Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/502

Rh 484 BEROSUS. pui-pose of rebellion {Bell. Jud. ii. IG. § 5) ; and having joined the Romans with him on the out- break of the war, she gained the favour of Vespasian by her munificent presents, and the love of Titus by her beauty. Her connexion with the latter continued at Rome, whither she went after the capture of Jerusalem, and it is said that he wished to make her his wife ; but the fear of offending the Romans by such a step compelled him to dismiss her, and, though she afterwards returned to Rome, he still avoided a renewal of their intimacy. (Tac. Hist. ii. 2, 81 ; Suet. Tit. 7 ; Dion Cass. Ixvi. 15, 18.) Quintilian (/«s^ Orat. iv. 1) speaks of having pleaded her cause on some occasion, not further alluded to, on which she herself sat as judge. [E. E.] BERI'SADES (Bepjo-aSrjy), a ruler in Thrace, who inherited, in conjunction with Amadocus and Cersobleptes, the dominions of Cotys on the death of the latter in a c. 358. Berisades was probably a son of Cotys and a brother of the other two princes. His reign was short, as he was already dead in B. c. 352 ; and on his death Cersobleptes declared war against his children. (Dem. in Aris- tocr. pp. 623, 624.) The Birisades (Bjpio-aSTjs) mentioned by Deinarchus (c. Dem. p. 95) is pro- bably the same as Parisades, the king of Bosporus, who must not be confounded with the Berisades mentioned above. The Berisades, king of Pontus, whom Stratonicus, the player on the lyre, visited (Athen. viii. p. 349, d.), must also be regarded as the same as Parisades. [Parisades.] BEROE (BepoTj), a Trojan woman, married to Doryclus, one of the companions of Aeneas. Iris assumed the appearance of Beroe when she per- suaded the women to set fire to the ships of Aeneas on the coast of Sicily. (Virg. Aen. v. 620, &c.) There are three other mythical personages of this name, concerning whom nothing of interest is re- lated. (Hygin. Fab. 167; Virg. Georg. iv. 341 ; Nonnus, Dimys. xli. 155.) [L. S.] BEROE, the Avife of Glaucias, an Illyrian king, took charge of Pyrrhus when his father, Aeacides, was expelled from Epeirus in B. c. 316. (Justin, xvii. 3.) BERONICIA'NUS {Ji^poviKiavos), of Sardis, a philosopher of considerable reputtxtion, mentioned only by Eunapius. ( Vit. Soph, sub fin.) BERO'SUS (BTjpwo-o's or B-npwaaos), a priest of Belus at Babylon, and an historian. His name is usually considered to be the same as Bar or Ber Oseas, that is, son of Oseas. (Scalig. Animadv. ad Euseb. p. 248.) He was born in the reign of Alex- ander the Great, and lived till that of Antiochus II. Bumamed @i6s (b. c. 261-246), in whose reign he is said to have written his history of Babylonia. (Tatian, adv. Gent. 58 ; Euseb. Praep. Evang. x. p. 289.) Respecting the personal history of Berosus scarcely anything is known ; but he must have been a man of education and extensive learning, and was well acquainted with the Greek language, which the conquests of Alexander had diffused over a great part of Asia. Some writers have thought that they can discover in the extant frag- ments of his work traces of the author's ignorance of the Chaldee language, and thus have come to the conclusion, that the history of Babylonia was the work of a Greek, who assumed the name of a celebrated Babylonian. But this opinion is with- out any foundation at all. The fact that a Bab}'- lonian wrote the history of his own country in BEROSUS. Greek cannot be surprising ; for, after the Greek language had commenced to be spoken in the East, a desire appears to have sprung up in some learned persons to make the history of their respective countries known to the Greeks : hence Menander of Tyre wrote the history of Phoenicia, and Manetho that of Egypt. The historical work of Berosus consisted of three books, and is sometimes called Ba§uAwi/i/{a, and sometimes XaASai/cci or laTopiai XaXSa'iKai. (Athen. xiv. p. 639 ; Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 142, Protrept. 19.) The work itself is lout, but we possess several fragments of it, which are preserved in Josephus, Eusebius, Syncellus, and the Christian fathers, who made great use of the work, for Berosus seems to have been acquainted with the sacred books of the Jews, whence his statements often agree with those of the Old Tes- tament. We know that Berosus also treated of the history of the neighbouring countries, such as Chaldaea and Media. (Agathias, ii. 24.) He him- self states, that he derived the materials for his work from the archives in the temple of Belus, where chronicles were kept by the priests ; but he appears to have used and interpreted the early or mythical history, according to the views current in his time. From the fragments extant we see that the work embraced the earliest traditions about the human race, a description of Babylonia and its population, and a chronological list of its kings down to the time of the great Cyrus. The history of Assyria, Media, and even Annenia, seems to have been constantly kept in view also. There is a marked difference, in many instances, between the statements of Ctesias and those of Berosus ; but it is erroneous to infer from this, as some have done, that Berosus forged some of his statements. The difference appears sufficiently accounted for by the circumstance, that Ctesias had recourse to Assyrian and Persian sources, while Berosus fol- lowed the Babylonian, Chaldaean, and the Jewish, which necessarily placed the same events in a dif- ferent light, and may frequently have differed in their substance altogether. The fragments of the Babylonica are collected at the end of Scaliger's work de Emendatione Teinpofuin, and more com- plete in Fabricius, Bibl. Graec. xiv. p. 1 75, &c., of the old edition. The best collection is that by J. D. G. Richter. {Berosi Chald. Historiae quae supersunt; cum Comment, de Berosi Vita, ^'C. Lips. 1825, 8vo.) Berosus is also mentioned as one of the earliest writers on astronomy, astrology, and similar sub- jects ; but what Pliny, Vitruvius, and Seneca have preserved of him on these subjects does not give us a high idea of his astronomical or mathematical knowledge. Pliny (vii. 37) relates, that the Athe- nians erected a statue to him in a gymnasium, with a gilt tongue to honour his extraordinary predic- tions ; Vitruvius (ix. 4, x. 7, 9) attributes to him the invention of a semicircular sun-dial (Jiemicy- clium), and states that, in his later years, he set- tled in the island of Cos, where he founded a school of astrology. By the statement of Justin Martyr {CbJiort. ad Graec. c. 39 ; comp. Pans. x. 12. § 5 ; and Suidas, s. v. l,i€va that the Babylonian Sibyl who gave oracles at Cuma in the time of the Tarquins was a daughter of the historian Berosus, some writers have been led to place the real Bero- sus at a much earlier date, and to consider the his- tory which bore his name as the forgery of a Greek. But there is little or no reason for such an hypo-