in fabulous history, a king of Ethiopia, son of Tithonus and Aurora. He came with a body of 10,000 men to assist his uncle Priam, during the Trojan war. He behaved with great courage, and killed Antilochus, Nestor's son. The aged father challenged engaged the Ethiopian monarch; but Memnon refused it on account of the venerable age of Nestor, and accepted that of Achilles. He was killed in the combat, in the sight of the Grecian and Trojan armies. Aurora prayed to Jupiter to grant her son such honours as might distinguish him from other mortals. The god consented; and immediately a numerous flight of birds issued from the burning pile on which the body was laid, and dividing themselves into two separate bodies, fought with such fury, that above half of them fell down in the fire as victims to appease the manes of Memnon. These birds were called Memonides; and it has been observed by some of the ancients, that they never failed to return yearly to the tomb of Memnon in Troas, and repeat the same bloody engagement in honour of the hero from whom they received their name.

The Ethiopians or Egyptians, over whom Memnon reigned, erected a celebrated statue to the honour of their monarch. This statue had the wonderful property of uttering a melodious sound every day at sunrise, like that which is heard at the breaking of the string of a harp when it is wound up. This was effected by the rays of the sun when they fell upon it. At the setting of the sun, and in the night, the sound was lugubrious. This is supported by the testimony of the geographer Strabo, who confesses himself ignorant whether it proceeded from the basis of the statue, or the people that were then around it. This celebrated statue was dismantled by order of Cambyses when he conquered Egypt; and its ruins still astonish modern travellers by their grandeur and beauty.

Memnon of Rhodes, one of the generals of Darius king of Persia, advised that prince to lay waste the country, in order to deprive Alexander the Great's army of support, and afterwards to attack Macedon; but this counsel was disapproved by Darius's other generals. Memnon behaved at the passage of the Granicus like an experienced general. He afterwards defended the city of Miletum with great courage; seized the islands of Chios and Lesbos; spread terror throughout all Greece; and would have put a stop to the conquests of Alexander, if he had not been prevented by death. Barsina, Memnon's widow, was taken prisoner with Darius's wife, and Alexander had a son by her named Hercules.