Everything about Antiope Mother Of Amphion totally explained
» This article is about the mother of Amphion. For other things and people named Antiope, see Antiope.
In
Greek mythology,
Antiope ([ænˈtaɪ o pe]) was the name of the daughter of the
Boeotian
river god Asopus, according to
Homer; in later
poems she's called the daughter of the "nocturnal" king
Nycteus of
Thebes or, in the
Cypria, of
Lycurgus, but for Homer her suites is purely Boeotian. Her beauty attracted
Zeus, who, assuming the form of a
satyr, took her by force. After this she was carried off by
Epopeus, who was venerated as a hero in
Sicyon; he wouldn't give her up till compelled by her uncle
Lycus (brother of Nycteus).
On the way home she gave birth, in the neighbourhood of
Eleutherae on
Mount Cithaeron, to the twins
Amphion and Zethus, of whom Amphion was the son of the god, and Zethus the son of Epopeus. Both were left to be brought up by herdsmen. At Thebes Antiope now suffered from the persecution of
Dirce, the wife of Lycus, but at last escaped towards Eleutherae, and there found shelter, unknowingly, in the house where her two sons were living as herdsmen.
Here she was discovered by Dirce, who ordered the two young men to tie her to the horns of a wild bull. They were about to obey, when the old herdsman, who had brought them up, revealed his secret, and they carried out the punishment on Dirce instead, for cruel treatment of Antiope, their mother, who had been treated by Dirce as a slave. Lycus then resigned power to the twins.
For this, it's said,
Dionysus, to whose worship Dirce had been devoted, visited Antiope with madness, which caused her to wander restlessly all over Greece until she was cured, and married by Phocus of Tithorca, on
Mount Parnassus, where both were buried in one grave.
Amphion became a great singer and musician after
Hermes taught him to play and gave him a golden lyre, Zethus a hunter and herdsman. They built and fortified Thebes, huge blocks of stone forming themselves into walls at the sound of Amphion's lyre. Amphion married
Niobe, and killed himself after the loss of his wife and children. Zethus married
Aedon, or sometimes
Thebe. The brothers were buried in one grave.
At
Sicyon, Antiope was important enough that a
chryselephantine cult image was created of her and set up in the temple of
Aphrodite. Pausanias speaks of it. Only one priestess, an elderly woman, was permitted to enter the
cella of the temple, with a young girl chosen each year, to serve as
Lutrophoros.
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