Heliopŏlis
（Ἡλιούπολις).
1.
A famous city of Egypt, situated a little to the east of the apex of the Delta, not far from modern Cairo. In Hebrew it is styled On or Aun. In the Septuagint it is called Heliopolis, or City of the Sun; in Jeremiah (xliii. 13), Beth Shemim—i. e. domus solis. Herodotus also mentions it by this name, and speaks of its inhabitants as being the wisest and most ingenious of all the Egyptians (ii. 3). According to Berosus, this was the city of Moses. It was also a place of resort for all the Greeks who visited Egypt for instruction. Hither came Herodotus, Plato, Eudoxus, and others, and secured much of the learning which they afterwards disseminated among their own countrymen. Plato, in particular, resided here three years. Manetho (q.v.), the historian, was also here as a priest. The city was built, according to Strabo, on a long, artificial mound of earth, so as to be out of reach of the inundations of the Nile. It had an oracle of Apollo and a famous Temple of the Sun. In this temple was fed and adored the sacred ox Mnevis, as Apis was at Memphis. This city was laid waste with fire and sword by Cambyses, and its chapter of priests all slaughtered. Strabo saw it in a deserted state and shorn of all its splendour. Heliopolis was famed also for its fountain of excellent water, which still remains, and gave rise to the subsequent Arabic name of the place, Ain Shems, or the Fountain of the Sun. The modern name is Matareieh, or cool water. A solitary obelisk of red granite is all that remains at the present day of this once celebrated place; and the two obelisks known as “Cleopatra 's Needles” were originally brought from Heliopolis to Alexandria. (See Alexandria.)
2.
A celebrated city of Syria, thirty-five miles northwest of Damascus, and southwest of Emesa, on the opposite side of the Orontes. Its Grecian name, Heliopolis (Ἡλιούπολις), “City of the Sun,” is merely a translation of the native term Baalbek, which appellation the ruins at the present day retain. [See illustration on the following page.] Heliopolis was famed for its Temple of the Sun (Baal), erected by Antoninus Pius, though by the natives now ascribed to Solomon; and the ruins of this celebrated pile still attest its former magnificence. Of these the most notable are the Great Temple, a rectangular building 200 feet by 162, with a peristyle of 54 Corinthian columns; a smaller temple called the Temple of Iupiter; and a circular building of fine proportions long used as a Greek Church. Heliopolis was made a Roman colony by Iulius Caesar, and was garrisoned under Augustus. Later it was pillaged by the Arabs and by Timur (A.D. 1400), and since that time has gradually decayed. It is now only a wretched hamlet of a few hundred inhabitants. See Wood and Dawkins, Ruins of Baalbec (1757); Cassas, Voyage Pittoresque de la Syrie (1799); and Renan, Mission de Phénicie (1864).