the Recolute or Steadfast (from μεμνών). 1. The son of Aurora and Tithonus, a hero of the Trojan war. Homer mentions him in the Odyssey as remarkable for his beauty, and alludes to his having slain Antilochus, the son of Nestor. (Odys. iv. 188, xi. 521.) Hesiod speaks of him as king of the Ethiopians. (Theog. 984-5.) Later writers give us much fuller accounts of Memnon; but it must not be therefore concluded that he was not until then celebrated; for Arctius of Miletus, who is assigned to the middle of the eighth century B.C., wrote a poem, Ethiopic, of which his history probably formed the main object. (Heyne, Excurs. xix., ad Zia. L) The story of Memnon is variously told by the later writers, all agreeing that he came to the aid of Priam with a force of Ethiopians; and was slain by Achilles. (Dict. iv. 4, vi. 10; Quint. Smyrn. ii. 30, et passim; Tzetz. Posthum. 235; Paus. xi. 31; Apollod. iii. 12, sect. 4; Diod. Sic. ii. 22, iv. 75, &c.) Some call him a leader of Indians as well as Ethiopians, or consider the two identical. Those additions which make Memnon to have been sent by Teutamus, a king of Assyria, whose vassal his father was, and which connect him with Susa, probably result from an attempt to gain a synchronism of Greek and Assyrian history. Any direct endeavours to find a place for Memnon in Assyrian and Egyptian history, which might at first sight be ascribed to native sources, are especially important with reference to his story and his connection with various places and monuments. In the cases of both countries they appear to be wholly of Greek origin, or at least of an origin external to the nations to whose histories they have been attached. The fragments of Assyrian history preserved by ancient writers contain no direct mention of Memnon; but in one list there is an evident reference to him. In it occurs the name of Teutamus, with in one version the addition, in a very corrupt form, that in his time Troy was taken by the Greeks. (Cory's Ancient Fragments, 2d ed., p. 77.) The character of the whole list, which consists of Assyrian, Persian, and Greek names, strung together so as to fill up a certain period, makes any further examination needless. There does not seem to be any other mention of Memnon which could at the first view be even conjecturally assigned to an oriental source. The supposed Egyptian reference to Memnon of the same kind is equally unauthoritative, although found in a far different document. The list of dynasties, epitomized from the lost work of Manetho, the Egyptian historian, contains, under some reigns, historical observations which are not always original. (See Manetho.) Among these notices is one relating to Memnon. It is said of Amenophis, the seventh or eighth sovereign of the eighteenth dynasty, the Amenophi III. of the monuments, that he is considered to be Memnon and the speaking stone. (Anc. Frag., p. 116, 117.) It was a statue of this king that was celebrated as the Vocal Memnon; but there is strong reason to suppose that it did not become famous until long after Manetho's time; and the Egyptians, as appears from the inscriptions of visitors on the statue, took no interest in the vocal phenomenon. It is reasonable, therefore, to regard the notice in the lists, like others of a similar character, as not virtually Egyptian, and added by an epitomizer or chronologer. The examination of the inscriptions of the statue has however shown, as positively as can be on evidence of this kind, that the connection of Memnon with Egypt was of Greek origin. Thus the old Greek tradition or myth is our only authority. If we carefully consider it, we can scarcely do wrong in concluding Memnon to be a mythological personage. Whatever view we take of the Trojan war itself; whether we consider it, with some, as purely mythological; or, with others, as having a vague historical basis; or, again, with others, as having a sure historical basis; we must be ready to admit that most of the heroes are mythical. If we suppose, as seems most reasonable, some of those from whom descent was claimed by contemporaries of Homer to be personages whose memory was preserved in tradition, we may fairly argue the reality of not a few Greek heroes; but we could scarcely apply this argument to the case of foreigners who were not even Trojans. The Greek form of Memnon's name also, like Agamemnon, is somewhat against his reality, although it should be noted that its root is found in the Semitic languages and in Egyptian (see Hieroglyphics, vol. xi., p. 372); so that it might be similar to an original name both in sound and in signification. If, however, we hold that there was, at about the time to which the Trojan war has been usually assigned, a great struggle between the Greeks and the Asiatics in the Toad, we find strong reason for supposing some such expedition from the East as that of Memnon. The progress of modern research is tending to show the truth of the broad outlines of many such traditions, as it indicates the general state of the countries to which they refer. The power of the Assyrian empire about this period was so great, that it is scarcely possible that a war of any length and importance could have been waged on the western coast of Asia Minor without its interference; and Memnon—who in the older form of the story is always an eastern Ethiopian, as the son of Aurora should be, and not a western—may with his forces be taken to represent some such aid from Assyria. It was not unnatural, that as in subsequent times Egyptian sites were in some manner connected with Memnon by Greek travellers or their guides, he should have been associated by later authors with the western Ethiopians also,—unless, indeed, this last idea gave rise to a search for Memnonian remains in Egypt. The twofold geographical division of the Ethiopians was known to Homer and Herodotus, is indicated in the Scriptures, and has been, last of all, confirmed by the cuneiform inscriptions, and we may venture to say, by ethnology also. It is worthy of remark, that the chief individual identified in Egypt with Memnon appears in his race to have singularly corresponded to the Memnon of the later writers, since there is reason to believe him to have been sprung from the eastern as well as the western Ethiopians; but this agreement can hardly be considered as more than fortuitous.

