A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Βηρωσός or Βηρωσσρός), a priest of Belus at Babylon, and an historian. His name is usually considered to be the same as Bar or Ber Oseas, that is, son of Oseas. (Scalig. Animadr. ad Euseb. p. 248.) He was born in the reign of Alexander the Great, and lived till that of Antiochus II. urnamed Θεός (B. C. 261-246), in whose reign he is said to have written his history of Babylonia. (Tatian, ad v. Gent. 58; Euseb. Praep. Evang. x. p. 289.) Respecting the personal history of Berosus scarcely anything is known; but he must have been a man of education and extensive learning, and was well acquainted with the Greek language, which the conquests of Alexander had diffused over a great part of Asia. Some writers have thought that they can discover in the extant fragments of his work traces of the author's ignorance of the Chaldee language, and thus have come to the conciusion, that the history of Babylonia was the work of a Greek, who assumed the name of a celebrated Babylonian. But this opinion is without any foundation at all. The fact that a Babyloaian wrote the history of his own country in Greek cannot be surprising; for, after the Greek language had commenced to be spoken in the East, a desire appears to have sprung up in some learned persons to make the history of their respective countries known to the Greeks: hence Menander of Tyre wrote the history of Phoenicia, and Manetho that of Egypt.

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