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Baal or Báʿal (Hebrew: בַּעַל), was a title and honorific meaning "owner", "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. Later on the word sometimes became specified into the deities Ba' al or Baal Hammon, or Marduk, or Hadad.
Later on Ba'al turned to Bel which is then represented in Greek as Bē̂los (Ancient Greek: Βῆλος) and in Latin as Bēlus. Greco-Roman writers and mythographers euhemerized the Semitic title as a figure typically a foreign king as they encountered the figure through trade and colonization, not knowing they were referring to multiple deities with the same title.
As such Belos or Belus was referred to in multiple accounts as the following:
- Belus (Assyrian), the Babylonian Marduk as a legendary king of Assyria
- Belus (Babylonian) or Zeus Belos, alternate name of the Babylonian god Marduk
- Belus (Egyptian), the Canaanite Baʿal as a legendary king of Egypt
- Belus (Lydian), a legendary ancestor of Lydia's Heraclid dynasty
- Belus (Tyre), a legendary king of Tyre in Virgil's Aeneid
A Belos is mentioned by the Roman mythographer Hyginus in his Fabulae, specifically in the section where he is listing the sons of Neptune. After Ephoceus, the son of Alcyone and Neptune is mentioned. It then states: "[Belus]. Actor . . . . . . Dictys ex Agamede Augiae filia".[1] Which in English means: [Belus.] Actor . . . Dictys by Agamede, daughter of Augeas.[2]
The name Dictys is preceded by the names Belus, Actor and a lacuna. The lacuna probably contained a reference to their mother(s). However this is often ignored and these children are applied to Agamede and thus Dictys' brothers.