Although tombs of Memnon, and structures or places called after him, were shown in various countries, there are but two which can be considered of high importance,—the Acropolis of Susa, called the Memnonium or Memnonia, and the great western suburb of Egyptian Thebes, bearing the latter name. The former town is called by Herodotus Memnonian (v. 54), doubtless from the Acropolis, which was probably its most ancient part. Pausanias alludes to the thickness of its walls (lib. iv. c. xxxix. § 5). The suburb of Egyptian Thebes called Memnonia (rē Mēmōnēa) is generally held to have included all the buildings on the western bank of the river; but Sir Gardner Wilkinson considers it to have been only a part of Patavos, the "Libyan suburb" (Modern Egypt and Thebes, vol. ii., p. 137.) It must have been, however, the most important quarter. Its name can scarcely be said to be of Greek origin, for it is as old as the time of Ptolemy Physcon, when a Greek identification of its edifices, or of the famous vocal statue, would not have been able to give a name to part of a town so thoroughly Egyptian as Thebes, though it could easily originate a corruption. We have only to remember the manner in which purely native names by a slight change were connected with Greek mythology or tradition, as in the cases of Canopus and Antaeopolis, to see how easily a name resembling Memnonia would have been converted by the Greeks into that word.

The Vocal Memnon is the northernmost of two seated colossi, representing Amunoph III., placed in the approach to a temple now utterly ruined, in the midst of western Thebes. The temple appears to have been wholly raised by the same sovereign; and if any structure were specially called by the Greeks a Memnonium, it must have been this; although it is more probable that all the temples, or at least the larger ones, in the quarter bore this name. It is a common error to call the temple of Rameses II., or the Ramesseum of El-Kurneh, the Memnonium. The height of each of the two colossi is about 47 feet, and they rest upon pedestals about 12 feet high. Greek and Latin inscriptions on the Vocal Memnon, chiefly on the legs, attest that visitors have heard the voice of Memnon, and paid this work of reverence to him, for they are proteynemata. The inscriptions record the visits of Hadrian and the Empress Sabina and their suite, of eight governors of Egypt, and several other persons holding office. The number of inscriptions known is seventy-two, of which thirty-five bear dates. The earliest is of the ninth year of Nero; the latest of the reign of Septimius Severus. We learn from them, and the concurrent testimony of ancient writers, that the vocal phenomenon did not occur, or at least did not attract attention, until after the Roman conquest, that apparently it ceased at the time of Severus, and that it was an object of veneration to the Greeks and Romans, and not to the Egyptians. At this time the statue was broken in two; and it was from the portion remaining in its place, the lower half, that the sound seemed to come. Some of the inscriptions agree with Pausanias in ascribing the overthrow of the statue to Cambyses; but Strabo heard that it had fallen through an earthquake. The former opinion seems on the whole the more reasonable, since it has the weightier evidence on its side, and because such a convulsion as would suffice to break a monolithic statue would be far more violent than any recorded to have happened in Egypt. Yet there are traces of effects of earthquakes in that country, and probably at Thebes; and it is not to be forgotten that Eusebius relates that one which occurred B.C. 27 destroyed this town. It is to this earthquake that Letronne ascribes the overthrow of the statue. The upper part was subsequently restored, and it is not improbable that