Ethiopia- an ancient joke © Nicholas Costa 2024

The word ‘Ethiopian’ used to describe the fish eaters of Mene in the myth of Myrina actually does not refer to the place in Africa. Greek use of place names in early myth was to say the least very flexible, Ethiopia did not always refer to a place in Africa; it could be used to describe (as the name implies) somebody of a darker skin colour. The island of Lesbos (so Pliny informs us) was once also known as Aethiopis. Therefore somebody from Lesbos could have once been called ‘Ethiopian’. Notably Mytilene in Lesbos was said to have been named after Myrina’s sister so she could have been described as Ethiopian.

Likewise Aethopis is the title of a lost work by Arctinus of Miletus, with the first part known as the Amazonia. It was part of the Trojan War cycle. Its central image concerned Achilles’ killing of the Amazon Queen Penthesileia where in one version of the story he notably buries her in Lycia in southwest Asia Minor.

Merops who is frequently associated with the island of Cos is also depicted as a king of Aethiopia by Ovid in Metamorphoses (1.760 ff & 2.184). Cos is part of the Cos-Nisyros volcanic arc.

An Ancient Joke

Note the literal meaning of the name Aethiopia in Greek: which is a compound of two Greek words aitho/ I burn and ops/ face- translating therefore as burnt-face. A very appropriate name given what happened in the vicinity of Cos in the early second millennium BC.

One therefore also needs to question as to where Memnon who was killed by Achilles in the Aethiopis actually came from, and it would appear given the current interpretation that he actually came from the region around Caria. In Virgil’s Aeneid Memnon bought his troops from Aithopia to aid the Trojans. Notably it was Hephaestus the volcanic deity who made Memnon’s armour.

According to Herodotus there was a site known as the palace of Memnon on the old road between Smyrna to Sardis and he names Ephesus as Memnon’s city (Book 5:53-54). According to Quintus Smyrnaeus, Memnon said that he was raised by the Hesperides on the coast of Oceanus.

Extract from Atlantis, the Amazons, and the Birth of Athene by Nicholas Costa