Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/198

 178 BAALBEK Bwered to the Roman Priapus; Baal-benth, 1 Covenant Baal, to ZCT? SPMOC and deus Mi- us of the Greeks and Romans. With the article prefixed, it designated the Baal or chief de- ity of the Phce- nicians. Strictly Baal meant the highest male god (the sun or the planet Jupiter), as Ashtoreth or As- tarte did the high- est goddess (the moon or Venus), divinities from whom all things visible and invis- ible had their ori- gin. The Greeks and Romans, however, sought and found anal- ogies between the several Baals and some of their subordinate deities, as Mars and Her- cules. The Bel or Bil of the Babylonians is closely related to the Baal of the Phoeni- cians, the former name being a contraction of Baal. the latter, or this a guttural extension of the former. Baal, Bal, and Bel, as prefixes or suffixes, enter largely into many proper names of places and persons. Such are Baal-ze- phon, Baal-gad, Baal-hamon, Jerub-baal, Esh- baal, Bal-adan, and Bel-shazzar. The Phoeni- cians carried the word through all their wan- derings, giving us the Carthaginian Asdru-bal, Adher-bal, and Hanni-bal. They carried the name to Ireland, where we read of Seal or Bal, the ancient deity worshipped by Bal fires on the summits of the hills, and of Bel's cairns, where sacrifices were offered to Baal. The Greek B^Aof and the Latin Belus are merely the Babylonian Bel with a terminal syllable, though the Greeks invented for him a descent of their own. Whenever the Israelites fell into idolatry, their natural tendency was to worship Baal, the god of the nations with whom they came into most immediate contact. BAALBEK (in Phoenician, Baal of the valley, but rendered by the Greeks Heliopolis, city^ of the sun), an ancient city of Syria, in lat. 34 1' N., Ion. 36 11' E., 36 m. N. by W. of Damas- cus, the ruins of which are the most imposing in the country, excepting those of Palmyra. The city lay in a plain of Ccele-Syria, fertil- ILuins of Baalbek. ized by streams rising in the range of Anti- Libanus. The date of its foundation is uncer- tain, the tradition which ascribes its erection to Solomon being wholly unsupported. It is mentioned under the name of Heliopolis by Josephus and Pliny. Lying in the direct route of trade between Tyre and the East, it rose to considerable importance, and was embellished with magnificent temples, the finest of which appear to date from the time of Antoninus Pius, A. D. 160, who built or enlarged the great temple, which was then considered one of the wonders of the world. When Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire, the heathen temples, except the great one, which was made a Christian church, were suffered to decay ; but as late as the time of the Moslem in- vasion (635) Baalbek was the most splendid city of Syria, adorned with monuments of ancient times and abounding in luxury. It made a stout defence against tbe Moslem invaders, who imposed upon it a heavy ransom. For more than a century it continued an opulent mart, but was finally sacked in 748 by the caliph of