From its inception the dynasty of Atreus was cursed with pride and violence. The grandfather of Atreus was Tantalus, a son of Zeus who had the good fortune to banquet with the gods, dining on nectar and ambrosia. His first act of ingratitude was to take these divine foods and feed them to his mortal friends. The second was to steal the golden hound of Zeus and lie about it. But his third deed was an atrocity: he served up his own son, Pelops, as a feast for the gods, who recognized what was set before them and recoiled in horror. For these crimes Tantalus was sentenced to eternal torment in the netherworld. Famished and thirsty, he was set in a pool from which he could not drink and had a bough of fruits hung over him that he could not grasp.
Tantalus had a daughter, Niobe, who married Amphion, the King of Thebes, and bore him six handsome sons and six beautiful daughters. Extremely proud of her offspring, Niobe criticized Leto, the mother of Apollo and Artemis, for only having had two children. And when the women of Thebes offered incense to Leto to ward off punishment Niobe flew into a rage, declaring that she herself was more worthy of such offerings. The goddess Leto then sent Apollo to shoot down Niobe's sons and Artemis to shoot down her daughters. In anguish Niobe wept for her slain children, and Zeus changed her into a weeping statue.
