[3]
Memnon, the son of Tithonus and the Dawn, came with a great force of Ethiopians to
Troy against the Greeks, and having slain many
of the Greeks, including Antilochus, he was himself slain by Achilles.1 Having chased the Trojans also,
Achilles was shot with an arrow in the ankle by Alexander and Apollo at the
Scaean gate.
1 These events were narrated in the Aethiopis of Arctinus, as we learn from the summary of Proclus. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 33. Compare Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica ii.100ff., 235ff., 452ff.; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 234ff.; Dictys Cretensis iv.6. The fight between Memnon and Achilles was represented on the throne of Apollo at Amyclae, and on the chest of Cypselus at Olympia （Paus. 3.18.12; Paus. 5.19.1）. It was also the subject of a group of statuary, which was set up beside the Hippodamium at Olympia （Paus. 5.22.2）. Some fragments of the pedestal which supported the group have been discovered: one of them bears the name MEMNON inscribed in archaic letters. See Die Inschriften von Olympia 662; and Frazer, commentary on Pausanias, vol. iii. pp. 629ff. Aeschylus wrote a tragedy on the subject called Psychostasia, in which he described Zeus weighing the souls of the rival heroes in scales. See Plut. De audiendis poetis 2; Scholiast on Hom. Il. viii.70; TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 88ff. A play of Sophocles, called The Ethiopians, probably dealt with the same theme. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 22ff. The slaying of Antilochus by Memnon is mentioned by Hom. Od. 4.187ff.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
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