Portrait of Memnon: Greek, c. 170 AD

Memnon was the pupil, protégé, and adopted son of Herodes Atticus, a Greek aristocrat and sophist who served as a senator of the Roman Empire. He was named after the mythological Ethiopian king Memnon who fights alongside the Trojans in the Trojan war. The son of a human prince, Tithonus, and Eos, goddess of the dawn, Memnon is killed by Achilles, but then granted immortality by Eos.