Online Encyclopedia

BAETYLUS (Gr. fairvXos, (3aeri)Xzov)

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 192 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BAETYLUS (Gr. fairvXos, (3aeri)Xzov)  , a word of Semitic origin (=bethel) denoting a sacred stone, which was supposed to be endowed with
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life . These fetish
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objects of worship were meteoric stones, which were dedicated to the gods or revered as symbols of the gods themselves (Pliny, Nat . Hiss. xvii . 9; Photius,
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Cod . 242) . In Greek
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mythology the
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term was specially applied to the stone supposed to have been swallowed by Cronus (who feared misfortune from his own children) in mistake for his infant son
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Zeus, for whom it had been substituted by Uranus and Gaea, his wife's parents (Elymologicuna Magnum, s.v.) . This stone was carefully preserved at Delphi, anointed with oil every day and on festal occasions covered with raw wool (
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Pausanias x . 24) . In Phoenician mythology, one of the sons of Uranus is named Baetylus . Another famous stone was the effigy of
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Rhea Cybele, the
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holy stone of Pessinus, black and of irregular form, which was brought to Rome in 204 B.C. and placed in the mouth of the statue of the goddess . In some cases an attempt was made to give a more
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regular form to the
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original shapeless stone: thus Apollo Agyieus was represented by a conical pillar with pointed end,'Zeus Meilichius in the form of a
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pyramid . Other famous baetylic idols were those in the temples of Zeus Casius at Seleucia, and of Zeus Teleios at
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Tegea .

Even in the declining years of paganism, these idols still retained their significance, as is shown by the attacks upon them by ecclesiastical writers . See Munter, Uber

die men Himmel gefallenen Steine (1805); Bosigk, De Baelyliis (1854); and the exhaustive article by F . Lenormant in Daremberg and Saglio's
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Dictionary of Antiquities .

End of Article: BAETYLUS (Gr. fairvXos, (3aeri)Xzov)
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