Note 138 — Chapter X · SYRIA AND THE LAND OF THE NABATAEANS.

For Berytus this is shown by the Puteolan inscription C. I. L. x. 1634; for Damascus it is at least suggested by that which is there set up (x. 1576) to the Iupiter optimus maximus Damascenus.—We may add that it is here apparent with how good reason Puteoli is called Little Delos. At Delos in the last age of its prosperity, that is, nearly in the century before the Mithradatic war, we meet with Syrian factories and Syrian worships in quite a like fashion and in still greater abundance; we find there the guild of the Herakleistae of Tyre (τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Τυρίων Ἡρακλεϊστῶν ἐμπόρων καὶ ναυκλήρων, C. I. Gr. 2271) of the Poseidoniastae of Berytus (τὸ κοινὸν Βηρυτίων Ποσειδωνιαστῶν ἐμπόρων καὶ ναυκλήρων καὶ ἐγδοχέων, Bull. de corr. Hell. vii., p. 468), of the worshippers of Adad and Atargatis of Heliopolis (ib. vi. 495 f.), apart from the numerous memorial-stones of Syrian merchants. Comp. Homolle ib. viii. p. 110 f.