main court of the Jupiter
temple.

When Abu Ubaida (or Obaida) attacked the place after the Moslem capture of
Damascus (A.D. 635), it was still an opulent city and yielded a rich booty.
It became a bone of contention between the various Syrian dynasties and the
caliphs first of Damascus, then of Egypt, and in 748 was sacked with great
slaughter. In 1090 it passed to the Seljuks, and in 1134 to Jenghiz Khan;
but after 1145 it remained attached to Damascus and was captured by Saladin
in 1175. The Crusaders raided its valley more than once, but never took the
city. Three times shaken by earthquake in the 12th century, it was
dismantled by Hulagu in 1260. But it revived, and most of its fine Moslem
mosque and fortress architecture, still extant, belongs to the [v.03
p.0090] reign of Sultan Kala[=u]n (1282) and the succeeding century, during
which Abulfeda describes it as a very strong place. In 1400 Timur pillaged
it, and in 1517 it passed, with the rest of Syria, to the Ottoman dominion.
But Ottoman jurisdiction was merely nominal in the Lebanon district, and
Baalbek was really in the hands of the Metawali (see LEBANON), who retained
it against other Lebanon tribes, until "Jezzar" Pasha, the rebel governor
of the Acre province, broke their power in the last half of the 18th
century. The anarchy which succeeded his death in 1804 was only ended by
the Egyptian occupation (1832). With the treaty of London (1840) Baalbek
became really Ottoman, and since the settlement of the Lebanon (1864) has
attracted great numbers of tourists.

[Illustration]

The ruins were brought to European notice by Pierre Belon in 1555, though
previously visited, in 1507, by Martin von Baumgarten. Much damaged by the
earthquake of 1759, they remained a wilderness of fallen blocks till 1901,
when their clearance was undertaken by the German Archaeological Institute
and entrusted to the direction of Prof. O. Puchstein. They lie mainly on
the ancient Acropolis, which has been shored up with huge walls to form a
terrace raised on vaults and measuring about 1100 ft. from E. to W. The
_Propylaea_ lie at the E. end, and were approached by a flight of steps now
quarried away. These propylaea formed a covered hall, or vestibule, about
35 ft. deep, flanked with towers richly decorated within and without (much
damaged by Arab reconstruction). Columns stood in front, whose bases still
exist and bear the names of Antoninus Pius and Julia Domna. Hence, through
a