Belus
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary [1]
a river of Palestine. On leaving Acre, and turning towards the south-east, the traveller crosses the river Belus, near its mouth, where the stream is shallow enough to be easily forded on horseback. This river rises out of a lake, computed to be about six miles distant toward the south-east, called by the ancients Pelus Cendovia. Of the sand of this river, according to Pliny, glass was first made; and ships from Italy continued to convey it to the glass houses of Venice and Genoa, so late as the middle of the seventeenth century.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [2]
( Βῆλος ).
1. According to classical mythology, a son of Poseidon by Libya or Eurynome. He was twin brother of Agenor, and father of A Egyptus and Danaus. He was believed to be the ancestral hero and national divinity of several Eastern nations, from which the legends about him were transplanted to Greece, and became mixed up with Greek myths. (See Apollod. 2:1, 4; Diod. 1:28; Servius, Ad A En. 1:733.) (See Baal).
2. The father of the Carthaginian queen Dido, otherwise called Pygmalion. He conquered Cyprus and then gave it to Teucer. (See Virgil, Aen. 1, 621; Servius, Ad Aen. 1, 625, 646.) By some he was thought to be the Tyrian king Eth-baal (q.v.), father of the Israelitish queen Jezebel ( 1 Kings 16:31), from whose period (she was killed B.C. 883) this does not much differ, for Carthage was founded (according to Josephus, Apion, 1, 18) B.C. 861.
