BEROSSO. — Priest of Bel (Marduk) at the Babylonian temple É-sag-ila, born ca. 340, died ca. 270 B.C., apparently at Cos, where, already an old man, he went (according to Vitruvius, De architectura, IX, 7–8; cf. Pliny, Hist. nat., VII, 37; Plutarch, De plac. phil., II, 29) to teach astrology (ca. 260 B.C.). The Greek form Βηρωσός (preferable to Βηρωσός) seems to correspond to the Akkadian name Bel-uṣuršu, “Bel, protect him.” He wrote in Greek an extensive history of Babylon (Βαβυλωνιστά) in 3 books, which in 275 I (v.) Soter (280–261), the munificent restorer of É-sag-ila.
Book I expounded the cosmogony, with allegorical explanations and references to natural science, especially astronomy. Books II and III dealt with the 10 kings “before the great flood,” over a period of 120 saros, or 432,000 years; with the flood; and with the kings (ca. 200) who succeeded one another up to Alexander the Great, over 10 saros, or 36,000 years. B. made use of cuneiform sources, whose content differed in part from that of the texts known today, to which he added other mythical elements. The work, written in poor Greek, did not arouse much interest among the scholars and men of letters of the time; but it was extensively used by the Hellenistic Jews, who drew from it testimony to demonstrate to the pagans the historicity of the biblical narratives concerning the creation, the patriarchs, and the flood. Fragments of it remain in the works of Fl. Josephus, Eusebius, and George Syncellus, who cite it at second or third hand from Posidonius, Alexander Polyhistor, Apollodorus, Abidenus, and Juba, king of Mauritania. Following the concordism of the Alexandrian Jews, Fl. Josephus cites B. to confirm the authority of the Bible regarding the flood in C. Apion., I, 19, and in Antig. Ind., I, 3, 6; regarding Abraham (Ant. Ind., I, 3, 9 and 7, 2); and regarding the last kings of Babylon (ibid., X, 1, 4; 2, 2; 11, 1; C. Apion., I, 20). B.’s interesting account of the flood, whose hero is Xisuthros (Σιουθρος = Zi-ud-šud-du), son of Ὀπόρτης (or more properly Ὀπόρτης = Ubara-tutu), was preserved by Eusebius, Chronic., I (ed. A. Schöne, Berlin 1875, cols. 11–24; cf. the ed. by J. Karst, Leipzig 1911, pp. 10–12), who took it from Alexander Polyhistor. B. was called the father of the Babylonian Sibyl (Pausanias, X, 22, 5; Cohort. ad Graecos, 30; Suda, Lexicon, s. v.), perhaps because of certain analogies with her oracles. B. is also mentioned by Tertullian, Apol., 19; St. Jerome, In Dan. 5, 1; and Cassiodorus.