this was done by order of the Emperor Septimius Severus, as the same savant conjectures. The sound is said to have resembled the twanging of a harp-string or the striking of brass. The ancient writers who speak of the time of its occurrence say that it was at sunrise, when the sun's rays first struck the statue; but the inscriptions show that it did not always occur until some time, often a considerable time, after sunrise. As to the cause of the sound opinions are much divided, and mainly with respect to its genuineness. Sir Gardner Wilkinson argues it to have been an imposture, and cites the remarkable fact that one of the stones of which the upper part is formed, just above the main fracture, when struck gives a metallic sound. (Mod. Egypt and Thebes, vol. ii., p. 160-162.) M. Letronne considers that the sound cannot have been the result of an imposture, and shows that similar sounds have been heard to proceed from stones under the influence of the sun's rays. Several of the writers of the great Description de l'Egypte frequently heard such a sound, always shortly after sunrise, apparently issuing from one of the roof-stones of the granite sanctuary of the temple of El-Karnak. Mr Lane also states (in his MS. journal) that in the neighbouring temple, called the Ramesseum of El-Kurneh, he heard for several successive days "a single, distinct, musical sound, like that produced by a harp-string, evidently proceeding from some stone above him." This occurred shortly after noon. He supposes that at this time the stone became exposed to the sun, and suddenly expanding by the increase of temperature, produced the sound. There is therefore a possible explanation of the voice of Memnon, which, if an imposture, could scarcely have been successfully maintained in such a position for two centuries. It is easy to understand how the Greeks, finding a statue which gave forth a musical sound when touched by the solar rays, in a place called Memnonia, or having a name nearly resembling this, supposed it to represent Memnon, who thus saluted his mother; and the Egyptian priests would have readily encouraged the delusion; or they may have even originated the idea, to impose upon the Greeks. In these observations on the Vocal Memnon we have mainly followed M. Letronne's Statue Vocale de Memnon, an essay which, notwithstanding some faults of strained reasoning, is the most learned and satisfactory one that has been written on this curious subject.

2. Memnon the Rhodian, a Greek commander in the Persian service. At the time of Alexander's invasion he governed the west coast of Asia Minor. The battle of Granicus was fought against his advice, and he was afterwards invested with the entire command of the west of Asia. He defended Halicarnassus with great skill and obstinacy, and when it was no longer tenable crossed to Cos. Having large supplies of money from Darius, he collected a mercenary force, and projected the invasion of Greece. After several successes in the subjugation of the islands, he MEMPHIS died at Mytilene n.c. 333. He appears to have been the only general in the Persian service capable of offering any serious resistance to Alexander.

3. Memnon, a governor of Thrace, who made a revolt while Alexander was in the East, which was soon suppressed by Antipater.

4. Memnon, a Greek historian of the Roman period, probably of the first or second century of the Christian era. He wrote a history of the town of Heraclea in Pontus, part of which Photius has preserved in a somewhat copious abstract. His historical accuracy is much to be commended, but he shows great ignorance of geography. These remains are given in the Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (Didot), vol. iii., pp. 525-558. The best separate edition is that of J. Conr. Orelli, Leipzig, 1816. (n.s.r.)