Belus
Belus
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1. According to classical mythology, a son of Poseidon by Libya or Eurynome. He was twin brother of Agenor, and father of AEgyptus and Danaus. He was believed to be the ancestral hero and national divinity of several Eastern nations, from which the legends about him were transplanted to Greece, and became mixed up with Greek myths. (See Apollod. 2:1, 4; Diod. 1:28; Servius, ad AEn. 1:733.) SEE BAAL.
2. The father of the Carthaginian queen Dido, otherwise called Pygmalion. He conquered Cyprus and then gave it to Teucer. (See Virgil, AEn. 1, 621; Servius, ad AEn. 1, 625, 646.) By some he was thought to be the Tyrian king Eth-baal (q.v.), father of the Israelitish queen Jezebel (1Ki 16:31), from whose period (she was killed B.C. 883) this does not much differ, for Carthage was founded (according to Josephus, Apion, 1, 18) B.C. 861.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Belus (2)
(), called also Pagqida by Pliny (v. 19), a small river of Palestine, described by Pliny as taking its rise from a lake called Cendevia, at the roots of Mount Carmel, which, after running five miles, enters the sea near Ptolemais (36:26), or two stadia from the city according to Josephus (War, 10, 2). It is chiefly celebrated among the ancients for its vitreous sand; and the accidental discovery of the manufacture of glass (q.v.) is ascribed by Pliny to the banks of this river, which he describes as a sluggish stream of unwholesome water, but consecrated to religious ceremonies (comp. Tacitus, Hist. 5, 7). It is now called Nahr Naaman, but the Lake Cendevia has disappeared. It is an ingenious conjecture of Reland (Palest. p. 290) that its ancient appellation may be connected with the Greek name for glass ( or ), and it is possible that the name appears in the Scriptural one, Bealoth (q.v.), incorrectly rendered in Aloth (1Ki 4:16). For the temple of Belus, see BABEL.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Belus (2)
in Oriental mythology. The word signifies master among the Orientals, and is the surname of deities and kings. Thus the sun was called Belus amoung the Babylonians. SEE BAAL. There are three mythical persons known to us that carried this name:
(1) Belus was the first king of Assyria, who founded the culture of this country. He dried up the swamps, led off standing waters, dug channels, and thus made the country habitable and fruitful. He fixed the standard of reckoning times and seasons, and had his observations engraven in, burned tables of clay, and preserved in the so-called Babylonian tower. This Belus seems to be often identified with the god Baal.
(2) The Egyptian Belus was a son of Neptune and Libya, the father of Danaus and Egyptus; also, as some affirm, of Cepheus and Phineus. He led a colony to Babylon, according to Diodorus, and may possibly be one and the same with the former Belus.
(3) Belus was the father of Dido and Anna, as also of Pygmalion, among the Phoenicials.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Belus
a river of Palestine. On leaving Acre, and turning towards the south-east, the traveller crosses the river Belus, near its mouth, where the stream is shallow enough to be easily forded on horseback. This river rises out of a lake, computed to be about six miles distant toward the south-east, called by the ancients Pelus Cendovia. Of the sand of this river, according to Pliny, glass was first made; and ships from Italy continued to convey it to the glass houses of Venice and Genoa, so late as the middle of the seventeenth century.