Psychostasia: Zeus Weighs Achilles and Memnon

Catalogue ID: 04-trojan-cycle/260-psychostasia-achilles-memnon-aeschylus

Cycle: Trojan — Aethiopis / Aeschylean tragedy / Memnon cycle

Version line: Aeschylean *Psychostasia* (lost) + cyclic *Aethiopis* notices — Zeus scales the fates of Achilles and Memnon

Sources: Aeschylus, *Psychostasia* (testimonia / fragments); Proclus, summary of the *Aethiopis*; Apollodorus, *Epitome* 5.3; cf. vase-paintings of Hermes/Zeus with scales between Thetis and Eos

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/04-trojan-cycle/260-psychostasia-achilles-memnon-aeschylus.md

Characters

Ajax — Greek pan; victor
Lyssa — often attendant of the scales (iconography / testimonia)
Memnon — Ethiopian pan; sinks; dies
Pallas — pleading mother of Achilles
Philotes — wielder of the scales
Rhea — pleading mother of Memnon

Places

House of Zeus — scene of the weighing
Troad battlefield — ensuing combat

Themes

Hospitality

Narrative

In the cyclic *Aethiopis* and in Aeschylus’s lost *Psychostasia*, Zeus weighs the souls (or destinies) of Achilles and Memnon while their mothers Thetis and Eos plead. The pan of Memnon sinks; Achilles kills him. Eos then wins immortality or divine honors for her son (and tears that become the morning dew in later poetic color). This weighing is distinct from the Iliad’s kerostasia of Hector and Achilles in Book 22. Catalogue the Memnon psychostasia as the Aethiopis/Aeschylean set-piece of maternal plea and cosmic judgment.