Aethiopis - Content

Content

In current critical editions only five lines survive of the Aethiopis' original text. We are almost entirely dependent on a summary of the Cyclic epics contained in the Chrestomathy attributed to an unknown "Proclus" (possibly to be identified with the 2nd-century AD grammarian Eutychius Proclus). Fewer than ten other references give indications of the poem's storyline.

The poem opens shortly after the death of the Trojan hero Hector, with the arrival of the Amazon warrior Penthesileia who has come to support the Trojans. She has a moment of glory in battle, but Achilles kills her. The Greek warrior Thersites later taunts Achilles, claiming that he had been in love with her, and Achilles kills him too. Achilles is ritually purified for the murder of Thersites.

Next another Trojan ally arrives, Memnon, son of Eos and Tithonus, leading an Ethiopian contingent and wearing armour made by the god Hephaestus. In battle, Memnon kills Antilochus, a Greek warrior who was the son of Nestor and a great favourite of Achilles. Achilles then kills Memnon, and Zeus makes Memnon immortal at Eos' request. But in his rage Achilles pursues the Trojans into the very gates of Troy, and at the Scaean Gates he is killed by an arrow shot by Paris, assisted by the god Apollo. Achilles' body is rescued by Ajax and Odysseus.

The Greeks hold a funeral for Antilochus. Achilles' mother, the sea nymph Thetis, comes with her sisters and the Muses to lament over Achilles' body. Funeral games are held in honour of Achilles, at which Achilles' armor and weapons are offered as a prize for the greatest hero; and there develops a dispute over them between Ajax and Odysseus. There the Aethiopis ends; it is uncertain whether the judgment of Achilles' armor, and subsequent suicide of Ajax, were told in the Aethiopis, in the next epic in the Cycle, the Little Iliad, or in both.