Attic black-figured amphora attributed to Exekias / Αττικός μελανόμορφος αμφορέας που αποδίδεται στον Εξηκία, 535 BC

Artifacts

Craters, vases ect. / Κρατήρες, αγγεία κ.α.

Attic black-figured amphora
(Height 41,5 cm; width 30 cm)
Attributed to Exekias
Archaic period About 535 BC
London, The British Museum

The mythical king Memnon, seen here flanked by two warriors, was the leader in the Ethiopian contingent of the armies that gathered to defend Troy against the Greeks. He was the central hero of the lost epic Aethiopis, and his death is said to have been as tragic as that of Hector, slain by Achilles. Such was the grief of his mother, Eos, goddess of dawn, that the gods granted him immortality. It is a mark of how much he was respected that a Trojan ally was depicted on a Greek vase. 

Memnon by Exekias - II 

… κεῖνον δὴ κάλλιστον ἴδον μετὰ Μέμνονα δῖον (Odyssey, XI, 522).

… next to the noble Memnon, he was the handsomest man I never saw.

Memnon was a son of Tithonus and Eos, and brother of Emathion. In the Odyssey and Hesiod he is described as the handsome son of Eos, who assisted Priam with his Ethiopians against the Greeks. He slew Antilochus, the son of Nestor, at Troy. According to the common account, Achilles avenged the death of Antilochus upon Memnon.

Στην ελληνική μυθολογία ο Μέμνων ήταν βασιλιάς της Αιθιοπίας, γιος της Ηούς και του Τιθωνού, εγγονός του Λαομέδοντα και ανιψιός του Πριάμου. Σύμφωνα με αυτήν, του αποδίδεται η ίδρυση της Σούσας, ονομάστηκε Μεμνόνιο, όπου έφθασε αφού πέρασε πρώτα από την Αίγυπτο