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MEMNON

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 106 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MEMNON  , in

Greek
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mythology, son of
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Tithonus and Eos (Dawn), king of the Aethiopians . Although mentioned in
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Hesiod and the Odyssey, he is rather a
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post-Homeric hero . After the
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death of
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Hector he went to assist his
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uncle Priam against the Greeks . He performed prodigies of valour, but was slain by Achilles, after he had himself killed
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Antilochus, the son of Nestor and the friend of Achilles . His
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mother, Eos, removed' his
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body from the field of
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battle, and it was said that
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Zeus, moved by her tears, bestowed immortality upon him . According to another account, Memnon was engaged in single combat with Ajax Telamonius, when Achilles slew him before his warriors had time to come to his aid (Dictys Cretensis iv . 6;
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Quintus Smyrnaeus ii.; Pindar, Pythia, vi . 31) . His mother wept for him every
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morning, and the early
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dew-drops were said to be her tears . His companions were changed into birds, called Memnonides, which came every
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year to fight and lament over his
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grave, which was variously located (Ovid, Metam. xiii . 576—622;
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Pausanias x . 31) .

The

story of Memnon was the subject of the lost Aethiopis of
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Arctinus of Miletus; the chief source from which our knowledge of him is derived is the second
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book of the Posthomerica of Quintus Smyrnaeus (itself probably an adaptation of the
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works of Arctinus and Lesches), where his exploits and death are described at length . As an Aethiopian, Memnon was described as black, but was noted for his beauty . The fight between Achilles and Memnon was often represented by Greek artists, as on the chest of Cypselus, and more than one Greek
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play was written bearing his name as a title . In later.,, times the tendency was to regard Memnon as a real
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historical figure . He was said to have built the royal citadel of Susa, called after him the Memnonion, and to have been sent by Teutamus, king of
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Assyria, to the assistance of his vassal Priam (Diod . Sic. ii . 22) . In
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Egypt, the name of Memnon was connected with the
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colossal statues of Amenophis (Amenhotep) III.' near Thebes, two of which still remain . The more northerly of these was partly destroyed by an
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earthquake (27 B.C.) and the upper
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part thrown down . A curious phenomenon then occurred . Every morning, when the rays of the rising sun touched the statue, it gave forth musical sounds, like the moaning noise or the sharp twang of a harp-
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string . This was supposed to be the voice of Memnon responding to the greeting of his mother Eos .

After the restoration of the statue by Septimius

Severus (A.D . 170) the sounds ceased . The sound, which has been heard by
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modern travellers, is generally attributed to the passage of the air through the pores of the stone, chiefly due to the change of temperature at sunrise . Others have held that it was a
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device of the priests . Strabo (xvii . 816), the first to mention the sound, declares that he himself heard it, and Pausanias (i . 42, 3) says " one would compare the sound most nearly to the broken chord of a harp or a lute " (Juvenal xv . 5, with Mayor's note; Tacitus, Annals, ii . 61) . The supporters of the solar theory look upon Memnon as the son of the dawn, who, though he might vanish from sight for a time, could not be destroyed; hence the immortality bestowed upon him by Zeus . He comes from the east, that is, the
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land of the rising sun . On early Greek vases he is represented as borne through the air; this is the sun making his way to his place of departure in the west .

Both Susa and

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Egyptian Thebes, where there was a Memnonion or temple in honour of the hero, were centres of sun-worship . " Eos, the mother of Memnon, is so transparently the morning, that her child must rise again as surer as the sun reappears to run his daily course across the heavens (G . W . Cox, Mythology and
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Folklore, p . 267) . See J . A . Letronne, La Statue vocale de Memnon (1833); C . R . Lepsius, Briefe aus Agypten (1852) ; " The Voice of Memnon " in
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Edinburgh Review (
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July 1886); article by R . Holland in Roscher's Lexikon der mythologie .

End of Article: MEMNON
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