief explanation of the group, though, of course, the most complete account could give but an imperfect idea of its beauty. The scene is laid on the rocky heights of Cithæron. The position of the handsome youths on a rocky crag is as picturesque as it is dangerous, and serves not only to lend the group a pyramidal aspect pleasing to the eye, but also to set before us their marvellous strength. There are several tokens that the occurrence took place during a Bacchic festival: the wicker cista mystica in use at the festivals of Dionysus—the fawn skin which Dirce wears—the ivy garland that has fallen at her feet—the broken thyrsus, and, lastly, the Bacchic insignia which distinguish the shepherd boy, who is sitting on the right watching the proceedings with painful interest—all point to this fact. The lyre which rests against the tree behind Amphion is a token of his well-known love of music. The female figure in the background is Antiope.
The story goes on to relate that the two brothers, after the expulsion and death of Lyons, acquired the sovereignty of Thebes, though Amphion always figures as the real king. The two brothers were widely different in disposition and character. Zethus appears to have been rude and harsh, and passionately fond of the chase. Amphion, on the other hand, is represented as a friend of the Muses, and devoted to music and poetry. He soon had an opportunity of proving his wondrous skill when they began to enclose Thebes, which had been before unprotected, with walls and towers; for whilst Zethus removed great blocks and piled them one on another by means of his vast strength, Amphion had but to touch the strings of his lyre and break forth into some sweet melody, and the mighty stones moved of their own accord and obediently fitted themselves together. This is why Amphion is always represented in sculpture with a lyre and Zethus with a club. We can scarcely doubt that these Theban Dioscuri, like the Castor and Polydeuces of Sparta, who are well known to be only symbols of the morning and evening star, were originally personifications of some natural phenomenon; though we are no longer in a position to say what it was.
Amphion is further celebrated on account of the melancholy fate of his sons and daughters. He married Niobe, the daughter of the Phrygian king Tantalus, and sister of Pelops. Great was the happiness of this marriage; the gods seemed to shower down their blessings on the royal pair. Many blooming and lovely children grew up in their palace, the pride and delight of their happy parents. From this paradise of purest joy and happiness they were soon to pass into a night of the deepest mourning and most cruel affliction through the presumption of Niobe—the same presumption which had led her father Tantalus to trifle with the gods and consummate his own ruin. The heart of Niobe was lifted up with pride at the number of her children,[[7]] and she ventured to prefer herself to Latona, who had only two; nay, she even went so far as to forbid the Thebans to offer sacrifice to Latona and her children, and to claim these honours herself. The vengeance of the offended deities, however, now overtook her, and all her children were laid low in one day before the unerring arrows of Apollo and his sister. The parents did not survive this deep affliction. Amphion slew himself, and Niobe, already paralysed with grief, was turned into stone by the pity of the gods, and transferred to her old Phrygian home on Mount Sipylus, though even the stone has not ceased to weep.
[7]. The number of Niobe’s children varies materially. Homer (Il. xxiv., 602) gives her six sons and as many daughters. According to Hesiod and Pindar, she had ten sons and ten daughters; but the most common account, and that followed by the tragic poets, allows her fourteen children. Everywhere the number of sons and daughters appears to be equal. The story of Niobe was frequently treated of by the tragic poets, both Æschylus and Sophocles having written tragedies bearing her name.
Such is the substance of this beautiful legend, though its details vary considerably in the accounts of the poets and mythologists. The most circumstantial and richly-coloured account of it is contained in the Metamorphoses of Ovid. The poets have continually striven to impose a purely ethical interpretation on the story, by representing the destruction of the children of Niobe as the consequence of the great sin of their mother; but it is more probably a physical meaning which lies at the root of the legend. It is, in fact, a picture of the melting of the snow before the hot scorching rays of the sun. This incident the fertile imagination of the Greeks portrayed in the most beautiful metaphors. But just as a subject so purely tragic as the history of Niobe found its first true development in tragic poetry, so likewise it only attained its proper place in sculpture after art had laid aside its earlier and more simple epic character, and set itself to depict, in their full force, the inward passions of the soul. This tendency towards pathos and effect is characteristic of the age of Praxiteles and Scopas, and the later Attic school.
To this age (4th century B.C.) belonged the group of Niobe, which was so highly celebrated even among the ancients, and which was seen by Pliny in the temple of Apollo Sosianus at Rome, although people even then hesitated whether to ascribe it to Praxiteles or Scopas. None but one of these great masters could have been the author of this tragedy hewn in stone. Although the original figures of this magnificent group have disappeared, yet copies of most of them are still in existence. With regard to the celebrated Florentine Niobe group, the dissimilarity of its treatment and the various kinds of marble employed serve to show that it is not a Greek original, but a Roman imitation. It was found at Rome in 1583, near the Lateran Church, and was purchased by Cardinal Medici to adorn his villa on the Monte Pincio. In 1775 it was brought to Florence, where it has remained since 1794 in the gallery of the Uffizi.
There has never been but one opinion as to the beauty of this group. First among the figures—not only in size, but also in artistic perfection—is that of Niobe herself. The unhappy queen displays in her whole hearing so majestic and noble a demeanour, that, even if none of the other splendid results of Greek sculpture had come down to us, this alone would bear ample testimony to the high perfection and creative power of Greek art. The following description of the arrangement of the group is taken from Lübke’s History of Plastic Art:—