Childhood 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. 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.
Rule of Thebes 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. While Zethus struggled to carry his stones, Amphion played his lyre and his stones followed after him and gently glided into place. 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. Zethus married
Thebe, after whom the city of Thebes was named. Otherwise, the kingdom was named in honour of their supposed father Theobus.
Later misfortunes 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). Niobe's overweening pride in her children, offending Apollo and Artemis, brought about her children's deaths. Zethus had only one son, who died through a mistake of his mother Thebe, causing Zethus to kill himself. 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 (though in some versions they also have a daughter
Neis). However, in the dark of the night, Aëdon by mistake killed Itylus, and in her mourning she was transformed into a nightingale by her father-in-law Zeus when Zethus began to chase her down in rage for murdering their son. Alternatively, Aëdon was afraid that her husband (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. After the deaths of Amphion and Zethus,
Laius returned to Thebes and became king. Elements of the brothers' mythology are comparable to myths of the twins
Castor and Polydeuces (the Dioscuri), and of
Romulus and Remus as
founders of Rome. == Family tree ==