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A review is presented of the surviving primary evidence of Hippalus as the discoverer of the trade route that allowed sailing vessels to run before the wind from the mouth of the Arabian Sea to the southern ports of India during the summer, and return with the winter monsoon during the 1st century ce. His stature as a skilful navigator is associated with the riches this discovery brought to Rome and the western world at the time, but questions are raised about the prestige he has been accorded in the modern historiography. Specifically, questions are posed about the explorer's absence from texts in which he might be expected to appear, and his fumbled inclusion in those texts that do give him mention. The conclusion is that there is scant record of Hippalus' actual existence, and the foundation of his continued recognition as a great discoverer is therefore questionable. However, despite the patchy historical record of the man, the surviving myth has real value in interpreting and understanding the conceptualization of distant trade by Greco-Romans who might never have been directly exposed to those lands. Hippalus' variable treatment in the contemporary texts and a reading of the modern interpretations of his life are used to put forward a foundation myth as the source of his subsequent posterity. Even though it is difficult to prove the life of Hippalus the man, it appears that in the history of Greco-Roman trade and its understanding of the linkage with a distant India; that the myth of Hippalus might be of greater importance than the existence of the man himself by providing clues to the understanding of distant lands by ancient western society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]