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Eos retrieving the body of her son Memnon from the battlefield (detail); Etruscan Bronze mirror, c. 450–420 BC

In Greek mythology, Memnon (/ˈmɛmnən/; Ancient Greek: Μέμνων, lit. 'resolute'^[1]) was a king of Aethiopia and son of Tithonus and Eos. During the Trojan War, he brought an army to Troy's defense and killed Antilochus, Nestor's son, during a fierce battle. Nestor challenged Memnon to a fight, but Memnon refused, being there was little honor in killing the aged man. Nestor then pleaded with Achilles to avenge his son's death. Despite warnings that soon after Memnon fell so too would Achilles, the two men fought. Memnon drew blood from Achilles, but Achilles drove his spear through Memnon's chest, sending the Aethiopian army running. The death of Memnon echoes that of Hector, another defender of Troy whom Achilles also killed out of revenge for a fallen comrade, Patroclus.

After Memnon's death, Zeus was moved by Eos' tears and granted him immortality. Memnon's death is related at length in the lost epic Aethiopis,^[2] likely composed after The Iliad, circa the 7th century BC. Quintus of Smyrna records Memnon's death in Posthomerica. His death is also described in Philostratus' Imagines.

Dictys Cretensis, author of a pseudo-chronicle of the Trojan War, writes that "Memnon, the son of Tithonus and Aurora, arrived with a large army of Indians and Aethiopians, a truly remarkable army which consisted of thousands and thousands of men with various kinds of arms, and surpassed the hopes and prayers even of Priam."^[3]^[4]

Mythography

Topos Text has catalogued 116 extant references to Memnon, the mythical Aethiopian King, son of Tithonus^[6]

Memnon in Quintus of Smyrna's Posthomerica

According to the Posthomerica, Memnon leading his army of Aethiopians, arrives at Troy in the immediate aftermath of an argument between Polydamas, Helen, and Priam that centres on whether or not the Aethiopian King will show up at all. Memnon's army is described as being too big to be counted and his arrival starts a huge banquet in his honour. As per usual the two leaders (Memnon and, in this case, Priam) end the dinner by exchanging glorious war stories, and Memnon's tales lead Priam to declare that the Aethiopian King will be Troy's saviour. Despite this, Memnon is very humble and warns that his strength will, he hopes, be seen in battle, although he believes it is unwise to boast at dinner.

Before the next day's battle, so great is the divine love towards Memnon that Zeus makes all the other Olympians promise not to interfere in the fighting. In battle, Memnon kills Nestor's son, Antilochos, after Antilochos has killed Memnon's dear comrade, Aesop. Seeking vengeance and despite his age, Nestor tries to fight Memnon but the Aethiopian warrior insists it would not be just to fight such an old man, and respects Nestor so much that he refuses to fight. In this way, Memnon is seen as very similar to Achilles – both of them have strong sets of values that are looked upon favourably by the warrior culture of the time.

When Memnon reaches the Greek ships, Nestor begs Achilles to fight him and avenge Antilochos, leading to the two men clashing while both wearing divine armor made by Hephaestus, making another parallel between the two warriors.

Memnon as a Trojan War Ally

In Virgil's Aeneid, Memnon has led his troops from Aithopia to aid the Trojans: Eoasque acies et nigri Memnonis arma: "Eastern battle arrays [the strategic arrangement of fighters in a battle] and weapon of Memnon."

The Armor of Memnon

The mythological tradition has Hephaistos crafting Memnon's armor just as he crafted for other famed heroes.

Venus implores Vulcan for Aeneas: "Therefore I come at last with lowly suit before a godhead I adore, and pray for gift of arms,—a mother for her son. You were not unrelenting to the tears of Nereus' daughter or Tithonus' bride." This event, described in the Aeneid, mirrors a similar scene in Homer's Iliad (Hom. Il. 18.558-709).^[7]

Psychostasia: (The Judgement of Zeus) The weighing of souls was Zeus' method of deciding which of two confronted heroes would die in combat. Zeus accomplishes this with this golden scales in (ll. 8.81-87), in Vergil's Aeneid.^[8]

Between Achilles and Memnon, Zeus favors both of them and makes each man tireless and huge so that the whole battlefield can watch them clash as demigods. Eventually, Achilles stabs Memnon through the heart, causing his entire army to flee in terror.

