Memnon

"Die well, assassin."

- Memnon to Mathayus.

Memnon, also known as Emperor Memnon, is an evil Egyptian warlord and the main villain in the 2002 action/adventure film The Scorpion King. He had dominated much of the known world around 3067 B.C. until his death came at the hands of the Scorpion King.

He was portrayed by Steven Brand.

History
A tyrannical conqueror, Memnon who was known as “the greatest swordsman the world had ever seen”, possessing remarkable fighting skills, though he was stopped from claiming the entire Earth by the Akkadian warrior known as Mathayus.

Memnon was fixated with an ancient prophecy that concerned the House of Scorpio, in which the gods would choose favour upon a warrior and render that warrior invincible. Memnon became attracted to a sorceress known as Cassandra, who possessed the ability to see the future: Cassandra was, as a young girl, kidnapped by Memnon and compelled to predict the future for the warlord.

Memnon was almost assassinated by the Akkadian warrior Mathayus, who went on to kidnap Cassandra and take her away from Memnon’s palace within the city of Gomorrah: at this, Memnon was furious and was informed that Cassandra had defected from his side to join the resistance against the warlord. Memnon’s intent was to make the sorceress his queen and consummate their marriage (which would halt her powers if her virginity is no longer intact), but his plans were halted when he learned that the pure Cassandra’s powers were diminishing as she was falling in love with Mathayus. Memnon had Cassandra taken hostage when the resistances arrived at his palace for the final battle to stop Memnon’s ascent to power: Mathayus came to rescue her and was engaged in a swordfight with Memnon, which revealed the warlord’s skills to the Akkadian. Memnon gained the upper hand and began to boast that the gods favoured him as a warrior, but was stopped when Mathayus, having ripped an arrow out from his back that was shot by Memnon’s men, used the arrow to fire at Memnon: Mathayus was the warrior that was prophesied to take on the mantle of Scorpion King. Memnon was knocked off by the force of the arrow from the roof of his upper courtyard at his palace where he stood and engulfed in a cloud of fire caused by an explosion of gunpowder by the resisters below his own statue erected in his "honor".

Trivia

 * Memnon was named after the Ethopian king of the same name.
 * Memnon appeared as the man antagonist of the novelization of The Scorpion King.