What is "niobe"

Niobe \Ni"o*be\, n. [L. Nioba, Niobe, Gr. ?.] (Class. Myth.) The daughter of Tantalus, and wife of Amphion, king of Thebes. Her pride in her children provoked Apollo and Diana, who slew them all. Niobe herself was changed by the gods into stone.

in Greek mythology, a queen of Thebes, daughter of Tantalus, changed to a stone while weeping for her children (slain, after she boasted of them overmuch, by Artemis and Apollo); hence the name is used figuratively for bereavement and woe. The name is said to mean literally "snowy; snowy-bright."

In Greek mythology, Niobe (; ) was a daughter of Tantalus and of either Dione, the most frequently cited, or of Eurythemista or Euryanassa, and the sister of Pelops and Broteas.

Her father was the ruler of a city called "Tantalis" or "the city of Tantalus", or "Sipylus", in reference to Mount Sipylus at the foot of which his city was located and whose ruins were reported to be still visible in the beginning of the 1st century AD, although few traces remain today. Her father is referred to as " Phrygian" and sometimes even as "King of Phrygia", although his city was located in the western extremity of Anatolia where Lydia was to emerge as a state before the beginning of the first millennium BC, and not in the traditional heartland of Phrygia, situated more inland. References to his son and Niobe's brother as "Pelops the Lydian" led some scholars to the conclusion that there would be good grounds for believing that she belonged to a primordial house of Lydia.

She was already mentioned in Homer's Iliad which relates her proud hubris, for which she was punished by Leto, who sent Apollo and Artemis to slay all of her children, after which her children lay unburied for nine days while she abstained from food. Once the gods interred them, she retreated to her native Sipylus, "where Nymphs dance around the River Acheloos, and although being a stone, she broods over the sorrows sent from the Gods". Later writers asserted that Niobe was wedded to Amphion, one of the twin founders of Thebes, where there was a single sanctuary where the twin founders were venerated, but in fact no shrine to Niobe.

Niobe is a fictional character in The Matrix franchise. She is portrayed by Jada Pinkett-Smith. She serves as a supporting character in the two sequels of the original film, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, and one of the protagonists of video game Enter the Matrix. Niobe also appears in the MMORPG The Matrix Online. In the game, however, Niobe's character voicing is portrayed by Gina Torres, who portrayed the minor Zion character Cas in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Jada Pinkett-Smith was personally recruited by the Wachowskis, and the character of Niobe was created just for her in Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

Niobe may refer to:

Several ships have borne the name Niobe, after the figure of Niobe in Greek mythology

• German anti-aircraft cruiser Niobe, ex- HNLMS Gelderland, Dutch ship taken over by the Germans during World War II
• Niobe (schooner), a tall ship used by the German Navy to train cadets which sank during a squall in 1932
• HMS Niobe, four ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Niobe, after the figure of Niobe in Greek mythology
• French frigate Diane (1796), was recommissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Niobe

Niobe

In Greek mythology, Niobe was a daughter of Phoroneus and the mother by Zeus of Argus, who was the eponym of Argos and sometimes, Pelasgus. She is not to be confused with the more famous Niobe, who was punished for boasting that she had more children than Leto. According to Pausanias, the Argives of his day said that she had a daughter named Meliboea, later called Chloris, a statue of whom Praxiteles had crafted for the Sanctuary of Leto in Argos.

Niobe is a 1915 American comedy silent film directed by Hugh Ford and Edwin S. Porter and written by Edward A. Paulton and Harry Paulton. The film stars Hazel Dawn, Charles S. Abbe, Maude Odell, Marie Leonard, Reginald Denny and Irene Haisman. The film was released April 4, 1915, by Paramount Pictures.

Niobe is a genus of trilobite in the family Asaphidae.