Memnon of Rhodes

“ Now intelligence reached him which made him feel at liberty to advance into the interior of Asia. Memnon the Rhodian fell sick and died in the early spring of B.C. 333. It is strange that so much should have depended on a single life; but it certainly seems that there was no one in the Persian service who, on Memnon’s death, could replace him—no one fitted for the difficult task of uniting Greeks and Asiatics together, capable of influencing and managing the one while he preserved the confidence of the other. ”

“ But Memnon was too strong for Thrasymedes, and drove him off, while old Nestor himself charged sword in hand, though Memnon bade him begone, for he was not minded to strike so aged a man, and Nestor drew back, for he was weak with age. Then Memnon and his army charged the Greeks, slaying and stripping the dead. But Nestor had mounted his chariot and driven to Achilles, weeping, and imploring him to come swiftly and save the body of Antilochus, and he sped to meet Memnon, who lifted a great stone, the landmark of a field, and drove it against the shield of the son of Peleus. ”

“ How much we owe those bows of thine
Without thine arm to lend the breeze,
How vain the finger on the keys!
Though all unmatched the player's skill,
Those thousand throats were dumb and still:
Another's art may shape the tone,
The breath that fills it is thine own.
Six days the silent Memnon waits
Behind his temple's folded gates;
But when the seventh day's sunshine falls
Through rainbowed windows on the walls,
He breathes, he sings, he shouts, he fills
The quivering air with rapturous thrills ”

“ And they know nothing of the mystic land of the old gods, filled with profound enigmas of the supernatural, dark secrets yet unexplored except in this book. Well might the great Memnon murmur after this lapse of these thousand years, "They're making me tired!"
Such was the blissful, self-satisfied ignorance of Sir Midas Pyle, or as Lord Fitz-Fulke, with his delightful imitation of the East London accent, called him, Sir "Myde His Pyle," as he leaned back on his divan in the Grand Cairo Hotel. ”

“ There are reasons which may induce us to believe that the Trojan war happened during the reign of the third Rameses. The poetical Memnon is not found in Egyptian records. The name is not Egyptian, although it may be a corruption. It is useless to criticise this invention of the lying Greeks, to whose blinded conceit and carelessness we are indebted for the almost total darkness in which the records of antiquity are enveloped. The famous musical statue of Memnon is still seated on its throne, dignified and serene, on the plain of Thebes. ”

“ The Acropolis was called Memnonium. The Susians have the name also of Cissii. Æschylus442 calls the mother of Memnon, Cissia. Memnon is said to be buried near Paltus in Syria, by the river Badas, as Simonides says in his Memnon, a dithyrambic poem among the Deliaca. The wall of the city, the temples and palaces, were constructed in the same manner as those of the Babylonians, of baked brick and asphaltus, as some writers relate. Polycletus however says, that its circumference was 200 stadia, and that it was without walls. ”

“ I will then only eat to supply the waste of nature; my health will be always equal, my ideas pure and luminous. All this is so easy that there is no merit in accomplishing it."
"But," says Memnon, "I must think a little of how I am to regulate my fortune: why, my desires are moderate, my wealth is securely placed with the Receiver General of the finances of Nineveh. I have wherewithal to live independent; and that is the greatest of blessings. I shall never be under the cruel necessity of dancing attendance at court. I will never envy any one, and nobody will envy me. ”

“ Memnon, king of the Ethiopians. He went to the assistance of his uncle, Priam, and was slain by Achillês. His mother, Eos, inconsolable at his death, weeps for him every morning, and her tears constitute what we call dew.
Memnon, the black statue of King Amen ́ophis III., at Thebes, in Egypt, which, being struck with the rays of the [27] morning sun, gives out musical sounds. Kircher says these sounds are due to a sort of clavecin or Æolian harp enclosed in the statue, the cords of which are acted upon by the warmth of the sun. ”

“ This was Memnon’s son, another Mentor. His tutor, the Nicon, whose acquaintance we have already made, followed him, and the party was now complete.
It was Clearista’s first voyage, and her wonder [85] and delight were beyond expression. The sea, calm as a mirror, and blue as a sapphire, under a cloudless sky; the rhythmic dash of the oars as they rose and fell in time to the monotonous music of the fugleman standing high upon the stern; the skimming flight of the sea-birds as they followed the galley in the hope of some morsels of food ”

