In Greek mythology Neis () is a princess from the ancient Greek city-kingdom of Thebes and the namesake of the Neitian Gate, one of the seven gates of Thebes. Neis is the daughter of either one of Thebes' twin kings, Amphion and Zethus, by their wives Niobe or Aëdon respectively. Neis is mostly mentioned in later sources.

Family Neis was a princess of Thebes. She was either the daughter of Queen Niobe and King Amphion (thus one of the numerous Niobids, usually twelve or fourteen in number), or Queen Aëdon and King Zethus, Amphion's twin brother.Pherecydes fragment 138 (Gazis 2025, p. 47). Although the Aëdon-Zethus parentage is more common, usually Aëdon and Zethus have just one child, the boy Itylus.

Mythology The Theban princess Neis gave her name to the Neitian Gate of seven-gate Thebes.Scholia on Euripides' The Phoenician Women 1104 The traveller Pausanias also confirms the tale, but refers to Neis as a boy rather than a girl.Pausanias 9.8.4

If she is taken to be a daughter of Niobe and Amphion, then Neis perished along with all her brothers and sisters when the Olympian gods Artemis and Apollo shot all the Niobids dead in punishment for their mother boasting that she was better than their mother Leto on account of the number of children she produced, as opposed to Leto's mere two. In a lesser known version, Niobe's father Assaon invited all the Niobids to a banquet and there he burned them to death because their mother had refused to yield to his incestuous embraces.Parthenius, Suffering in Love 33

Interpretation In the versions where she is the daughter of Zethus and Aëdon, her mother was jealous of Niobe's vast progeny compared to her own, so she tried to kill Niobe's firstborn Amaleus, but accidentally killed her own son Itylus instead. In the versions where Neis is included in the family of Zethus, Aëdon is a direct parallel of the goddess Leto; both mothers of two children, a boy and a girl, who feel threatened by Niobe's many children and punish the boastful queen by harming said children.

See also

Macaria Castalia Stentor

References

Bibliography

Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.