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.

Belus or Belos ( Βῆλος ) in classical Greek or classical Latin texts ( and later material based on them ) in a Babylonian context refers to the Babylonian god Bel Marduk.

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 ( 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 ( Assyrian )

# A Compendium of Universal History in six books, from Belus, the reputed founder of the Assyrian empire, to Anastasius I ( d. 518 ).

* Belus ( Assyrian )

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 )).

Belus most commonly appears as the father of Ninus, who otherwise mostly appears as the first known Assyrian king.

It is likely that this Assyrian Belus should mostly not be distinguished from the euhemerized Bablyonian Belus.

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.

In the one stood the palace of the kings, surrounded by a wall of great strength and size: in the other was the sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus, a square enclosure two furlongs m each way, with gates of solid brass ; which was also remaining in my time.

All things being in this situation, Belus came, and cut the woman asunder: and of one half of her he formed the earth, and of the other half the heavens ; and at the same time destroyed the animals within her.

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

Belus, another mythological king of Egypt, is a grandson of Epaphus.

Yet another source says that the daughter of Belus who married Agenor was named Antiope.

An earlier genealogy may have made Agron, as a legendary first king of an ancient dynasty, to be a son of the mythical Ninus, son of Belus, and stopped at that point.

Ovid's Metamorphoses ( 4. 212f ) speaks of King Orchamus who ruled the Achaemenid cities of Persia as the 7th in line from ancient Belus the founder.

Thus Jerome's Chronicon lists 36 kings of the Assyrians, beginning with Ninus, son of Belus, down to Sardanapalus, the last king of the Assyrians before the empire fell to Arbaces the Median.

A fragment by Castor of Rhodes, preserved only in the Armenian translation of Eusebius of Caesarea, makes Belus king of Assyria at the time when Zeus and the other gods fought first the Titans and then the giants.

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 ).

Upon the death of Belus, his uncle Ninus became king and then married his own mother who was previously called Rhea but is now reintroduced under the name of Semiramis.