Niobe

The daughter of the Phrygian king Tantalus and Dia (or Dione, Laodice or Taygete). She was married to Amphion, king of Thebes. They had seven sons and seven daughters (the Niobids). Niobe boasted of her superiority to Leto, who had only two children: Apollo and Artemis. Leto punished Niobe for her arrogance by having Apollo slay all the sons when they were horseback-riding and sporting outside the wall of Thebes, and Artemis slay all the girls on one day. When her last child died when proud words changed to pleas (according to some, one child was spared). Torn by sadness, the unhappy mother turned into a rock.

This particular rock can still be seen on mount Sipylus near Magnesia (Asia Minor). On that spot is an ancient Phrygian rock sculpture of eight meters high in the mountain, which represents a women sitting on a throne. According to Pausanias it is the image of Cybele, yet others regard it as the weeping, petrified Niobe of which Homer speaks.