Hippolus

Hippolus is an ancient Greek mariner credited in Pliny the Elder's Periplus of the Erythyaean Sea with the discovery in 45 AD of the pattern of monsoon winds.^[1] These winds enabled ships to leave Ocelis near Aden in the spring and arrive at the west coast of south India^[2] in forty days. Then in the autumn the pattern of winds reversed allowing an equally speedy return from India. This resulted in a dramatic increase in trade between the Indian and the Greco-Roman world. This golden age of east-west sea trade lasted until Islamic expansion captured the ports in Egypt and the Ottoman empire.

References

1. W. H. Ingrams, "The Hadhramaut: Present and Future", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 92, No. 4 (Oct., 1938), pp. 289-311
2. Donald Ferguson, "Letters from Raja Sinha II to Dutch", in The Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, Vol. 21, No. 62 (1909), p 273.

• Obeyesekere, G. (1984) The Cult of the Goddess Pattini. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; p. 530