Belus or Belos in classical Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 or classical Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 texts (and later material based on them) in a Babylonia

Babylonia

Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...

n context refers to the Babylonian god Bel Marduk

Marduk

Marduk was the Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to...

. Though often identified with Greek Zeus

Zeus

In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

 and Latin Jupiter

Jupiter (mythology)

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....

 as Zeus Belos or Jupiter Belus, in other cases Belus is euhemerized as an ancient king who founded Babylon and built the ziggurat. He is recognized and worshipped as the God of war.

Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea also called Eusebius Pamphili, was a Roman historian, exegete and Christian polemicist. He became the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine about the year 314. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon...

 (Praeparatio Evangelica 9.18) cites Artabanus

Artabanus

Artabanus may refer to several rulers of ancient Parthia:* Artabanus of Persia, reportedly Regent of Persia for a few months in 465 BC–464 B* King Arsaces II of Parthia c. 211–191 BC, called Artabanus by some early scholars...

 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. A little later Eusebius (9.41) cites Abydenus

Abydenus

Abydenus was a Greek historian, and the author of a History of the Chaldeans and Assyrians, of which some fragments are preserved by Eusebius in his Praeparatio Evangelica, and by Cyril of Alexandria in his work against Julian. Several other fragments are preserved by Syncellus. These were...

' Concerning the Assyrians for the information that the site of Babylon:

... was originally water, and called a sea. 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. A little earlier in the same section, in a supposed prophecy by King Nebuchadnezzar, King Nebuchadnezzar claims to be descended from Belus.

Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...

 (6.1.10) cites Euhemerus

Euhemerus

Euhemerus was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others champion Chios, or Tegea.-Life:...

 as relating that Zeus (a euhemerized Zeus) went to Babylon and was entertained by Belus. Diodorus also relates (17.112.3) how the Chaldea

Chaldea

Chaldea or Chaldaea , from Greek , Chaldaia; Akkadian ; Hebrew כשדים, Kaśdim; Aramaic: ܟܐܠܕܘ, Kaldo) was a marshy land located in modern-day southern Iraq which came to briefly rule Babylon...

n of Babylon requested Alexander the Great to restore the "Tomb of Belus" which had been demolished by the Persians. Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

 (16.1.5) likewise refers to the ziggurat as the "Tomb of Belus" which had been demolished by Xerxes.

See Belus (Egyptian)

Belus (Egyptian)

Belus was in Greek mythology a king of Egypt and father of Aegyptus and Danaus and brother to Agenor. The wife of Belus has been named as Achiroe, or Side ....

 for statements that Belus in reference to the Babylonian Zeus Belus actually refers to the Belus of Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, son of Poseidon

Poseidon

Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...

 by Libya

Libya (mythology)

Libya is the name given to both a region of North Africa and a daughter of Epaphus, King of Egypt, in both Greek and Roman mythology.-Greek mythology:...

.

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 (Assyrian)

Belus or Belos in classical Greek or classical Latin texts in an Assyrian context refers to one or another purportedly ancient and historically nonexistent Assyrian king, such king in part at least a euhemerization of the Babylonian god Bel Marduk.Belus most commonly appears as the father of...

).