In honour of Memnon, the gods collect all the drops of blood that fall from him and use them to form a huge river that on every anniversary of his death will bear the stench of human flesh.^[9] The Aethiopians that stayed close to Memnon in order to bury their leader are turned into birds (which we now call Memnonides)^[10] and they stay by his tomb so as to remove dust that gathers on it.^[11]

Eos, the goddess of the dawn, begs Zeus to return her son; the king of the gods doesn't bring Memnon back to life, but he grants his mother a grace, that she will be able to see him alive and to caress him with his rosy fingers every day, when she opens the doors of heaven so as her brother Helios can begin his journey. That will last just a few moments.^[12]

Memnon Pieta

Memnon Pieta: Lourvre G115 (Vase) Eos lifts up the body of her son Memnon. "Kalos" is his inscription. Interior from an Attic red-figure cup, ca. 490–480 BC. From Capua, Italy. Signed by Douris (painter) .

Inscriptions on the left: ΕΕΝΕΜΕΚΝΕRINE (meaning unclear), HERMOΓΕΝΕS KALOS ("Hermogenes kalos" - "Hermogenes is beautiful"). Inscriptions on the right: HEOS ("Eos"), ΔΟRIS EΓRAΦSEN ("Doris Egraphsen" - Do(u)ris painted it). MEMNON ("Memnon"), KALIAΔES EΠOIESEN ("Kaliades epoiesen" - Kaliades made it).

Mythical King of the Ethiopians

In respect to an ancient understanding mythical Memnon King of the Ethiopians (alternative spellings Aethiopians/Aithiopians) Merriam Webster defines the term as: "a member of any of the mythical or actual peoples usually described by the ancient Greeks as dark-skinned and living far to the south." This information concurs with the same information at Etymonline's entries reference the Greek αἴθω.^[13]^[14]

Roman writers and later classical Greek writers such as Diodorus Siculus ( 2.22.1 ) state Memnon is from Ethiopia and precisely king of "the Ethiopians who border upon Egypt".

One of the "cyclic poets", Arctinus composed the epics Aethiopis and Sack of Troy, which were contributions to the Trojan War cycle, The original historical work by Arctinus of Miletus only survives in fragments. Much of what is known about Memnon comes from post-Homeric Greek and Roman writers. Homer includes a passing mention to Memnon in the Odyssey.^[15]

Herodotus called Susa "the city of Memnon,"^[16] Herodotus describes two tall statues with Egyptian and Aethiopian dress that some, he says, identify as Memnon; he disagrees, having previously stated that he believes it to be Sesostris.^[17] One of the statues was on the road from Smyrna to Sardis.^[18] Herodotus described a carved figure matching this description near the old road from Smyrna to Sardis.^[19]

Philostratus The Elder of Lemnos in his work Imagines describes art which depicts Memnon:
Artist: Bernard Picart (1673 - 1733) French Title: Plate from 'Le Temple des Muses' (Memnon's Statue) Date: 1731 Materials: Engraving on paper Accession number: P 3036.3 National Galleries of Scotland
1.1.7. MEMNON: This is the army of Memnon; their arms have been laid aside, and they are laying out the body of their chief for mourning; he has been struck in the breast, I think, by the ashen spear. For when I find a broad plain and tents and an entrenched camp and a city fenced in with walls, I feel sure that these are Ethiopians and that this city is Troy and that it is Memnon, the son of Eos, who is being mourned. When he came to the defence of Troy, the son of Peleus, they say, slew him, mighty though he was and likely to be no whit inferior to his opponent. Notice to what huge length he lies on the ground, and how long is the crop of curls, which he grew, no doubt, that he might dedicate them to the Nile; for while the mouth of the Nile belongs to Egypt, the sources of it belong to Ethiopia. See his form, how strong it is, even though the light has gone from his eyes; see his downy beard, how it matches his age with that of his youthful slayer. You would not say that Memnon's skin is really black, for the black of it shows a trace of ruddiness.
2.7.2 Now such is the scene in Homer, but the events depicted by the painter are as follows: Memnon coming from Ethiopia slays Antilochus who had thrown himself in front of this father, and he seems to strike terror among the Achaeans — for before Memnon's time black men were but a subject for story...
Memnon, stands, terrible to look upon, in the army of the Ethiopians, holding a spear and wearing a lion's skin and sneering at Achilles.

