Among the memorable characters in Metamorphoses 6 is Niobe, the daughter of Tantalos, the fabled king punished in the Underworld.
Tantalos is remembered in the 1st Olympian Ode of Pindar, which begins,
Water is best, and gold, like a blazing fire in the night,
stands out supreme of all lordly wealth.
If indeed the watchers of Olympus ever honored a mortal man, that man was Tantalus. But he was not able to digest his great prosperity, and for his greed he gained overpowering ruin . . .
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