Lebanon is home to the ancient city of Heliopolis, now called Baalbek.
Baalbek lies in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and is famous for an enormous Roman temple complex. In the Roman period, the settlement was known as Heliopolis, meaning “City of the Sun,” and was associated with the worship of Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury.
The Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek was built with exceptionally large stone blocks, and the surviving columns and platforms demonstrate the scale of Roman engineering. Earlier Phoenician and Hellenistic religious traditions also influenced the site.
Baalbek is sometimes confused with Palmyra in Syria, another major ancient site with Roman monuments. Baalbek, however, is in Lebanon, east of Beirut near the modern city of Zahle.