In his archaic role as bringer of diseases and death, Apollo with his poison arrows killed Niobe's sons and Artemis with her poison arrows killed Niobe's daughters. This is related to the myth of the seven youths and seven maidens who were sent every year to the king Minos of Crete as an offering sacrifice to the Minotaur. Niobe was transformed into a stone on Mount Sipylus in her homeland of Phrygia, where she brooded over the sorrows sent by the gods. In Sophocles' Antigone the heroine believes that she will have a similar death.