Translation copyright 2003 Neil W. Bernstein; all rights reserved.
[How different the Greek authors’ opinions are on the number of Niobe’s children.(1)]
- An amazing (almost ridiculous) diversity of stories can be found in the Greek poets concerning the number of Niobe’s children.
- For Homer says she had a total of twelve children (boys and girls), Euripides fourteen, Sappho eighteen, Bacchylides and Pindar twenty, and certain other writers say there were only three. (2)
Notes
- Although modern editors reject this lemma (chapter title), I have included it here for ease of reference.
- Homer, Iliad 24.602ff; Euripides frg. 455 Nauck; Sappho, frg. 89 Lobel-Page; Bacchylides frg. 46 Snell; Pindar frg. 65 Bergk. Cf. Apollodorus 3.5.6, Aelian, Varia Historia 12.36.
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