Ptolemais Theron

Ptolemais Theron (ῒ ῶ and ῒ ἡ ῶ ῶ) ('Ptolemais of the Hunts') was a marketplace on the African side of the Red Sea, whose location is now uncertain. According to Strabo (16.4.7), Ptolemais was founded as a base to support the hunting of elephants by a certain Eumedes (ὐ), who had been sent there by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, king of Ptolemaic Egypt. Eumedes, "secretly enclosed a kind of peninsula with a ditch and a wall, and then, by courteous treatment of those who tried to hinder the work, actually won them over as friends instead of foes." (Strabo 16.4.7). Ptolemais was only one of a series of such elephant-hunting stations along the Red Sea coast of Africa, Adulis being perhaps originally another. Pliny the Elder (2.75.1) and Diodorus Siculus (3.41.1) also mention the hunting of the elephants. The early Ptolemies had seen the value of war elephants by the military strength of the Seleucids. Cut off from any possibility of acquiring Indian elephants, they founded and actively sought to capture them from the neighboring regions of Africa. Although these animals helped in the Battle of Raphia, they proved unstable and the African species were intimidated by the Asian species, which led to the Egyptians eventually abandoning the use of these animals in war. Unlike most of the stations the Ptolemies established to the s

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