Memnon son of Eos (Aurora) and Tithonus

According to ancient Greek poets, Memnon's father Tithonus was snatched away from Troy by the goddess of dawn Eos and was taken to the ends of the earth on the coast of Oceanus.^[20]

According to Hesiod Eos bore to Tithonus bronzed armed Memnon, the King of the Aethiopians and lordly Emathion.^[21] Zephyrus, god of the west wind, like Memnon was also the first-born son of Eos by another father Astraeus, making him the half-brother of Memnon. According to Quintus Smyrnaeus, Memnon said himself that he was raised by the Hesperides on the coast of Oceanus.^[22]

According to Scholar Dean, Memnon, had a double or fused identity in classical antiquity. Considered both "Asian and African" for Greek and Roman writers because of his parentage and because of the geographical indeterminacy of Aithiopia and of India. Memnon was definitely black-skinned for Roman writers.^[23]

Memnon Pieta When Memnon died, Eos mourned greatly over the death of her son,^[24] and made the light of her brother, Helios (Sun), to fade, and begged Nyx (Night), to come out earlier, so she could be able to freely steal her son's body undetected by the armies of the Greeks and the Trojans.^[25] After his death, Eos, perhaps with the help of Hypnos and Thanatos, the gods of sleep and death respectively, transported the slain Memnon's dead body back to Aethiopia,^[26] and also asked Zeus to make Memnon immortal, a wish he granted.^[27]

Colossi of Memnon

The Colossi of Memnon are two massive stone 3,400 year old twin statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, located in Luxor, Egypt. Greeks and Romans visitors associated them with mythical Memnon since at least the first century-calling a portrait-colossus of that pharaoh "Memnon." This identification was based, argued by R. Drew Griffith on the fact that the statue faces sunrise on the winter solstice and so was linked to the dawn.^[28]

According to Pliny the Elder and others, one statue made a sound at morning time.^[29]

Pausanias also describes how he marveled at a colossal statue in Egypt, having been told that Memnon began his travels in Africa:

In Egyptian Thebes, on crossing the Nile to the so-called Pipes, I saw a statue, still sitting, which gave out a sound. The many call it Memnon, who they say from Aethiopia overran Egypt and as far as Susa. The Thebans, however, say that it is a statue, not of Memnon, but of a native named Phamenoph, and I have heard some say that it is Sesostris. This statue was broken in two by Cambyses, and at the present day from head to middle it is thrown down; but the rest is seated, and every day at the rising of the sun it makes a noise, and the sound one could best liken to that of a harp or lyre when a string has been broken.^[30]

Historian M. Bernal's claim that the Greeks based Memnon on Ammenemes of Egypt.^[31] An Egyptian origin for Memnon appears likely from Zeus' weighing of his fate against Achilles' in the lost epic Aethiopis. There is a similar motif in the early spell of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Like Memnon, Amenhotep formed military pacts with eastern kings, was son of a solar deity, and was exceptionally handsome.

Following an earthquake in 27 b.c. the northernmost of the colossi collapsed, and, at sunrise, began to produce an eerie musical sound that early Greek travelers interpreted as the mythical half-mortal Memnon calling out to his mother Eos, goddess of the dawn. Visitors came from far and wide to hear the song, including the Roman Emperor Hadrian and the Empress Sabine, who had to wait several days before the statue called out to them in a.d. 130.^[32] The bust was restored in the Roman period and mounted on huge sandstone blocks. According to legend, Septimius Severus (r. 193-211 CE), seeking to repair the colossus, inadvertently silenced it forever.^[33]

