a name given by the Greeks to various personages; as to a fabulous king of Ethiopia, who is said to have gone to the assistance of King Priam, during the Trojan war, with a body of ten thousand men; and also to several kings of Egypt, whose era and dynasty are involved in impenetrable obscurity. The word, in fact, seems to be a distinctive or qualifying epithet, rather than a proper name; an abbreviated form of Met-amun, "beloved of Ammon," which the Greeks, who were unacquainted with the Egyptian language, naturally enough converted into Memnon; and hence it may have been applied to any everybody who was conceived to be, in an especial manner, favoured or protected by Ammon, the supreme head of the Egyptian Pantheon. But there is one Pharaoh, in particular, called Memnon by the Greek writers, in honour of whom the Egyptians are supposed to have erected that celebrated statue, which is alleged to have possessed the wonderful property of uttering a sound every morning at sunrise, resembling that which is produced by the sudden breaking of the string of a harp from excessive tension. This subject is discussed at length in the article Egypt (vol. vii. p. 336), to which, accordingly, the reader is referred. It is sufficient to observe here that the idea of a colossal statue of hard reddish sandstone being in any way affected by the morning rays of the sun, is too absurd to deserve serious refutation. But as the ancient Greek writers, and the numerous inscriptions upon the legs and feet of the vocal colossus, all bear testimony to the fact, that some sound of the kind or description mentioned was given out by the statue; and as Strabo the geographer distinctly states that he had himself heard it, though he could not say with certainty whence the sound proceeded; the most probable hypothesis is, that it was produced by artificial means, as by striking a smart blow on some sonorous material concealed within the colossus.

There were other persons of the name of Memnon, besides the Egyptian king; as, first, a general of Darius, who, when Alexander invaded Asia, distinguished himself alike by his sagacity in council and his gallant bearing in the field; secondly, a governor of Thrace appointed by Alexander, on account of his tried fidelity and experience; and, thirdly, the author of a history of Heraclea in Pontus, written in the age of Augustus.