“ The same sign was used by the last Darius to denote that his able Greek general Memnon, who had offended him by his plainness of speech, was doomed to death. As he was being led away, Memnon exclaimed, in allusion to Alexander, who was then fast drawing near: "Thy remorse will soon prove my worth; my avenger is not far off." Droysen, Alex. d. Grosse, Diod. XVII. 30. ”

“ Memnon was able to act on the offensive in North-Western Asia. He marched upon Cyzicus and was within a little of surprising it, obtaining from the lands and villas without the walls an immense booty. He forced Parmenio to raise the seige of Pitane; and when Callas, one of the Macedonian leaders, endeavored to improve the condition of things by meeting the Persian forces in the open field, he suffered a defeat and was compelled to throw himself into Rhoeteum. ”

“ Now the Solymi were the fiercest of men and rose up against Memnon, but he and his army fought them for a whole day, and defeated them, and drove them to the hills. When Memnon came, Priam gave him a great cup of gold, full of wine to the brim, and Memnon drank the wine at one draught. But he did not make great boasts of what he could do, like poor Penthesilea, “for,” said he, “whether I am a good man at arms will be known in battle, where the strength of men is tried. So now let us turn to sleep, for to wake and drink wine all through the night is an ill beginning of war.” ”

“ But time be himself fell ill and died, and his death at that crisis, was exceedingly injurious to the king's interests. Nevertheless Autophradates, and Pharnabazns, son of Artabazus, prosecuted the siege with vigour. To the latter indeed, Memnon, when dying, had entrusted his command, as he was his sister's son, till Darius should come to some decision on the matter. ”

“ Then Memnon led out the dark clouds of his men into the plain, and the Greeks foreboded evil when they saw so great a new army of fresh and unwearied warriors, but Achilles, leading them in his shining armour, gave them courage. Memnon fell upon the left wing of the Greeks, and on the men of Nestor, and first he slew Ereuthus, and then attacked Nestor's young son, Antilochus, who, now that Patroclus had fallen, was the dearest friend of Achilles. ”

“ It is “Memnon the god-like, the goodliest man in the host,” the “son of the Day-dawn light,” by whom Antilochus was slain. But the story is told by post-Homeric writers. Dictys Cretensis says, that Memnon came with an army of Ethiopians and Indians from Caucasus to Troy, that he slew Antilochus, when that hero tried to rescue his father the aged Nestor, and that he was himself slain by Achilles. ”

“ Moreover, the theory is disproved by the fact that, during the two centuries of the continuance of the marvel, there were occasions when Memnon was obstinately silent, though the priests must have been most anxious that he should speak, while there were others when he spoke freely, though they must have been perfectly indifferent. ”

“ To return to Manetho:—amongst the monarchs of the original Egyptian race there was one named by him Amenophis, (the eighth king of the eighteenth dynasty,) of whom it is stated, in a note of Manetho’s preserved by Syncellus, that he was the Egyptian king whom the Greeks called Memnon. The statue of Memnon at Thebes, celebrated through all antiquity for the melodious sounds which it was said to render at sunrise, is identified in the present day by a multitude of Greek inscriptions ”

“ ACHILLES PITIES PENTHESILEA AFTER SLAYING HER.
The old men of Troy and the chiefs now held a council, and Priam said that they must not yet despair, for, if they had lost many of their bravest warriors, many of the Greeks had also fallen. Their best plan was to fight only with arrows from the walls and towers, till King Memnon came to their rescue with a great army of Aethiopes. Now Memnon was the son of the bright Dawn, a beautiful Goddess who had loved and married a mortal man, Tithonus. She had asked Zeus, the chief of the Gods, to make her lover immortal, and her prayer was granted. ”

“ Thompson's mill blows every morning at sunrise to wake people up. The Egyptians thought that Memnon was something wonderful, but it has been found out, since the Egyptians died, that a priest used to hide himself somewhere inside of Memnon, and made all the noise. ”

