There is whole book of the Trojan War Epic Cycle concerning the king of Ethiopia coming to the aid of Trojans. So the foundational epic that influenced every subsequent bit of western literature had a whole book dedicated to a black African king (and a sub plot about an Amazon queen).
The book is lost (the cycle has 8 books, only the Illiad and Odessey survive) but from secondary references we know Memnon the Ethiopian king was on a par with Achilles (and had his own suit of Hephaestus-made armor) but ultimately killed by him. Not only that it was in this book while chasing the Trojan troops back into Troy (as Memnon has killed another of his ahem close friends*) that the infamous “Achilles heel” incident occurred.
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- Being a boyfriend of Greek hero is possibly second only to being a girlfreind among the sucky jobs in ancient Greek literature.