According to ancient tradition at the foot of Mt. Sipylos the rocky crag is really Niobe, who was turned into rock when her twelve children were murdered in front of her eyes by Artemis and Apollo. In fact it is a rock eroded into the likness of a weeping woman. Pausanias -''Such were his words. On the South wall, as it is called, of the Acropolis, which faces the theater, there is dedicated a gilded head of Medusa the Gorgon, and round it is wrought an aegis. At the top of the theater is a cave in the rocks under the Acropolis. This also has a tripod over it, wherein are Apollo and Artemis slaying the children of Niobe. This Niobe I myself Pausanias, Description of Greecew when I had gone up to Mount Sipylus. When you are near it is a beetling crag, with not the slightest resemblance to a woman, mourning or otherwise; but if you go further away you will think you see a woman in tears, with head bowed down''1.
Sources:
- http://www.livius.org/maa-mam/magnesia/magnesia-niobe.html
- George E. Bean, Aegean Turkey, London Benn Ltd., 1966
- Ekrem Akurgal, Ancient Civilisations and Ruins of Turkey: From Prehistoric Times Until the End of the Roman Empir, II ed., Istanbul 1970, p. 133
References
- ↑Pausanias, Description of Greece I,21.3 - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D21%3Asection%3D3