Meliboea
A nymph (or mortal woman) who survived the massacre of Niobe's children and was preserved by her extreme pallor of terror.
The Myth of Meliboea
Niobe, queen of Thebes, boasted that she was superior to the goddess Leto because she had fourteen children while Leto had only two. Those two children were Apollo and Artemis. The twins descended from Olympus and systematically killed all fourteen of Niobe's children — Apollo shooting the seven sons with his silver bow, Artemis piercing the seven daughters with her arrows.
Meliboea was the youngest daughter. When the arrows began flying and her sisters fell one by one, she turned so white with terror that the colour never left her. Apollo and Artemis, seeing her frozen pallor and her desperate prayers, spared her — the only survivor. She spent the rest of her life bearing that deathly whiteness, and the people of Argos built a temple to her under the name Chloris, 'the pale one.'
In this version, Meliboea becomes Chloris and eventually marries Neleus, king of Pylos, and bears him twelve sons including the wise Nestor of Trojan War fame. Her survival marked her: the girl who watched all her siblings die carried that terror in her skin forever.
Parents
Amphion and Niobe
Symbols
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