Berosus

Berosus, a priest of Babylon, who had a knowledge of the Greek language, and flourished about 260 B.C. He wrote, in Greek, three books of Babylonian-Chaldean history, in which he made use of the archives in the temple of Bel at Babylon. The work was highly esteemed by Greek and Roman historians, but unfortunately only a few fragments have been preserved by Josephus, Eusebius, and Syncellus; even these are of great value, as they relate to the most obscure portions of Asiatic history. They have been edited by W. Richter (Leip. 1825), and Müller, in the second volume of Historicorum Græcorum Fragmenta of the 'Collection Didot' (Paris, 1848). The Antiquitatum Libri Quinque eum Commentariis Joannis Annii, first published in Latin by Eucharus Silber (Rome, 1498) as a work of Berosus, and often republished, was the pseudonymous work of the Dominican, Giovanni Nanni of Viterbo. See BABYLONIA.