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In the tenth year of the siege, after the action described in the Iliad, Priam was said to have received a contingent of Ethiopians under the leadership of Memnon. The brave Ethiopians fought valiantly against the Greeks and caused them much hardship, till Achilles finally slew Memnon and caused them to depart. Some of these traditions are very ancient, in the Odyssey Nestor recalls the death of his son Antilochos,28 who died by the spear of “the glorious son of shining Dawn”29 which is an epithet of Memnon. Later in the Odyssey the Ethiopian warrior is mentioned by name as “great Memnon”.30 The epic Aethiopis, a sequel to the Iliad, recounted the deeds of Memnon and of the Ethiopians at Troy — it is considered to be among the earliest of the post-Homeric epics, possibly as early as the seventh century.31

The heyday of Ethiopian power lasted a little over half a century, from he end of the eighth to the middle of the seventh centuries; following their emergence out of Nubia, they fought repeatedly and at times successfully with the Assyrians for control over Egypt. The Ethiopian host mentioned in the Iliad suggests an Ethiopian attempt to outflank the Assyrian enemy by sending an expeditionary force in support of the Phrygians, under pressure from the Ionians in the West and the Assyrians and Cimmericans in the East.

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The allies of Priam also included Ethiopians under Memnon;14 the Ethiopian allies of Priam must date in all probability to the period when the Ethiopians were one of the most honored nations, highly regarded for their military prowess. What is called here Ethiopians were actually Sudanese: in Egyptian history the Ethiopian Dynasty and their most glorious period is dated from ca. -712 to -663, when Ashurbanipal pursued Tirhaka to Thebes, occupied it, and expelled the Ethiopian from Egypt proper. The tradition concerning Memnon, the Ethiopian warrior who came to the help of Troy, would reasonably limit the time of the conflict also to the end of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh century.15 The possibility of an Ethiopian landing at Troy in the days of the Ethiopian pharaoh Tirhaka need not be dismissed because of the remoteness of the place: as just said, close to the middle of the seventh century, and possibly at an earlier date, Gyges, the king of Sardis, sent in the reverse direction Carian and Ionian mercenaries to assist the Egyptian king Psammetichus in throwing off the Assyrian hegemony.