Memnon, the son of Tithonus and the Dawn, came with a great force of Ethiopians to Troy against the Greeks, and having slain many of the Greeks, including Antilochus, he was himself slain by Achilles.These events were narrated in the of Arctinus, as we learn from the summary of Proclus. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 33. Compare Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica ii.100ff., 235ff., 452ff.; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 234ff.; Dictys Cretensis iv.6. The fight between Memnon and Achilles was represented on the throne of Apollo at Amyclae, and on the chest of Cypselus at Olympia (Paus. 3.18.12; Paus. 5.19.1). It was also the subject of a group of statuary, which was set up beside the Hippodamium at Olympia (Paus. 5.22.2). Some fragments of the pedestal which supported the group have been discovered: one of them bears the name MEMNON inscribed in archaic letters. See 662; and Frazer, commentary on Pausanias, vol. iii. pp. 629ff. Aeschylus wrote a tragedy on the subject called , in which he described Zeus weighing the souls of the rival heroes in scales. See Plut. De audiendis poetis 2; Scholiast on Hom. Il. viii.70; TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 88ff. A play of Sophocles, called , probably dealt with the same theme. See , ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 22ff. The slaying of Antilochus by Memnon is mentioned by Hom. Od. 4.187ff. Having chased the Trojans also, Achilles was shot with an arrow in the ankle by Alexander and Apollo at the Scaean gate.

A fight taking place for the corpse, Ajax killed Glaucus, and gave the arms to be conveyed to the ships, but the body he carried, in a shower of darts, through the midst of the enemy, while Ulysses fought his assailants.The death of Achilles was similarly related in the of Arctinus. See Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 33ff. Compare Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iii.26-387; Hyginus, Fab. 107. All these writers agree with Apollodorus in saying that the fatal wound was inflicted on the heel of Achilles. The story ran that at his birth his mother Thetis made Achilles invulnerable by dipping him in the water of Styx; but his heel, by which she held him, was not wetted by the water and so remained vulnerable. See Serv. Verg. A. 6.57; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. i.134; Lactantius Placidus, Narrat. Fabul. xii.6; Fulgentius, Mytholog. iii.7. Tradition varied as to the agent of Achilles's death. Some writers, like Arctinus and Apollodorus, say that the hero was killed by Apollo and Paris jointly. Thus in Hom. Il. 22.359ff.) the dying Hector prophesies that Achilles will be slain by Paris and Apollo at the Scaean gate; and the same prophecy is put by Homer more darkly into the mouth of the talking horse Xanthus, who, like Balaam's ass, warns his master of the danger that besets his path (Hom. Il. 19.404ff.). According to Virgil and Ovid, it was the hand of Paris that discharged the fatal arrow, but the hand of Apollo that directed it to the mark. See Verg. A. 6.56-58; Ov. Met. 12.597-609. According to Hyginus, it was Apollo in the guise of Paris who transfixed the mortal heel of Achilles with an arrow (Hyginus, Fab. 107). But in one passage (Hom. Il. 21.277ff.) homer speaks of the death of Achilles as wrought by the shafts of Apollo alone; and this version was followed by Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iii.60ff. and apparently by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Horace. See Plat. Rep. 2.383a-b; Soph. Phil. 334ff.; Hor. Carm. 4.6.1ff. Other writers, on the contrary, speak of Paris alone as the slayer of Achilles. See Eur. And. 655; Eur. Hec. 387ff.; Plut. Quaest. Conviv. ix.13.2; Plut. Lys. 4. A very different version of the story connected the death of Achilles with a romantic passion he had conceived for Polyxena, daughter of Priam. It is said that Priam offered her hand in marriage to Achilles on condition that the siege of Troy was raised. In the negotiations which were carried on for this purpose Achilles went alone and unarmed to the temple of Thymbraean Apollo and was there treacherously assassinated, Deiphobus clasping him to his breast in a pretended embrace of friendship while Paris stabbed him with a sword. See Tzetzes, Posthomerica 385-423; Philostratus, Her. xx.16ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 110; Dictys Cretensis iv.10ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 6.57; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. i.134; Dares Phrygius, De excidio Trojae 34; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 13, 143 (First Vatican Mythographer 36; Second Vatican Mythographer 205). Of these writers, the Second Vatican Mythographer tells us that Achilles first saw Polyxena, Hector's sister, when she stood on a tower in the act of throwing down bracelets and earrings with which to ransom Hector's body, and that when Achilles came to the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo to ratify the treaty of marriage and peace, Paris lurked behind the image of the god and shot the confiding hero with an arrow. This seems to be the account of the death which Serv. Verg. A. 6.57 and Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. i.134 followed in their briefer narrative. Compare Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum 62, p. 382.

