The Greek word στήλή means both stele, pillar and terminal. In the same way the Latin word stela-ae is translated as stele or pillar according to the context. However concerning this strait we can notice that for Greek authors it was Ἡράκλειαι Στῆλαι, while for latin geographers it was Columnae Herculis.
* Eratosthenes (?) From Syncellus, Apollodore II, Fragment 39 : "Kings of Thebes 38. The thirty fourth King of Thebes was Sistosichermes Valiant Heracles." ("Sistosis or Sesortosis, valiant Hermes or Heracles, for 55 years.” From Manetho, With An English Translation By W.G. Waddell, published by Harvard University Press, London 1940, 1948.)
Herodotus (II, 42-44) and Diodorus (III, 74): “For there had been two persons of an earlier period who had borne the same name, the most ancient Heracles who, according to the myths, had been born in Egypt, had subdued with arms a large part of the inhabited world, and had set up the pillar which is in Libya" (Africa, Straits of Bab el Mandeb). §
And Strabo (XVI, 4:4) concerning the area of Bab-el-Mandeb Straits reported: “There is a pillar of Sesostris the Egyptian, which tells in hieroglyphics of his passage across the gulf; for manifestly he was the first man to subdue the countries of the Ethiopians and the Troglodytes. And he then crossed into Arabia, and thence invaded the whole of Asia ; and actually, for this reason, there are in many places palisades of Sesostris, as they are called, and reproductions of temples of Egyptian gods.”
In addition, Diodorus (I, 17-20) reported: “Osiris made road through Ethiopia. He was received like a god because of his kindness. He took his road through the Arabia as far as India." Herodotus (II, 102-103 and 106-110) said that the only Egyptian king to have reigned on Ethiopia (Nubia) was the famous Sesostris who was a great warrior whose military equipment was partly Egyptian and partly Nubian.
Flavius Josephus in his book “Antiquity of the Jews” (II, 10) reported that Moses general in chief of the Egyptian army made campaign in Nubia, reached Meroe and married the daughter of the Kushite king. In Artapanus' version, some of the specific achievements ascribed to Moses are exactly those with which Sesostris was credited: the invention of weapons, the creation of thirty-six nomes, and the spread of the habit of circumcision. In Flavius Josephus (Antiquity of the Jews II, 212), the ascription of a prophetic dream to the hero's father (instead of, as elsewhere, to Miriam) recalls what we read of Sesostris (Diodorus I, 53: 9). In the late versions, one of the sons of Balaam was named Sesostris.
"And according to Diodorus (I, 15), Osiris interested to agriculture was reared in Nysa, city of Arabia close to Egypt, being son of Zeus (Jupiter-Amun) and for that he was called Dionysos by Greeks who named him also Hermes. "
- Plutarch, De Iside, 35 : “Many of the Greeks make statues of Dionysos Tauromorphos” (Bacchus in the form of a bull).
Serapis had also the features of Dionysos, Asclepios and Poseidon. He was both a god of fertility, a healer (that became his main function), a saver making miracles, a protector of the poors as well as sailers, and also, the god of the dead.
- Herodotus, II, 146 : “With regard to Dionysos the Hellenes say that as soon as he was born, Zeus sewed him up in his thigh, μηρό (mero) in greek, and carried him to Nysa (Meroe), which is above Egypt in the land of Ethiopia (Kush present North Sudan)”
HERACLES OF EGYPT
THE GLORY OF HIS MOTHER AHHOTEP
AND BECOME SESOSTRIS THE CONQUEROR
KING KAMOSE WADJKHEPERRE DESCRIBED BY ANCIENT AUTHORS
APPEARS AS A PROTEIFORM CHARACTER
So that Eratosthenes*, champion of syncretism, named him
Sistosichermes valiant Heracles
According to Plutarch (De Iside 27) : "Mnaseas identified with Epaphus both Bacchus, Osiris, and Serapis.
And according to Diodorus (I, 25) : “Osiris has been given the name Serapis by some, Dionysus by others, Pluto by others, Ammon by others, Zeus by some, and many have considered Pan to be the same god; and some say that Sarapis is the god whom the Greeks call Pluto (the rich).