Afterlife of Baal

Burckhardt once again, describing the spread of Semitic religion through the empire: “From the Old Testament, we know Baalzebub, Baalpeor, Baalberith, and the like, whose names may have been long forgotten. In Palmyra Baal seems to have been divided into two divinities for sun and moon, as Aglibol and Malachbel, who are represented on a very late Palmyrene relief in the Capitoline Museum bearing the Greco-Roman name of the donor, Lucius Aurelius Heliodorus, son of Antiochus Hadrianus . . . . At Heliopolis (Baalbek) Baal was worshiped in a quite late half-Roman personificiation; his golden image bore not only the scourge of the Roman sun-god, but also the lightning of Jupiter. Antoninus Pius built a new temple on the huge foundations of the old; the ruins of this temple still justify its being accounted at the time one of the wonders of the world. After what has been said above, the name of Zeus, to whom Antoninus dedicated the sanctuary, should not mislead us, seeing that the ancient place name referred to Baal and the Greek to Helios.”