Berytus
- a seaport town of Phoenicia, distinguished for its excellent wine; as a Roman colony, called Felix Julia, now Beirout, Plin. 5, 20, 17, § 78; Tac. H. 2, 81; Dig. 5, 15, 8; Prisc. Perieg. p. 853.—Hence,
- II Derivv.
- A Bērȳtĭus (Bērytĭus, Aus. Praef. ad Syagr. 20), a, um, adj., of Berytus: vinum, Plin. 14, 7, 9, § 74: uva, id. 15, 17, 18, § 66.—
- B Bērȳtensis, e, adj., Berytensian, of Berytus: colonia, Dig. 50, 15, 1, § 1; and Bērȳtenses, ium, m., the inhabitants of Berytus, Inscr. Orell. 1246; Cod. 1, 17, 2, § 9.
BERYTUS (Βηρυτός, Berŷtus and Berȳtus: Eth. Βηρύτιος, Berytensis, Berytius, Steph. B. Scylax, p. 42; Dionys. Per. 5.911; Pomp. Mela, 1.12.5; Amm. Mar. 14.8.9; Tac. Hist. 2.81; Itin. Anton.; Peut. Tab.; Geogr. Rav.; Hierocles: Beirût), a town of Phoenicia, which has been identified by some with the Berotha or Berothai of the Hebrew Scriptures. (2 Sam. 8.8; Ezek. 47.16.) In the former passage Berothai is spoken of as belonging to the kingdom of Zobah (comp. 5.5), which appears to have included Hamath (comp. vv. 9, 10; 2 Chron. 8.3). In the latter passage the border of Israel is drawn in poetic vision, apparently from the Mediterranean, by Hamath and Berothan, towards Damascus and Hauran. The Berotha here meant would, as Dr. Robinson (Palestine, vol. 3. p. 442) argues, more naturally seem to have been an inland city. After its destruction by Tryphon, B.C. 140 (Strab. 16. p. 756), it was reduced by Agrippa, and colonised by the veterans of the v. Macedonica legio and viii. Augusta, and became a Roman colony under the name of Colonia Julia Augusta felix Berytus (Orelli, Inscr. n. 514, and coins in Eckhel, vol. 3. p. 356; Marquardt, Handbuch der Röm. Alt, p. 199), and was afterwards endowed with the rights of an Italian city. (Ulpian, Dig. 15. 1.1; Plin. Nat. 5.20.) It was at this city that Herod the Great held the mock trial over his two sons. (J. AJ. § § 1--6.) The elder Agrippa greatly favoured the city, and adorned it with a splendid theatre and amphitheatre, beside baths and porticoes, inaugurating them with games and spectacles of every kind, including shows of gladiators. (J. AJ.) Here, too, Titus celebrated the birthday of his father Vespasian by the exhibition of similar spectacles, in which many of the captive Jews perished. (Joseph. B. J. 7.3.1; comp. 5.1.) Afterwards Berytus became renowned as a school of Greek learning, particularly of law, to which scholars repaired from a distance. Its splendour may be computed to have lasted from the third to the middle of the sixth century. (Milman's Gibbon, vol. 3. p. 51.) Eusebius relates that the martyr Appian resided here for some time to pursue Greek secular learning (De Mart. Paloest. c. iv.), and Gregory Thaumaturgus repaired to Berytus to perfect himself in the civil law. (Socrates, H. E. 4.27.) A later Greek poet describes it in this respect as the nurse of tranquil life.( Nonnus, Dionys. xli. fin.) Under the reign of Justinian it was laid in ruins by an earthquake, and the school removed to Sidon, A.D. 551. (Milman's Gibbon, vol. 7. p. 420.) In the crusades, Beirût, which was sometimes called Baurim (Alb. Aq. 5.40, 10.8), was an object of great contention between the Christians and the Muslim, and fell successively into the hands of both. In A.D. 1110 it was captured by Baldwin I. (Wilken, Die Kreuz. vol. 2. p. 212), and in A.D. 1187 by Saláh eddín. (Wilken, vol. iii. pt. 2. p. 295.) It was in the neighbourhood of Berytus that the scene of the combat between St. George (who was so highly honoured in Syria) and the Dragon is laid. Beirût is now commercially the most important place in Syria. The town is situated on a kind of shoulder sloping towards the shore from the NNW. side of a triangular point, which runs more than two miles into the sea. The population amounts to nearly 15,000 souls. (Chesney, Exped. Euphrat. vol. 1. p. 468. For coins of Berytus, both autonomous and imperial, ranging from Trajan to Antoninus, see Eckhel, vol. 3. p. 356; Rasche, Lex. Num. vol. 1. p. 1492.) COIN OF BERYTUS.
[E.B.J](Βηρυτός). Called in the Old Test. Berotha and Berothai. The modern Beirût; an ancient town of Phoenicia, about twenty-four miles south of Byblus, famous in the age of Justinian for the study of law, and styled by that emperor “the mother and nurse of the laws.” The civil law was taught there in Greek, as it was at Rome in Latin. It had also the name of Colonia Felix Iulia, from Augustus Caesar, who made it a Roman colony, and named it in honour of his daughter (Plin. H. N. v. 20). The adjacent plain is renowned as the place where St. George, the patron saint of England, slew the dragon; in memory of which a small chapel was built upon the spot, dedicated at first to that Christian hero, but now changed to a mosque. It was frequently captured and recaptured during the Crusades.
An ancient Phoenician city on the coast at the foot of the Lebanon mountains. It did not become important until the end of the Hellenistic period. It was made a Roman colony about 14 B.C. Herod the Great, Agrippa I and II, and Queen Berenice built exedras, porticos, temples, a forum, a theater, amphitheater, and baths here. In the 3d c. A.D. the city became the seat of a famous school of law and continued to flourish until the earthquake of A.D. 551 ravaged the city.
The Hellenistic town lay S of the port. Its streets, laid out on a grid plan, are spaced at roughly the same intervals as those of Beroea, Damascus, and Laodicea. The new Roman city spread farther S and W, with its forum near the Place de l'Etoile. On its N side was a civic basilica 99 m long with a Corinthian portico of polychrome materials (now in front of the Beirut Museum), dating from the 1st c. A.D. Some large baths have been uncovered on the E slope of the Colline du Sérail, and the hippodrome lay on the NW side of the same hill. Some villas in a S suburb facing the sea had mosaic floors (now in the Beirut Museum).
Some 12 km upstream on the Beirut river are the ruined arches of an aqueduct. The rocky spur of Deir el-Qalaa was Berytus' high place; the podium of a large temple can still be seen.
BIBLIOGRAPHYR. Mouterde, “L'emplacement du forum de Béryte,” MélStJ 25 (1942-43); id., “Regards sur Beyrouth,” ibid. 40 (1966) I; J. Lauffray, “Forums et monuments de Béryte,” BMBeyrouth 7 (1944-45); 8 (1946-48) PI; id., Beyrouth, ville romaine (1953).
J.-P. REY-COQUAIS