BEROSSUS, a priest of Bel at Babylon, who translated into Greek the standard Babylonian work on astrology and astronomy, and compiled (in three books) the history of his country from native documents, which he published in Greek in the reign of Antiochus II. (2 5o B.e.) . His works have perished, but extracts from the history have been preserved by Josephus and Eusebius. Eusebius probably derived them not directly from Berossus. but through the medium of Alexander Polyhistor and Apollodorus. The extracts containing the Babylonian cosmology, the list of the antediluvian kings of Babylonia, and the Chaldaean story of the Deluge have been shown by the decipherment of the cuneiform texts to have faithfully reproduced the native legends.
All attempts to harmonize the scheme of dynasties thus as cribed to Berossus with the list given us in the so-called dynastic tablets discovered by Dr. Pinches have been failures. All that seems certain is that Berossus arranged his history so that it should fill the astronomical period of 36,00o years, beginning with the first man and ending with the conquest of Babylon by Alex ander the Great.