(Excerpt from the book ‘The Greek presence in the horn of Africa’)
Philippos Zaphiropoulos was born in Constantinople in 1874. He immigrated to Cairo and in 1896 he went to Ethiopia to work as a interpreter for an American millionaire. Shortly after, he dealt with the organization of safaris, which allowed him to get acquainted with the British diplomatic authorities. As a result, in 1904, the British Ambassador appointed Zaphiropoulos as the border inspector between Ethiopia and Kenya. After completing his mission on the southern border of the country, he moved to Addis Ababa where he was appointed as an interpreter and secretary of Ethiopic affairs at the British Embassy. Zaphiropoulos was honored by the British government in 1934.
