Title: Niobid Group
Findspot: Seen at Rome, Temple of Apollo Sosianus
Summary: Group of twelve children attacked with arrows by Artemis and Apollo
Sculptor: Literary attestation to Praxiteles or Skopas
Sculpture Type: Architectural?
Category: Statuary group
Placement: Pediment
Style: Early Hellenistic
Technique: In-the-round
Original or Copy: Original (lost)
Date: ca. 330 BC - ca. 250 BC
Scale: Over life-size
Region: Latium
Period: Early Hellenistic

Subject Description:

When Niobe boasted to Leto that she had more children (six sons and six daughters, whereas Leto only had one of each), Leto's children, Artemis and Apollo, shot down Niobe's childrens. This myth was memorialized in a Classical sculpture group, either by Skopas or Praxiteles, said to have been in the Temple of Apollo Sosianus (in Rome) (according to Pliny HN 36.28), that illustrated the twelve children being attacked by arrows. Pliny's testimony does not make it clear where in the temple the group was to be found, although it may have been a pedimental group, as the copy of Niobe (presumably the middle figure), Florence, Uffizi A 174, is much larger than the other figures. Part of the group seems to be preserved in copies of at least three of them: a youth lying on the ground, a running girl, and a kneeling girl.

Condition: Lost

Associated Building: Rome, Temple of Apollo Sosianus

Other Notes:

As suggested by Lippold, C. Sosius, who was in Syria and Cilicia, fighting under Antonius, from 38 B.C>, may have brought this group from this region back to Rome, in which case it may have been an early Hellenistic creation, mistaken as late Classical by Pliny. Lippold further suggests that the group may have been commissioned by Seleukos I at the begining of the third century, to commemorate his founding of Seleucia in Cilicia.

Sources Used: Pollitt 1990, 95; Vierneisel-Schlörb 1979, 472-89 no. 43 (with previous bibliography); Lippold 1950, 308-309

Other Bibliography: Cook 1964, 19 ff.