Belus or Belos may be:

** Belus ( Babylonian ), the Greek Zeus Belos and Latin Jupiter Belus as translations of the Babylonian god Bel Marduk

Bel is represented in Greek as Belos and in Latin as Belus.

Though often identified with Greek Zeus and Latin Jupiter as Zeus Belos or Jupiter Belus, in other cases Belus is euhemerized as an ancient king who founded Babylon and built the ziggurat.

Belus or Belos is a small river in north-western Israel, where according to legend, mentioned by Isidore of Seville in his Etymologiae glass-making was invented.

Belus or Belos in classical Greek or classical Latin texts ( and later material based on them ) in an Assyrian context refers to one or another purportedly ancient and historically mythical Assyrian king, such king in part at least a euhemerization of the Babylonian god Bel Marduk.

** Belus ( Assyrian ): a purported king of Assyria in Greek historiography

** Belus ( Egyptian ) ( sometimes called Belus I ), a king of Egypt in Greek mythology

** Belus II, father of Dido in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology Danaus, or Danaos (), was the twin brother of Aegyptus and son of Achiroe and Belus, a mythical king of Egypt.

In Greek mythology, Lybie (, Lubiē ; often written Lybië ) was the mother of Belus by Poseidon and a personification and queen of the country of Libya.

As Didorus confuses Osiris with another figure in his stories of Nysas and Dionysius, and this figure may be Belus, or Baal, who was equated with Montu, another deity of Thebes, his confusion of Busiris, Osiris and Amun may be a clue to unraveling the confused Greek tradition around the name.

Belus () was in Greek mythology a king of Egypt and father of Aegyptus and Danaus and ( usually ) brother to Agenor.

See Belus ( Egyptian ) for statements that Belus in reference to the Babylonian Zeus Belus actually refers to the Belus of Greek mythology, son of Poseidon by Libya.

Danaos is the name attributed to a Greek mythological character, twin brother of Aegyptus and son of Achiroe and Belus.

But later writers know a Ninus who is the primordial king of Assyria, and they often call this Ninus son of Belus.

That, at least, is the interpretation of later chronographers who also ignored Herodotus ' statement that Agron was the first to be a king, and included Alcaeus, Belus, and Ninus in their List of Kings of Lydia.

Pausanias seems to know nothing of supposed connection between Belus son of Libya and Zeus Ammon that Nonnus will later put forth as presented just above.

After the disappearance of Zeus Picus ( who apparently reigned over both Italy and Assyria ), Belus son of Zeus Picus succeeded to the throne in Assyria ( and we later find Faunus who is elsewhere always the son of Picus reigning in Italy before moving to Egypt and turning into Hermes Trismegistus father of Hephaestus !).

W. H. D. Rouse in 1940 wrote an ironic end note to Book 40 of his edition of Nonnus ' Dionysiaca about a very syncretistic hymn sung by Dionysus to Tyrian Heracles, that is, to Ba ‘ al Melqart whom Dionysus identifies with Belus on the Euphrates ( who should be Marduk!

Diodorus Siculus claims that Belus founded a colony on the river Euphrates, and appointed the priests-astrologers whom the Babylonians call Chaldeans who like the priests of Egypt are exempt from taxation and other service to the state.

In the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Belus was also the father of a daughter named Thronia on whom Hermaon, that is Hermes, fathered Arabus, presumably the eponym of Arabia.

# 41 Assyrian kings ruled the kingdom of the Arabs, who also ruled from the year of the world to the year of the world, enduring all of years from the first of them, Belus, until the 41st king, Macoscolerus, the son of Sardanapallus, as most noted historians agree, including Polybius, Diodorus, Cephalion, Castor, Thallus and others.

Eusebius of Caesarea ( Praeparatio Evangelica 9. 18 ) cites Artabanus as stating in his Jewish History that Artabanus found in anonymous works that giants who had been dwelling in Babylonia were destroyed by the gods for impiety, but one of them named Belus escaped and settled in Babylon and lived in the tower which he built and named the Tower of Belus.

** Belus ( Babylonian )

It is likely the Babylonian Belus was not clearly distinguished from vague, ancient Assyrian figures named Belus though some chronographers make the distinction ( see Belus ( Assyrian )).

The Babylonian name for " Egypt " was written in syllabic cuneiform as Ḫikuptaḥ, which was taken from an Egyptian name for Memphis, the old capital of Egypt, Ḥwt-kЗ-Ptḥ, " House-of-the-Spirit-of-Ptah " ( i. e., the Temple of Ptah ), which by extension became the name for " Egypt / Aegyptus / Egyptus " = Coptic ekepta, and Αἴγυπτος in Homer as both Nile River and country, and in Bibliotheca ( 2. 1. 4-5 ), as the eponymous son of Belus & Anchinoe, who first conquers Egypt.

Josephus ( Antiquities 8. 13. 1 ) states clearly that Jezebel " built a temple to the god of the Tyrians, which they call Belus " which certainly refers to the Baal of Tyre, or Melqart.

Strabo ( 16. 1. 5 ) likewise refers to the ziggurat as the " Tomb of Belus " which had been demolished by Xerxes.

This Tower of Jupiter Belus is believed to refer to the Akkadian god Bel, whose name has been Hellenised by Herodotus to Zeus Belus.

The name Teucer is believed to be related to the name of the West Hittite God Tarku ( East Hittite Teshub ) -- the Indo-European Storm God -- a role which explains his relationship to Belus, who is the Semitic storm god Baal.

Their Ninus is the legendary founder and eponym of the city of Ninus, referring to Ninevah, while Belus, though sometimes treated as a human, is identified with the god Bel.

Libya was ravished by the god Poseidon to whom she bore twin sons, Belus and Agenor.

"< Ruler > Manticlus founded the temple of Heracles for the Messenians ; the temple of the god is outside the walls and he is called Heracles Manticlus, just as Ammon in Libya and Belus in Babylon are named, the latter from an Egyptian, Belus the son of Libya, Ammon from the shepherd-founder.

This supposed connection between Belus of Egypt and Zeus Belus ( the god Marduk ) is likely to be more learned speculation than genuine tradition.

Modern writers suppose a possible connection between Belus and one or another god who bore the common northwest Semitic title Ba ‘ al.

But Belus put an end to this, and assigned a district to each, and surrounded Babylon with a wall ; and at the appointed time he disappeared. This seems to be a rationalized version of Marduk's defeat of Tiamet in the Enuma Elish followed here by Belus becoming a god.

Castor says Belus was considered a god after his death, but that he does not know how many years Belus reigned.

It was suggested in The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop that he was originally a conqueror who fathered king Ninus the first, and that after Ninus ' death his wife Semiramis began to claim Ninus as a Sun god, Cush ( Belus ) as the Lord God, herself as the mother goddess and her son Tammuz as the god of love, in an effort to control her subjects better after the death of her husband, and to allow her to rule as her newborn son's regent.

Diodorus Siculus ( 6. 5. 1 ) introduces the Roman god Picus ( normally son of Saturn ) as a king of Italy and calls him brother of Ninus ( and therefore perhaps son of Belus ).

He was said to have been the son of Belus or Bel, a name that may represent a Semitic title such as Ba ' al, " lord ".