Note 124 — Chapter I · THE KING OF THE WOOD

W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites,² p. 329. He refers to Sozomenus, Histor. Eccles. v. 10. 7; Socrates, Histor. Eccles. i. 18; and Eusebius, Vita Constant. iii. 58, from whose testimonies we learn that at Heliopolis, in Syria, it was the custom to prostitute maidens to strangers before marriage. Eusebius speaks of the religious prostitution of married women as well as of maidens. Constantine destroyed the temple of the goddess in which these impure rites seem to have been performed. To moderns, Heliopolis (the City of the Sun) is better known as Baalbec; its magnificent ruins are the finest remains of Greek architecture in the East.