On the Identification of King Memnon's Aithiopes in The

ON THE IDENTIFICATION OF KING MEMNON’S AITHIOPES IN THE EPIC OF AITHIOPIS OF THE TROJAN EPIC CYCLE

Periklis Deligiannis

The historicity of the legend of the Trojan War is rather still far from been verified, and whether this war actually took place, is still being intensively discussed among the scholars’ cycles. Those who accept the historicity of this legend have at times attempted to equate peoples, tribes and states which are mentioned by the epic poems of the so-called “Trojan Epic Cycle” with peoples, tribes and states of later historical periods. The Iliad gives us a description of the hypothetical military operations under the walls of Troy, but does not inform us about the continuation and the end of the war. Other poems and sources of the "Trojan cycle" inform us about the latter: the epic poem Aithiopis quotes that after Hector’s death, the Amazons with their queen Penthesilea came to reinforce the Trojans. Aithiopis (Αιθιοπίς, in Latin: Aithiopis) is an epic of the ancient Greek literature which is lost but some important fragments of it survived in the works of other ancient authors. It was an epic poem of the aforementioned Epic Cycle concerning the Trojan War: this cycle narrates the entire history of the Trojan War in epic verse. Aithiopis comes chronologically immediately after the Homeric Iliad, and is followed by the story of the Little Iliad. The Aithiopis is sometimes attributed by ancient authors to Arctinos of Miletos. According to the story of the Aithiopis, Penthesilea was killed by Achilles and her army was defeated by the Achaeans. It is possible that the “Amazons” corresponded to some people of the steppe north of the Caucasus with matriarchal social organization, and that the Trojans hired a mercenary army of them in order to confront the formidable Myrmidons of Achilles, the elite force of the Achaean army (1). The Trojans sought new allies and their king Priam sent envoys to Tithonos, the king of Kissia, in order for the latter to send him Memnon, a relative of his and king of the Aithiopes (Αιθίοπες) (2) with military aid. Indeed Memnon arrived at Troy with an Aithiopian army. The identification of Memnon’s Aithiopes has probably caused more questions than any other people quoted in the "Trojan cycle" to have participated in the Trojan War. In this article, I will suggest a theory on who the specific Aithiopes may have been, of course if we accept that the Trojan War actually took place. The realm of Kissia seems to be identified with the historically known land of the Kassites, later known as Kossaeans to the Greeks, a people of Indo-Aryan or other Indoeuropean origins who have been located at the Zagros Mountains in Loristan of western Iran (3). The Kassites were ruling Babylon and Babylonia at the supposed time of the Trojan War and until 1155 BC. Approximately that year they were expelled from there by the Elamites. We can reasonably assume that the Trojans hired a number of "Aithiopian" mercenaries who until then were at the service of the Kassite kings of Karduniash, that is to say of Babylon as it was called by the latter. The great distance between Troy and Babylon and the rather certain lack of diplomatic relations among them is a problem for this identification, but it can be bypassed if we assume that the Hittites acted as diplomatic "intermediaries" on behalf of Troy. It is obvious in the Odyssey and possibly also in other epics of the Trojan Cycle that the Hittites rather mentioned as Keteioi (Κήτειοι) in the Odyssey (4), were reinforcing the Trojans, finally sending to their aid a military force (Odyssey, λ΄ 520- 521). The Hittites had usually friendly relations with the Kassites because both were facing the pressure of the Assyrians who were located between the Hittite Asia Minor and Babylonia. It is likely that the Hittites mediated on behalf of the Trojans to the Kassite king Kashtiliash III (mid-13th century BC) asking him to "lend" a number of Aithiopian elite mercenaries of his army to Troy. There is also some other evidence that reinforces this view. The ancient Greeks used to call Aithiopes (Ethiopians) whoever people had dark-colored skin, either African (Nubians and others) or Asiatic (Dravidians and others). Actually this is exactly the meaning of the Hellenic adjective αithiops (aιθίοψ) which in some cases was used by the Greeks as an ethnic name for the dark-skinned peoples that they encountered. The Mesopotamian archives of the 2nd millennium BC refer to some dark-skinned tribes who were dwelling in several places of the Zagros Mountains, but mostly on their southwestern foothills, and were in conflict with the Elamites of neighboring Elam (5). The specific dark-skinned groups who seem to be identified with the "Asiatic Aithiopes" in the Histories of Herodotus, and are not located far from Babylon, have been identified by some modern Western and Russian linguists and other scholars, with the Dravidians. The latter are a people of Neolithic origins who constituted the main population of the Indian subcontinent before the invasion of the Indo-Aryans (Proto-Indians) on it, but according to the aforementioned linguists they possibly constituted also the main population of Iran's region as far as Mesopotamia. The modern Dravidians of South India and Ceylon Island are dark- skinned and actually the ancient Greek authors certainly mention some other Asiatic Aithiopes near the Indus Valley who were undoubtedly Dravidian tribes, rather genetic ancestors of a large portion of the modern Brahuis and Baluchs of Pakistan. The dark-skinned tribes of Zagros were probably the remains of the native Dravidians who were still surviving in the region (and who later were assimilated by the Iranian peoples). Therefore it is likely that Memnon’s Aithiopes sent by Kissia to king Priam were not Nubians (Africans) as it would (falsely) appear at first sight, but dark- skinned ("Aithiopes") warriors of the Zagros Dravidians who had been recruited as mercenaries by the Kassites of Babylon – possibly also due to the common enmity of the two latter peoples on the aggressive Elamites. We do not consider possible the theory that Memnon’s Athiopes can be identified with the Kassites themselves on the basis that sometimes Memnon is described in the ancient literary sources as a "Kissian" and Tithonos’ son or as the founder of Susa, and other times as an "Aithiopian". According to Herodotus, the "Asiatic Aithiopes" did not live in Kissia but they were neighbouring it and in general the Kossaeans (Kassites) were not dark-skinned being rather of Hurrian and Indoeuropean origins, and they are clearly ethnically separated from the Asiatic Aithiopes in the most finicky sources on the latter, that is to say in the epic of Aithiopis and the Histories of Herodotus. Concerning the rest quotations supposedly on the non-Aithiopian identity of Memnon, his mention as Tithonos’ son may just reflect the almost certain vassalage of the ruler of the Zagros Aithiopes (represented by Memnon in the myth) to the Kassite king, and as for his mention as the founder of Susa this is a weird quotation taking into account that Susa was a remarkably ancient city founded as an urban center by the Elamites, being actually their metropolis and capital.

