Berossus

'Bel is his shepherd')[1][2] was an early-3rd-century BCE Hellenistic-era Babylonian writer, a priest of Bel Marduk[3] and astronomer who wrote in the Koine Greek language.

His original works, including the Babyloniaca, have been lost but fragmentarily survive in some quotations, especially in the writings of the fourth-century CE Christian writer Eusebius.

"[6] Using ancient Babylonian records and texts that are now lost, Berossus published the Babyloniaca (hereafter, History of Babylonia) in three books some time around 290–278 BCE, by the patronage[7] of the Macedonian/Seleucid king Antiochus I Soter (during the third year of his reign, according to Diodorus Siculus[8][9][failed verification]).

Certain astrological fragments recorded by Pliny the Elder, Censorinus, Flavius Josephus, and Marcus Vitruvius Pollio are also attributed to Berossus, but are of unknown provenance, or indeed are uncertain as to where they might fit into his History.

According to Vitruvius's work de Architectura, he relocated eventually to the island of Kos off the coast of Asia Minor and established a school of astronomy there[11] by the patronage of the king of Egypt.

However, scholars have questioned whether it would have been possible to work under the Seleucids and then relocate to a region experiencing Ptolemaic control late in life.

What we have of ancient Mesopotamian myth is somewhat comparable with Berossus, though the exact integrity with which he transmitted his sources is unknown because much of the literature of Mesopotamia has not survived.

Book 1 fragments are preserved in Eusebius and Syncellus above, one of the main sources for knowledge about ancient near eastern cosmology in late antiquity due to its description of the Babylonian creation account and establishment of order, including the defeat of Thalatth (Tiamat) by Bel (Marduk).

According to him, all knowledge was revealed to humans by the sea monster Oannes after the Creation, and so Verbrugghe and Wickersham (2000:17) have suggested that this is where the astrological fragments discussed above would fit, if at all.

From Berossus' genealogy, it is clear that he had access to king-lists in compiling this section of History, particularly in the kings before the Flood, and from the 7th century BC with Senakheirimos (Sennacherib, who ruled both Assyria and Babylon).

This is similar to another Babylonian history, Chronicle of Nabonidus (as well as to the Hebrew Bible), and differs from the rationalistic accounts of other Greek historians like Thucydides.

Jewish and Christian references to Berossus probably had a different source, either Alexander Polyhistor (c. 65 BC) or Juba II of Mauretania (c. 50 BC–20 AD).

Polyhistor's numerous works included a history of Assyria and Babylonia, while Juba wrote On the Assyrians, both using Berossus as their primary sources.

Eusebius was looking to construct a consistent chronology across different cultures,[18][non-primary source needed] while Josephus was attempting to refute the charges that there was a civilization older than that of the Jews.

[19] In an isolated report from Vitruvius, it is claimed that Berossus founded a school of astronomy at the Island of Kos, although this is typically dismissed as a later invention.

[21] However, they greatly[22] influenced Renaissance ways of thinking about population and migration, because Annius provided a list of kings from Japhet onwards, filling a historical gap following the Biblical account of the Flood.

Annius also introduced characters from classical sources into the biblical framework, publishing his account as Commentaria super opera diversorum auctorum de antiquitatibus loquentium (Commentaries on the Works of Various Authors Discussing Antiquity).