Antiope (1). According to Homer, Antiope was the daughter of the river-god Asopus; but she was later usually said to be the daughter of Nycetus, the regent of Thebes during Labdacus' childhood. Her story was dramatised in Euripides' famous tragedy Antiope, now for the most part lost, although its plot can be largely reconstructed from fragments. Antiope grew up to be so beautiful that even Zeus desired her, so he came to her in the guise of a Satyr and raped her, leaving her pregnant with twins. She fled from her father's anger to Sicyon, where the king, Epopeius (1), gave her refuge and married her. Nycteus killed himself from shame and grief, charging his brother Lycus (1) with the task of punishing Epopeus and Antiope. Lycus marched against Sicyon and subdued it, killing Epopeus and taking Antiope away captive. On the way back to Thebes she gave birth to twin sons at Eleutherae on Mount Cithaeron. Lycus left them in a cave to die, but a herdsman found them and took them home to his cottage. There they grew up. The herdsman named them Amphion and Zethus. On his return to Thebes, Lycus gave Antiope as a slave to his wife Dirce, who kept her imprisoned and treated her cruelly for many years. One day Antiope's bonds were miraculously loosened and she escaped. She went to the herdsman's cottage and begged her sons to take her in, but they did not recognize her and turned her away. Alone and unprotected, she was recaptured by Dirce, who was worshipping Dionysus on Mount Cithaeron. Dirce, in her maenadic state, was about tie Antiope to a wild bull when Amphion and Zethus saved her, having been told by the herdsman that this was indeed their mother. They tied Dirce to the bull in her place and she was torn and trampled to death by the maddened beast. Her body was flung into the stream that was then named Dirce after her. It was this episode of Dirce and the bull which most caught the imagination of ancient artists, while the theme of Zeus as a Satyr approaching Antiope (often found sleeping) is popular in postclassical art. Dionysus was angry at this death suffered by one of his worshippers, so he punished Antiope by sending her mad. she wandered through Greece until she came at last to Phocis. Here Phocus (2) cured her and made her his wife. At their deaths they were buried together in a grave at Tithorea.
[Homer, Odyssey 11.260-5; Apollodorus 3.5.5, 3.10.1; Pausanias 1.38.9, 2.6.1-4, 9.17.4-7, 9.25.3; Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.110-11; Propertius 3.15.11-42; Hyginus, Fabulae 7 and 8.]

Antiope (2). An Amazon queen. Antiope is the name most commonly given to the leader of the Amazons whome Theseus carried off to Athens, though she is sometimes called Hippolyte. The rest of the Amazons marched against Athens and encamped in the city itself, but they were vanquished in a fierce battle and most of them were killed. Antipe bore Theseus a son, Hippolytus (2). Theseus later married Phaedra, the daughter of King Minos of Crete, and during the wedding celebrations Antipe, feeling herself rejected and dishonored, led out her Amazons in arms, threatening to kill the assembled guests. Instead it was Antiope who was killed, either by Theseus, or by his men, or accidentally by her fellow-Amazon, Penthesileia.
[Aeschylus, Eymenides 685-90; Apollodorus, Epitome 1.16-17, 5.1-2; Plutarch, Theseus 26-8; Pausanias 1.2.1, 1.41.7; Quintus of Smyrna, Sequel to Homer 1.18-26.]

(Jenny March, Classical Mythology [Cassel & Co: London, 1998])