NOTES

(1) It has also been proposed mainly by J. Melaart and other archeologists and researchers that the Amazons can be identified with the Masa people of the Asia Minor hinterland quoted in the Hittite royal records. (2) that is Ethiopians in ancient Greek (Αιθίοπες), but not to be confused with the modern Ethiopians of Abyssinia. In other stories of the ancient Greek literary sources, Memnon is quoted as Tithonos’ son. (3) There is a theory based on reasonable arguments, that the Kassites were actually a small in number martial nobility that was ruling a (common) people of Hurrian origins. (4) The older consideration of the Keteioi in the Homeric Dictionary of Georg Autenrieth (1891) as a Mysian tribe does not seem to be correct, since there is no indication for the existence of such a tribe in Mysia or in any other Anatolian region in the historical periods following the Trojan War. (5) The land of Elam is the later Elymais or Elymaia of the Greek literary sources, being approximately the modern Arabistan in Iran.

SOURCES

 Homer: the Iliad, Loeb Classical Library.  Fragments of the Aithiopis and Fragments of complete Epic Cycle translated by H.G. Evelyn-White (1914) Project Gutenberg edition.  Apollodorus: the Library, Loeb Classical Library.  Herodotus: Histories, Loeb Classical Library.  West M.L., Greek Epic Fragments, Cambridge MA, 2003.

MODERN BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Schoeck G., Ilias und Aithiopis: kyklische Motive in homerischer Brechung, Zurich 1961.  Deligiannis P., The Trojan war: an archaeological, historical and military approach, Athens 2010 (in Greek).