Antiope

Antiope. (1) In Greek legend, the mother of Amphion and Zethus, and, according to Homer (Od. xi. 260), a daughter of the Boeotian river-god Asopus. In later poems she is called the daughter of Nycteus or Lycurgus. Her beauty attracted Zeus, who, assuming the form of a satyr, took her by force (Apollodorus iii. 5). After this she was carried off by Epopeus, king of Sicyon, who would not give her up till compelled by her uncle Lycus. On the way home she gave birth, in the neighbourhood of Eleutherae on Mount Cithaeron, to the twins Amphion and Zethus, of whom Amphion was the son of the god, and Zethus the son of Epopeus. Both were left to be brought up by herdsmen. At Thebes Antiope now suffered from the persecution of Dirce, the wife of Lycus, but at last escaped towards Eleutherae, and there found shelter, unknowingly, in the house where her two sons were living as herdsmen. Here she was discovered by Dirce, who ordered the two young men to tie her to the horns of a wild bull. They were about to obey, when the old herdsman, who had brought them up, revealed his secret, and they carried out the punishment on Dirce instead (Hyginus, Fab. 8). For this, it is said, Dionysus, to whose worship Dirce had been devoted, visited Antiope with madness, which caused her to wander restlessly all over Greece till she was cured, and married by Phocus of Tithorca, on Mount Parnassus, where both were buried in one grave (Pausanias ix. 17, x. 32).

(2) A second Antiope, daughter of Ares, and sister of Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons, was the wife of Theseus. There are various accounts of the manner in which Theseus became possessed of her, and of her subsequent fortunes. Either she gave herself up to him out of love, when with Heracles he captured Themiscyra, the seat of the Amazons, or she fell to his lot as a captive (Diodorus iv. 16). Or again, Theseus himself invaded the dominion of the Amazons and carried her off, the consequence of which was a counter-invasion of Attica by the Amazons. After four months of war peace was made, and Antiope left with Theseus as a peace-offering. According to another account, she had joined the Amazons against him because he had been untrue to her in desiring to marry Phaedra. She is said to have been killed by another Amazon, Molpadia, a rival in her affection for Theseus. Elsewhere it was believed that he had himself killed her, and fulfilled an oracle to that effect (Hyginus, Fab. 241). By Theseus she had a son, the well-known Hippolytus (Plutarch, Theseus).

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