Hippalus

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Long-distance trade routes at the end of the 1st century AD

Hippalus (Latin Hippalus) was a Greek or Egyptian sailors from the ancient "Log Data" templates of the Elder Pliny mentioned (23/24 to 79 AD..):

" During his voyage in the Indian Ocean, the author of the ' Periplus ' probably relied on the knowledge of a captain named Hippalus, who had sailed the same waters before him and was evidently the first seafarer of antiquity to recognize and take advantage of the regularity and direction of the monsoon winds ."

- Wilhelm Hankel: World Economy of Ancient Rome , Munich 1987, p. 245.

Lore

“Pliny d. Ä. mentions in passing the journey of a Roman freedman who , together with his ship, ends up on the India route to Ceylon while sailing around Arabia . Pliny dates the incident to the time of Emperor Claudius (41–54 AD) and also mentions the name of the patron saint of the freedman: Plocamus. "

Wilhelm Hankel mentions an English researcher in the 1930s who discovered a rock inscription in the Egyptian desert “near the old road from Berenice [- a port on the Red Sea -] to Koptos , about 100 km from Koptos”. This mentions "in the 35th year of the reign of the emperor Augustus a [en ..] Lysa, slave of Plocamus". The conclusion is that the "journey of Hippalus already took place in Augustan times".

A connection with Eudoxus from Kyzikos , who lived in the 2nd century BC. Lived, is not to be proven.

Current designations

In modern times, the crater Hippalus was named after him. Hippalus is also one of the main characters in Lyon's Sprague de Camp's historical novel about Eudoxus, entitled The Golden Wind .

literature

  • With Hankel: Pliny the Elder: Natural History ( Naturalis Historia ) , Bremen 1855–55 (reprint Darmstadt 1968). Further editions: here
  • Federico De Romanis and André Tchernia: Crossings. Early Mediterranean Contacts with India . New Delhi 1997

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Hankel : Caesar. Weltwirtschaft des Alten Rom , Wirtschaftsverlag Langen-Müller / Herbig, Munich 1987, p. 245. ISBN 3-7844-7190-0 .
  2. ↑ Wilhelm Hankel relies on information from: Sir Mortimer Wheeler : Der Fernhandel des Roman Empire , Munich 1965.
personal data
SURNAME Hippalus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hippalus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek navigator and trader
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century BC BC or 1st century
DATE OF DEATH 1st century