Ασσαων
The father of Niobe in the Lydian version of the legend. After his son-in-law, Philottus, was killed on Mount Sipylus, Assaon wanted to have an incestuous relationship with his own daughter but Niobe was unwilling. Assaon then invited Niobe's twenty children to a banquet and brought about their deaths by fire. In her despair Niobe threw herself from the top of a cliff; Assaon went mad and killed himself.
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources:
- Parthenius, Erot, Path. 33
- schol. on Hom. Il. 24, 613; 617
- schol. on Euripides, Phoen. 159