The Hippopotamus and the Maned River Horse: Descriptions of an Egyptian Wetland Mammal in Ancient Hellenic and Roman Texts

The hippopotamus is one of the most prominent wetland animals of the ancient Nile, where it roamed along the river. Whereas there is a large and accurate ancient Egyptian cultural record, the descriptions of hippo­potamuses in Hellenistic and Roman texts are all somewhat inaccurate, implying that caution is needed when interpreting ancient texts for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. In this paper various Hellenistic and Ro­man descriptions of hippopotamuses are presented and compared with the actual biology of the animal and with the ancient Egyptian cultural records.