After Penthesilea fell, Memnon son of Eos and Tithonus led a great host of Ethiopians to Priam's aid — killed Antilochus son of Nestor in the fighting, and was himself slain by Achilles in vengeance; Odysseus would later tell Achilles' shade that no man at Troy was comelier save the king of the Ethiopians, and Antilochus came among the heroes in the house of Hades.1
Son of Dawn and Tithonus
Memnon was no stranger to the eastern kingdoms before Troy ever saw him. Hesiod names him brazen-crested, king of the Ethiopians, born to the Dawn when she lay with lordly Tithonus — the Trojan prince the goddess snatched away for love and carried to Ethiopia. Apollodorus knows the same sons: Emathion and Memnon, reared in the Dawn's eastern realm while their father kept the couch from which she rises each morning to bring light to gods and mortals. The nested episode on Eos and Tithonus tells the abduction and the marriage; here the son who would sail westward to Ilion is already the comeliest champion the Epic Cycle would remember after only Achilles himself.2
After the Amazon
When Hector was dead and Penthesilea daughter of Mars and Otrera had come to Troy and been killed by Achilles, the war still did not end. Memnon son of Tithonus and the Dawn came next with a great force of Ethiopians against the Greeks. Apollodorus says plainly that he marched to Priam's aid after the Amazon queen's fall; Hyginus counts the combats in his Trojan roll in the same order — Achilles with Penthesilea, Penthesilea was killed; then Antilochus with Memnon. The nested Aethiopis episode tells Penthesilea and Thersites; here the last eastern ally before Paris and Apollo bring down Achilles is the Ethiopian king whose mother watches the sky.3
Antilochus and Nestor's son
Memnon killed many of the Greeks in the fighting before the city, and among them Antilochus son of Nestor. Homer had known the Pylian runner from the opening battles of the Iliad — swift, front-rank, the son who bore bitter tidings of Patroclus' death to Achilles and won second place only to Diomedes in the chariot-race at the hero's funeral games. Apollodorus names him among Memnon's victims; Hyginus records the duel in two lines: Antilochus with Memnon, Antilochus was killed. The horseman of Gerenia, counsellor of kings through ten years of war, would survive Troy and reach sandy Pylos with all his company — but not with the son who had run for Achilles when the ships burned.4
Achilles' vengeance
Achilles avenged Antilochus and slew Memnon in turn. Apollodorus closes the Ethiopian's arc in a single movement: having killed many Greeks including Nestor's son, Memnon was himself killed by Achilles. Hyginus matches the sequence — Achilles with Memnon, Memnon was killed — and the Aethiopis moves at once to Paris and Apollo bringing down the son of Peleus at the Scaean gate. The comeliest champion at Troy save only Achilles had fallen; the avenger would not long outlive him. Priam received ally after ally into a city that still stood, and the chain of revenges that fills the post-Iliad cycle tightened toward the funeral games and the arms of the dead hero.5
Comeliest after Memnon
Years later, when Odysseus dug the pit of blood in the house of Hades, Achilles came with Patroclus and Antilochus among the heroes who died at Troy — the runner Nestor had sent with the news of Patroclus now a shade beside the greatest of the Achaeans. Odysseus told the king of the dead how his son Neoptolemus had borne himself: ever first in counsel, godlike Nestor and the Ithacan alone surpassing him; in battle he ran far to the front and killed many. Among them was the prince Eurypylus son of Telephus and many of his Ceteian comrades — and Odysseus added the measure by which the host had judged beauty at Troy: Eurypylus was the comeliest man he saw, next to goodly Memnon. The nested episode on the Nekuia tells the full descent; here the Ethiopian king lives only in memory and comparison, while Antilochus stands among the dead whom Achilles welcomed.6
What the lenses withhold
Apollodorus, Hyginus, and Homer know the combat, the vengeance, and the comeliness — they do not tell how the Dawn grieved, or how she asked Zeus to honour her fallen son with tears turned to dew, with birds, or with a memorial statue. Pausanias, travelling in Egypt, saw a seated colossus beyond the Nile at Thebes that gave out a sound at sunrise; the many called it Memnon, who they said from Ethiopia overran Egypt and as far as Susa, though local Thebans named it Phamenoph and others Sesostris. That monument belongs to the traveller's age and to disputed identification, not to the Epitome's plain tale of slayer and slain. Our three primary lenses end where Achilles kills the Ethiopian and turns toward his own doom at the gate.7
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