Rome and the East
or magistrates, must therefore be taken as allusions to the city government
of Berytus.^55 The clearest and best-dated instance of such an allusion is a
statue base for M. Licinius Pompenna Potitus Urbanus,sacerdosofI(uppiter)
O(ptimus) M(aximus) H(eliopolitanus), granted theequus publicusby Hadrian,
and holder of a series of local offices:decurio,pontifex,agonothetes,duumvir
quinquennalis,flamen munerarius.^56 These offices, and the shows referred to,
should be thought of as being those of thecoloniaof Berytus. In what specific
terms we should describe the status of Heliopolis in this period is not clear.
Following Rey-Coquais, however, we may note the apparent presence of a
pagus Augustus, seemingly making a dedication to theDea Syria Nihathe(na)
at Niha, a place located south-west of Heliopolis on the other side of the
valley.^57 Heliopolis was perhaps also apagus. But whatever was the technical
term employed, we can in any case take it that, as Strabo makes clear, vet-
erans were settled in the valley under Augustus. The fact that in the second
century some persons, including soldiers, began to record theirorigoas Heli-
opolis^58 does not prove that the place was already acolonia; rather, its emerg-
ing separate identity was a precondition of the grant subsequently made by
Septimius Severus.
That emerging identity must have both contributed to and been enhanced
by the extraordinary architectural development of the site and the widening
fame of the cult. Yet both the chronological sequence of the construction
and the sources of initiative (emperor or emperors?The colonia? The local
population? The cities of the wider Syrian region?) remain almost wholly
obscure.^59 Even more profound problems, however, attend the question of
the origin and nature of the cult or cults of Heliopolis. The name of the place
has always suggested an association with Egypt, as already claimed by Lucian
(dea Syra); and it may indeed derive from the domination of the region by
. E.g.,IGLSVI , a dedication to Antoninus Pius by thecolon[i s]plendidissimae
[col(oniae)]; –, probably of the second century; , King Agrippa (I or II),patrono
col.; , C. Iulius Sohaemus,patronocoloniae; also . Note also from Niha:Q.Vesius
Patilianus, flamen au[g.], dec. Ber., quaestor col(onorum?) col(oniae?).
.IGLSVI .
.IGLSVI ; Rey-Coquais,JRS (): . For Niha, see the important study by
Rey-Coquais, ‘‘Des montagnes au désert: Baetocécé, le pagus Augustus de Niha, la Ghouta à
l’est de Damas,’’ in E. Frézouls, ed.,Sociétésurbaines,sociétésruralesdansl’AsieMineureetlaSyrie
hellénistiques et romaines(), –, emphasising the contrast with Heliopolis itself.
.IGLSVI,and.
.IGLSVI –. For the architectural remains, see T. Wiegand,BaalbekI–III (–
); cf. M. Lyttelton,Baroque Architecture in Classical Antiquity(), chaps. –, and
F. Ragette,Baalbek().