The death of Achilles filled the army with dismay, and they buried him with Patroclus in the White Isle, mixing the bones of the two together.According to Arctinus in the , when the body of Achilles was lying in state, his mother Thetis came with the Muses and her sisters and mourned over her dead son; then she snatched it away from the pyre and conveyed it to the White Isle; but the Greeks raised a sepulchral mound and held games in honour of the departed hero. See Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 34. Compare Hom. Od. 24.43-92; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iii.525-787 (the laying-out of the body, the lamentation of Thetis, the Nereids, and the Muses, and the burning of the corpse); Tzetzes, Posthomerica 431-467; Dictys Cretensis iv.13, 15. Homer tells how the bones of Achilles, after his body had been burnt on the pyre, were laid with the bones of his friend Patroclus in a golden urn, made by Hephaestus, which Thetis had received from Dionysus. The urn was buried at the headland of Sigeum, according to Tzetzes and Dictys Cretensis. In Quintus Smyrnaeus, iii.766-780 we read how Poseidon comforted Thetis by assuring her that Achilles, her sorrow, was not dead, for he himself would bestow on the departed hero an island in the Euxine Sea where he should be a god for evermore, worshipped with sacrifices by the neighbouring tribes. The promised land was the White Isle mentioned by Apollodorus. It is described as a wooded island off the mouth of the Danube. In it there was a temple of Achilles with an image of him; and there the hero was said to dwell immortal with Helen for his wife and his friends Patroclus and Antilochus for his companions. There he chanted the verses of Homer, and mariners who sailed near the island could hear the song wafted clearly across the water; while such as put in to the shore or anchored off the coast, heard the trampling of horses, the shouts of warriors, and the clash of arms. See Paus. 3.19.11-13; Philostratus, Her. xx.32-40. As the mortal remains of Achilles were buried in the Troad, and only his immortal spirit was said to dwell in the White Isle, the statement of Apollodorus that the Greeks interred him in the White Isle must be regarded as erroneous, whether the error is due to Apollodorus himself, or, as is more probable, either to his abbreviator or to a copyist. Perhaps in the original form of his work Apollodorus followed Arctinus in describing how Thetis snatched the body of Achilles from the pyre and transported it to the White Isle. It is said that after death Achilles consorts with Medea in the Isles of the Blest.Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.810ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 174. According to the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.815, the first to affirm that Achilles married Medea in the Elysian Fields was the poet Ibycus, and the tale was afterwards repeated by Simonides. The story is unknown to Homer, who describes the shade of Achilles repining at his lot and striding alone in the Asphodel Meadow (Hom. Od. 11.471-540). And they held games in his honor, at which Eumelus won the chariot-race, Diomedes the footrace, Ajax the quoit match, and Teucer the competition in archery.The funeral games in honour of Achilles are described at full length, in the orthodox manner, by Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iv.88-595. He agrees with Apollodorus in representing Teucer and Ajax as victorious in the contests of archery and quoit-throwing respectively (Posthomerica iv.405ff., 436ff.); and he seems to have described Eumelus as the winner of the chariot-race (Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iv.500ff.), but the conclusion of the race is lost through a gap in the text.

Also his arms were offered as a prize to the bravest, and Ajax and Ulysses came forward as competitors. The judges were the Trojans or, according to some, the allies, and Ulysses was preferred. Disordered by chagrin, Ajax planned a nocturnal attack on the army. And Athena drove him mad, and turned him, sword in hand, among the cattle, and in his frenzy he slaughtered the cattle with the herdsmen, taking them for the Achaeans.