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; all this was said to be recorded in the royal archives. The Egyptians affirmed that Memnôn had come from Egypt (Diodôr. ii. 22; compare iv. 77): the two stories are blended together in Pausanias, x. 31, 2. The Phrygians pointed out the road along which he had marched.
[723] Argum. Æth. ut sup.; Quint. Smyrn. ii. 396-550; Pausan. x. 31, 1. Pindar, in praising Achilles, dwells much on his triumphs over Hectôr, Têlephus, Memnôn, and Cycnus, but never notices Penthesileia (Olymp. ii. 90; Nem. iii. 60; vi. 52. Isthm. v. 43).
Æschylus, in the Ψυχοστασία, introduced Thetis and Eôs, each in an attitude of supplication for her son, and Zeus weighing in his golden scales the souls of Achilles and Memnôn (Schol. Ven. ad Iliad, viii. 70: Pollux, iv. 130; Plutarch, De Audiend. Poet. p. 17). In the combat between Achilles and Memnôn, represented on the chest of Kypselus at Olympia, Thetis and Eôs were given each as aiding her son (Pausan. v. 19, 1).
[724] Iliad, xxii. 360; Sophokl. Philokt. 334; Virgil, Æneid, vi. 56.
[725] Argum. Æthiop. ut sup.; Quint. Smyrn. 151-583; Homer, Odyss. v. 310; Ovid, Metam. xiii. 284; Eurip. Androm. 1262; Pausan. iii. 19, 13. According to Diktys (iv. 11), Paris and Deiphobus entrap Achilles by the promise of an interview with Polyxena and kill him.
A minute and curious description of the island Leukê, or Ἀχιλλέως νῆσος, is given in Arrian (Periplus, Pont. Euxin. p. 21; ap. Geogr. Min. t. 1).
The heroic or divine empire of Achilles in Scythia was recognized by Alkæus the poet (Alkæi Fragm. Schneidew. Fr. 46), Ἀχιλλεῦ, ὃς γᾶς Σκυθικᾶς μέδεις. Eustathius (ad Dionys. Periêgêt. 307) gives the story of his having followed Iphigeneia thither: compare Antonin. Liberal. 27.
Ibykus represented Achilles as having espoused Mêdea in the Elysian Field (Idyk. Fragm. 18. Schneidewin). Simonidês followed this story (ap. Schol. Apoll. Rhod. iv. 815).
[726] Argument of Æthiopis and Ilias Minor, and Fragm. 2 of the latter, pp. 17, 18, Düntz.; Quint. Smyrn. v. 120-482; Hom. Odyss. xi. 550; Pindar, Nem. vii. 26. The Ajax of Sophoklês, and the contending speeches between Ajax and Ulysses in the beginning of the thirteenth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, are too well known to need special reference.
The suicide of Ajax seems to have been described in detail in the Æthiopis: compare Pindar. Isthm. iii. 51, and the Scholia ad loc., which show the attention paid by Pindar to the minute circumstances of the old epic. See Fragm. 2 of the Ἰλίου Πέρσις of Arktinus, in Düntz. p. 22, which would seem more properly to belong to the Æthiopis. Diktys relates the suicide of Ajax, as a consequence of his unsuccessful competition with Odysseus, not about the arms of Achilles, but about the Palladium, after the taking of the city (v. 14).