The execution of this interesting monument of Creek art is attributed by some to Scopes, a native of l'aros, who lived about 300 years before the Christian era ; while others think it is the production of Praxiteles. Pliny says it was a question which of the two was the author of it. The group was in the temple of Apollo Sosianus at Rome. Hist. Nat,' xxxvi.; Sillig., Catal. Artificum,' iu verb.) Flamini° N'acca says the group of Niobe and her children was found at Rome, but outside the walls, near S. Giovanni ; but the learned antiquary Fea denies this, and says it was found near the Villa Altieri. The well known statues of the " Boxers" were discovered at the same place, and it has been supposed by some that they formed part of the group ; the fable being that some of the children of Niube were slain while thus exercising. (Winekelman, Sur l'Allegorie,' pref.) All the above statues are in marble, and are now at Florence in the gallery of the grand-duke of Tuscany ; but many of them are thought to be copies only, from originals now lost. There is in England a head of N iobc, which is engraved in the Select Specimens of Sculpture,' published by the Society of Dilletanti (vol. i., pl. 35) similar in action
and expression, but preferable, for its style and execution, to that of the Florence statue ; and as there are known repetitions of some of the other figures, it is not improbable that the principal and most interesting of the series may also have been frequently copied, and that the figure in the grand-ducal collection, though an ancient work, may come under this class.
The subject of Niobe and her children was a favourite one also with the poets of antiquity. Besides the beautiful story in Ovid (' Dictum,' vi. 146), there are numerous epigrams in the Greek Anthology, several of which have great merit, and appear to be descriptive either of the group of figures which still exists, or of some similar group. See particularly that beginning Taevaai Ira scAv isdtv ądean (For further information and references as to the group of Niobe, see Thierach, Ireber die Eporken der Bildenden Kunst, Ike. pp. 368, &c.; and Mr. Cockerell's restoration of them as they probably appeared in the pediment of the temple of Apollo, in the Galleria di Fireu:e, tay. 76.)