Arioch is a Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 name that means "fierce lion". It originally appears in the Book of Genesis chapter 14 as the name of the "King of Ellasar", part of the confederation of kings who did battle with the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah

Sodom and Gomorrah

Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources....

 and with Abraham

Abraham

Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...

 in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim

Battle of the Vale of Siddim

The Battle of Siddim, or Battle of the Vale of Siddim refers to an event in the Hebrew Bible book of that occurred in the days of Abram and Lot...

. Earlier in the 20th century, it was common to identify him with "Eriaku" - an alternative reading of either Rim-Sin or his brother Warad-Sin, who were Elam

Elam

Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Elam was centered in the far west and the southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province, as well as a small part of southern Iraq...

ite rulers over Larsa

Larsa

Larsa was an important city of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu. It lies some 25 km southeast of Uruk in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate, near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal at the site of the modern settlement Tell as-Senkereh or Sankarah.-History:According to...

 contemporary with Hammurabi

Hammurabi

Hammurabi Hammurabi Hammurabi (Akkadian from Amorite ʻAmmurāpi, "the kinsman is a healer", from ʻAmmu, "paternal kinsman", and Rāpi, "healer"; (died c...

, although this identification has come under attack from scholars in more recent years, and is now largely abandoned, in part due to Nuzu inscriptions referring to a Hurrian king named Ariukki.

Alternatively Ellasar could have been the site referred to as Alashiya

Alashiya

Alashiya or Alasiya was a state which existed in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, and was situated somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was a major source of goods, especially copper, for Ancient Egypt and other states in the Ancient Near East. It is referred to in a number of the surviving...

, now thought to be near Alassa in Cyprus, where there was a Late Bronze Age palace, destroyed by the Peoples of the Sea.

The same name later appears in the Book of Daniel

Book of Daniel

The Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...

 2:24 as the person appointed by King Nebuchadnezzar to put all the wise men of Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...

 to death.

Arioch (Arius) was also a grandson of Semiramis

Semiramis

The real and historical Shammuramat , was the Assyrian queen of Shamshi-Adad V , King of Assyria and ruler of the Neo Assyrian Empire, and its regent for four years until her son Adad-nirari III came of age....

 in the classical Ninus

Ninus

Ninus , according to Greek historians writing in the Hellenistic period and later, was accepted as the eponymous founder of Nineveh , Ancient capital of Assyria, although he does not seem to represent any one personage known to modern history, and is more likely a conflation of several real and/or...

 legend.

Adaptations by later writers

Arioch was a name for a fictional demon

Demon

call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...

, and also appears as the name of a demon in many grimoires. Arioch is also named in John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

's Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

(vi. 371.) as one of the fallen angel

Fallen angel

Fallen angel is a concept developed in Jewish mythology from interpretation of the Book of Enoch. The actual term fallen angel is not found in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. Christians adopted the concept of fallen angels mainly based on their interpretations of the Book of...

s under Satan

Satan

Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...

's command.

Arioch is one of the principal lords of Chaos in several of Michael Moorcock

Michael Moorcock

Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....

's fantasy series. For more information, see Deities in the Elric series

Deities in the Elric series

Deities and supernatural beings play an active part in Michael Moorcock’s fantasy series of books about the character Elric of Melniboné. It is nearly certain that a god will be summoned, or at least mentioned, in every story...

.

Arioch is also the name of an escape artist and magician who rose to fame in the 1990's after performing on MTV.