When the mortal woman, Niobe, boasted to have given birth to twelve children, while Apoll's mother, Leto, had had only two children. These latter, Apoll and Artemis, struck Niobe's children with their arrows killing them all. Niobe, petrified by grief changed herself into a rock which goes on crying. As Apoll was the god of the sun, so Artemis, his twin, was the goddess of the Moon. Moreover, Artemis was very skilled with the bow like her brother. In consequence of the fact that she liked hunting, she decided never to get married. She was one of the few goddesses who resisted the power of Aphrodite.