Notes

^ Graves, Robert (2017). The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition. Penguin Books Limited. p. 595. ISBN 978-0-241-98338-6.
^ Rengakos, Antonios (5 August 2015). "Aethiopis". Aethiopis: Published online by Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press. pp. 306–317. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511998409.019. ISBN 978-0-511-99840-9. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
^ ^a ^b "digilibLT – Ephemeris belli Troiani". digilibLT. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
^ ^a ^b "Dictys Cretensis 4.4". Theoi Project: a site exploring Greek mythology and the gods in classical literature and art. 2000. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
^ "Scene 913". Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae.
^ "Memnon (s. of Tithonus) mythical Ethiopian king Wikidata ID: Q506781". Topos Text. 2019. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
^ "P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneid, Book 8, line 370". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-27.
^ "Vergil, Aeneid I 464-493 | Dickinson College Commentaries". dcc.dickinson.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-27.
^ Quintus & James 2004, pp. 39, 556–60
^ Memnon. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
^ Quintus & James 2004
^ Sílvia. "SV19 - Memnon". Liederabend. Retrieved 2024-07-27.
^ "Ethiop | Etymology of Ethiop by etymonline". www.etymonline.com. Retrieved 2024-07-27.
^ "αἴθω - Ancient Greek (LSJ)". lsj.gr. Retrieved 2024-07-27.
^ Homer, Odyssey 11.522
^ Herodotus, 5.54 & 7.151
^ "Also, there are in Ionia two figures of this man carved in rock, one on the road from Ephesus to Phocaea, and the other on that from Sardis to Smyrna. In both places, the figure is over twenty feet high, with a spear in his right hand and a bow in his left, and the rest of his equipment proportional; for it is both Egyptian and Aethiopian; and right across the breast from one shoulder to the other a text is cut in the Egyptian sacred characters, saying: 'I myself won this land with the strength of my shoulders.' There is nothing here to show who he is and whence he comes, but it is shown elsewhere. Some of those who have seen these figures guess they are Memnon, but they are far indeed from the truth."
^ Herodotus 2003, p. 135
^ Herodotus 2003, p. 640
^ Homeric Hym to Aphrodite 215
^ Hesiod, Theogony 984
^ Quintus Smyrnaeus, 2
^ Dean, Trevor (2024). "Memnon in the Middle Ages: The Reception of a Homeric Hero". International Journal of the Classical Tradition. 31 (2): 141–155. doi:10.1007/s12138-023-00640-2.
^ "Greek & Roman Mythology - Tools". www2.classics.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-23.
^ "ToposText". topostext.org. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
^ Currie, Bruno (2010-04-29). Pindar and the Cult of Heroes. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-161516-0.
^ "Proclus, Proclus' Summary of the Aithiopis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus". 2011-06-07. Archived from the original on 2011-06-07. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
^ Griffith, R. Drew (1998). "The origin of Memnon. Classical Antiquity 17 (2):212-234".
^ Pliny the Elder, Natural History 36.11 ; The Sounding Statue of Memnon (The Sounding Statue of Memnon Source: Cosmopolitan Art Journal , Mar., 1861, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Mar., 1861), pp. 1-7
^ Pausanias (1918). Description of Greece. Translated by W. H. S. Jones. Harvard University Press; William Heinmann Ltd. ISBN 978-0-674-99104-0.
^ Griffith, R. Drew (1998). "Classical Antiquity: The Origin of Memnon".
^ "The Sounding Statue of Memnon". Cosmopolitan Art Journal. 5 (1): 1–7. 1861. JSTOR 20487531.
^ Manolaraki, Eleni Hall (July 2019), "The Language of Ruins: Greek and Latin Inscriptions on the Memnon Colossus. By Patricia A. Rosenmeyer. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. (Book Review)", The Language of Ruins: Greek and Latin Inscriptions on the Memnon Colossus. By Patricia A. Rosenmeyer. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 265., vol. 114, no. 3, Oxford University Press, pp. 544–549, doi:10.1086/703350, ISBN 978-0-19-938113-5, retrieved 2024-07-23

References

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Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths, Harmondsworth, London, England, Penguin Books, 1960. ISBN 978-0143106715
Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition. Penguin Books Limited. 2017. ISBN 978-0-241-98338-6, 024198338X
Herodotus (2003). The Histories. London, England: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-044908-2.
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Philostratus the Elder. Imagines, translated by Arthur Fairbanks (1864–1944). Loeb Classical Library Volume 256. London: William Heinemann, 1931. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
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Pliny the Elder, The Natural History. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia. Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff. Lipsiae. Teubner. 1906. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
Quintus; James, Alan W. (2004). The Trojan Epic: Posthomerica. Vol. Book II. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP.
Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy translated by Way. A. S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 19. London: William Heinemann, 1913. Online version at theoi.com
Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy. Arthur S. Way. London: William Heinemann; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1913. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.