Page:Syria, the land of Lebanon (1914).djvu/238

SYRIA, THE LAND OF LEBANON geographers of the twelfth century, who were tremendously impressed by the grandeur of the ruins and the fertility of the surrounding district, believed that the larger temple was built by Solomon, who also had a magnificent palace here, and that the city was given by him as a dowry to Balkis, Queen of Sheba. Benjamin of Tudela, a Spanish rabbi who visited Syria in the year 1163, wrote that when Solomon was laying the heaviest stones, he invoked the assistance of the genii.

It may possibly be that the foundations are even older than the time of Solomon; but there is no historical notice of the city which goes back of the Roman period. Coins of the first century A. D. indicate that it was then a colony of the Empire and was known as Heliopolis, the Greek translation of the Semitic name Baalbek.

During the early centuries of our era Heliopolis became exceedingly prosperous and, indeed, famous. The emperor Antoninus Pius is said to have erected here a temple to Jupiter which was one of the wonders of the world, and coins struck in Syria about 200 A. D., in the reign of Septimius Severus, bear the representations of two temples. During this period the worship of Baal became popular far beyond the borders of Syria, and the Semitic sun-god was identified with the Roman Jupiter. The empress of Severus was daughter of a priest of Baal at Homs, only sixty miles north of Baalbek. When [ 190 ]