Aëdon Amaleus had many siblings and only one cousin,
Itylus, the son of his uncle Zethus by his wife,
Aëdon. All the Niobids but especially Amaleus got along greatly with cousin Itylus; the two boys slept together in the same room and, in some accounts, bed. However Aëdon deeply resented Niobe for having borne so many children while she only had one, so she conceived a plan to kill Amaleus, who was the firstborn child. Aëdon carefully instructed Itylus to sleep in the back of the room, or in the innermost position of the bed that night, but Itylus forgot about his mother's orders when night fell. So that night when Aëdon crept up into the room wielding a dagger and planning to murder the unsuspecting Amaleus, she ended up killing her own child Itylus instead, not recognising him in the darkness. In another version Aëdon did succeed in killing Amaleus, but immediately took the life of her own son as well, in fear of Niobe's reaction. Leto did not let the insult go, so she informed her two children, the archer gods
Artemis and
Apollo, and they took matters in their own hands; with their bows and arrows they slew all the Niobids one by one to avenge their mother's honour. It was said that the boys, whom Apollo slew, were killed while they were hunting in the woods. Their father, Amphion, committed suicide in grief at the sight of the lifeless bodies of his sons, or was slain by Apollo while storming his temple in protest. Niobe herself would be transformed into rock following the slaying of the daughters. In some versions of the tale, a single child, Meliboea (thereafter renamed
Chloris) was spared, or two children, one of each sex, Chloris and her brother
Amyclas. In a rarer version, Niobe's father, named
Assaon instead, fell in love with Niobe, but she would not yield to his incestuous embraces, so he invited all her children to a banquet and burnt them all to death in revenge. == Analysis ==