“ The Magi of Egypt looked round in every quarter for phenomena that might produce astonishment among their countrymen, and induce them to believe that they dwelt in a land which overflowed with the testimonies and presence of a divine power. Among others the statue of Memnon, erected over his tomb near Thebes, is recorded by many authors. Memnon is said to have been the son of Aurora, the Goddess of the morning; and his statue is related to have had the peculiar faculty of uttering a melodious sound every morning when touched by the first beams of day, as if to salute his mother; ”

“ Assured that Bennett was coming, he then walked on swiftly for two or three blocks. Where a long row of cottonwoods made dark the way, he waited in the shadows. He heard the slow steps of his approaching victim, noted their feebleness, and waited impatiently until Bennett passed his tree.
The gambler pounced on him; he crushed his puffy hand over Bennett's mouth.
"It's me, Beck! If you make a sound, damn you, I'll kill you! Feel that gun at the back of your neck?" He took his hand away. "What's the matter with you? You old fool, can't you stand up? I won't hurt you—unless you try to talk. ”

“ In the Philoktêtês, of Sophoklês, Thersitês survives Achilles (Soph. Phil. 358-445) .
[722] Odyss. xi. 522. Κεῖνον δὴ κάλλιστον ἴδον, μετὰ Μέμνονα δῖον: see also Odyss. iv. 187; Pindar, Pyth. vi. 31. Æschylus (ap. Strabo. xv. p. 728) conceives Memnôn as a Persian starting from Susa.
Ktêsias gave in his history full details respecting the expedition of Memnôn, sent by the king of Assyria to the relief of his dependent, Priam of Troy ”

“ Then to the side of Aeacus' mighty son
Came Nestor. Anguished for his son he cried:
"Achilles, thou great bulwark of the Greeks,
Slain is my child! The armour of my dead
Hath Memnon, and I fear me lest his corse
Be cast a prey to dogs. Haste to his help!
True friend is he who still remembereth
A friend though slain, and grieves for one no more."
Achilles heard; his heart was thrilled with grief:
He glanced across the rolling battle, saw
Memnon, saw where in throngs the Argives fell
Beneath his spear. ”

“ If Memnon had lived and his advice been adopted by Darius, the fate of Persia might have been very different. Cf. Plutarch (Life of Alex., 18) .
120 Diodorus (xvii. 18) says that Memnon, while advising the Persian generals to lay waste the country, and to prevent the Macedonians from advancing through scarcity of provisions, also urged them to carry a large force into Greece and Macedonia, and thus transfer the war into Europe.
121 The Granicus rises in Mount Ida, and falls into the Propontis near Cyzicus. Ovid (Metam., xi. 763) calls it Granicus bicornis. ”

“ An outcry of wrath rose on all sides, and the traitor was on the point of being sacrificed when the young Idumean generously started forward.
“It is known, I believe, to every man here,” said he, “that I dislike and distrust Memnon as much as any being on earth. I know him to be base and cruel, and therefore hate him. I have long suspected him of being connected with transactions that nothing but the madness of avarice could venture upon, and nothing but death atone. But he must not perish without a trial. Till inquiry is made, the man who strikes him must strike through me.” ”

“ For this long, forlorn row housed Bennett's General Stores. Bennett sold everything but tunnels.
Here was Neighbor's nearest errand. After a little delay he was shown into the great man's private office.
Bennett turned slowly in his revolving chair; a tall spare man, with a thin straggle of sandy hair and a sharp, narrow face, close-shaven; which might have been a pleasant face but for a pinched and cruel mouth, a mean, pinched nose, and a shifty eye. ”

“ Memnon was the most beautiful of men, except Paris and Achilles, and his home was in a country that borders on the land of sunrising. There he was reared by the lily maidens called Hesperides, till he came to his full strength, and commanded the whole army of the Aethiopes. For their arrival Priam wished to wait, but Polydamas advised that the Trojans should give back Helen to the Greeks, with jewels twice as valuable as those which she had brought from the house of Menelaus. ”

“ We are deeply hurt by Mr. Bennett's persistence; but let us not be severe. In this case retribution has been, as we might say, automatic, for the man Jones, by some means, has acquired an inkling of the posture in which our affairs lie in the little matter of the Drake estate; though I believe he suspects only Bennett and myself. Bennett, I judge, has talked too much. And—such is the wickedness and perfidy of the human mind—the man Jones makes a shameless demand on us for two thousand dollars, money current with the merchant, as the price of silence. ”