Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c10.4.3

c10.4.3

Myos Hormos was thus almost an ideal port and became the great trading centre for the East Indian trade, quickly eclipsing all its rivals³. Further down the coast were Adulis (the modern Massowa) and Ptolemais Epitherōn (Ptolemais of the Hunts), a great rendezvous of the elephant-hunters from Nubia. Besides the value of their ivory, elephants had been in great requisition for military purposes, ever since the five hundred presented by Chandragupta to Seleukus Nikator had taken a prominent part in the battle of Ipsus¹. They had been employed by Porus against Alexander and were later used by Pyrrhus and Hannibal against the Romans. The tactical value of these unwieldy beasts against well-disciplined troops is not great, and they quickly fell into disrepute in European warfare. They continued, however, to form one of the four traditional “arms” of the Indian army and were freely used as late as the days of the Moghal Empire. Ptolemais of the Hunts was probably not far from Port Sudan, and may then, as now, have been linked with the Nile by a road running to Berbera. The port of Adulis was chiefly famous for the inscription, preserved for us by Kosmas Indikopleustes², which recites the conquests of Ptolemy Euergetes (247–233 B.C.). It was the natural port for Abyssinia and the Sudan.