Baalbek, a ruined city of Syria, 35 miles NNW. of Damascus, and 38 SSE. of Tripoli. The name signifies 'City of Baal,' the Sun-god, and was by the Greeks, during the Seleucide dynasty, converted into Heliopolis. Baalbek lies 4500 feet above sea-level, at the opening of a small valley into the plain of El-Bukâ'a (Cœle-Syria), on the lowest slope of Anti-Lebanon, a well-watered and delightful locality. It was once the most magnificent of Syrian cities, full of palaces, fountains, and beautiful monuments; now it is famous only for the splendour of its ruins, of which three deserve special notice. The most imposing is that of the Great Temple, which length of the shaft ; with pedestal, capital, and entablature, they measure 88 feet in height. The approach to this temple was through a portico ( feet), a hexagonal hall ( feet), and a grand quadrangle ( feet). Except the columns mentioned, little of the great temple, or of the buildings in front of it, is left standing, but the ground is covered with their ruins. The vast size of the stones used in the Cyclopean substructure or platform ( feet) is remarkable, three of them being more than 60 feet long and about 13 feet square. South of the great temple is a smaller one, known as the Temple of Jupiter. It is similar in form, having its peristyle and the walls of its cella still mostly standing. Its dimensions are 228 feet in length by 124 feet in breadth, being thus larger than the Parthenon at Athens. Both temples, as well as the surrounding structures, are built of limestone, in a richly decorated somewhat fantastic Corinthian style. Besides these, there stands in the village of Baalbek, at the distance of 300 yards from the others, a circular building, supported on 6 granite columns in mixed Ionic and Corinthian style. Down to the 18th century it was used as a Greek church.
The early history of Baalbek is involved in darkness; but it is certain that, from the most distant times, it had been a chief seat of sun-worship, as its name implies. Julius Cæsar made it a Roman colony, and under Augustus it was occupied by a Roman garrison. Baalbek had an oracle held in such high esteem that in the 2d century A.D. it was consulted by the Emperor Trajan prior to his entrance on the second Parthian campaign. Antoninus Pius (138–161 A.D.) built the Great Temple, which the natives nowadays ascribe to Solomon. This temple is said to have contained a golden statue of the sun-god, which on certain annual festivals the chief citizens of Heliopolis bore about on their shoulders. When Christianity had become the dominant religion, the temple was converted by the Emperor Theodosius the Great into a Christian church. In the wars that followed the taking of the city by the Arabs, who sacked it in 748 A.D., the temple was turned into a fortress, the works of which are yet visible. The city was completely pillaged by Timur Beg in 1400. Both city and temple continued to fall more and more into decay under the misery and misrule to which Syria has been subject ever since. Many of the magnificent pillars were overturned by the pashas of Damascus merely for the sake of the iron with which the stones were bound together. What the Arabs, Tartars, and Turks had spared, was destroyed by a terrible earthquake in 1759. Baalbek is now a wretched village, with a population of some few hundreds. See R. Wood and Dawkins's Ruins of Baalbee (1757); Cassas, Voyage Pittoresque de la Syrie (1799); two articles by J. C. M. Bellow in Temple Bar (1861); Renan's Mission de Phénicie (1864); Franberger's Akropolis von Baalbek (1891).