BAALBEK. - Ancient city of Coele-Syria between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon at an elevation of 1170 m, in the fertile Bekaa valley, near the sources of the Litani; its origin, which legend connects with Solomon, is unknown; the name Ba'albiki is found in ancient Assyrian and Egyptian inscriptions. The first part of the name indicates the city as a principal place of the Phoenician cult of Baal, while the derivation of the second part is uncertain. The Greeks, identifying their sun god with Baal, called it Heliopolis, while the Romans spoke of the Jupiter of Heliopolis. Besides Jupiter, Mercury and Venus also had temples there, and, as coins of the 1st century show, the city was made a Roman colony by Augustus under the name Julia Augusta Felix. The emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161) built a grandiose temple to the aforementioned deities, which was completed by his successors down to Caracalla (211-17). A temple was also built to Bacchus. The emperor Theodosius (379-95) destroyed the great temple and built a Christian basilica in front of it.
The city of today, east of the ancient city, has about 8000 inhabitants (Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Melkite and Maronite Catholics, "Orthodox"). It is famous for the gigantic ruins of its acropolis, largely excavated by the Germans in 1900-1904, on which stood the great temple of Jupiter (or of the Sun), about 20 m high, and the small one of Bacchus. The surrounding walls on the northwest are made of colossal blocks. The base, 7 m high, is of stones averaging 9 m in length, 4 m in height and 3 in thickness. Three titanic blocks form the course of the western side and each measure more than 19 m in length, 4 m in height and 3 m in thickness. In the history of art there is shown here Greek art adapted by the Romans (barrel vaults), who imitated the grandiose constructions of the Egozians.
From perhaps the 2nd century, certainly from the time of Constantine (Eusebius, Vita Const., III, 58: PG 20, 1125), B. was an episcopal see of the district Phoenice Libanensis; around 400 it depended on the metropolis of Damascus. Taken by the Arabs in 634, hotly contested during the Crusades, B. today has two Oriental (Catholic) prelates: a Melkite bishop (with about 7500 faithful in 14 parishes) and a Maronite ("minor") archbishop, residing at 'Aramān (Lebanon); the Maronite eparchy, not earlier than 1670, has about 42,000 faithful in 71 parishes, with about 120 priests and 30 monks.