Amphion and Zethus

Dirce's punishment - Roman wall painting in House of the Vettii, Pompeii.

Amphion and Zethus were the sons of Antiope, who fled in shame to Sicyon after Zeus raped her, and married King Epopeus there. However, either Nycteus or Lycus attacked Sicyon in order to carry her back to Thebes and punish her. On the way back, she gave birth to the twins and was forced to expose them on Mount Cithaeron. Lycus gave her to his wife, Dirce, who treated her very cruelly for many years.[4]

Antiope eventually escaped and found her sons living near Mount Cithaeron. After they were convinced that she was their mother, they killed Dirce by tying her to the horns of a bull, gathered an army, and conquered Thebes, becoming its joint rulers.[4] They also either killed Lycus or forced him to give up his throne.[5]

Amphion became a great singer and musician after his lover Hermes taught him to play and gave him a golden lyre. Zethus became a hunter and herdsman, with a great interest in cattle breeding. As Zethus was associated with agriculture and the hunt, his attribute was the hunting dog, while Amphion’s - the lyre.[5] Amphion and Zethus built fortifications of Thebes.[5] They built the walls around the Cadmea, the citadel of Thebes at the command of Apollo.[6] While Zethus struggled to carry his stones, Amphion played his lyre and his stones followed after him and gently glided into place.[7]

Amphion married Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, the Lydian king. Because of this, he learned to play his lyre in the Lydian mode and added three strings to it.[8] Zethus married Thebe, after whom the city of Thebes was named. Otherwise, the kingdom was named in honour of their supposed father Theobus.[9]

Woodcut illustration of Niobe, Amphion and their dead sons, printed by Johannes Zainer (ca. 1474)

Amphion's wife Niobe had many children, but had become arrogant and because of this she insulted the goddess Leto, who had only two children, Artemis and Apollo. Leto's children killed Niobe's children in retaliation (see Niobe). It’s Niobe’s overweening pride in her children, offending Apollo and Artemis, brought about her children’s deaths.[5] In Ovid, Amphion commits suicide out of grief; according to Telesilla, Artemis and Apollo murder him along with his children. Hyginus, however, writes that in his madness he tried to attack the temple of Apollo, and was killed by the god's arrows.[10]

Zethus had only one son, who died through a mistake of his mother Thebe, causing Zethus to kill himself.[7] In the Odyssey, however, Zethus's wife is called Aëdon, a daughter of Pandareus in book 19, who killed her son Itylus in a fit of madness and became a nightingale.[11] Later authors would clarify that Aëdon tried to kill Niobe and Amphion's firstborn Amaleus out of jealousy that Niobe had borne many children, while she and Zethus only had one.[12][13] However in the dark of the night, Aëdon by mistake killed Itylus, and in her mourning she was transformed into a nightingale by Zeus[14][15] when Zethus began to chase her down in rage for murdering their son.[16] Alternatively, Aëdon was afraid that Zethus (here, mistakenly perhaps, spelled Zetes) was having an affair with a nymph, and that Itylus was assisting his father in his infidelity, so she killed him.[17][18]

After the deaths of Amphion and Zethus, Laius returned to Thebes and became king.

Compare with Castor and Polydeuces (the Dioscuri) of Greece, and with Romulus and Remus of Rome.

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  Amphion, son of Zeus and Antiope, and twin brother of Zethus
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  Amphion by NathanJacquin (November 16, 2015)
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  Amphion
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  Mercury and Amphion by Jean Vignaud (1819)
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  Amphion by Krauss, Johann Ulrich (ca. 1690)

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  The Farnese Bull depicting the punishment of Dirke by Amphion and Zethos
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  Dirce being tied to a bull by Amphion as Zethus looks on; Antiope tries to stop her son's hand. (fresco, 1st century AD)
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  The Famese Bull
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  Amphion and Zethus
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  Julius Troschel, Amphion and Zethus (1840-1850), Neue Pinakothek.