Philo told us above (p. 355) that Eljon of Byblus, who was called the Highest, was slain in conflict with wild beasts, and was worshipped by after generations with libations and sacrifice. In Byblus, under the name Adonis (Adon, _i.e._ Lord), a god was worshipped, who was thought to have disappeared, or to have been carried off in the bloom of youth. Eljon and Adonis are one and the same form. When the maritime river named after this deity, the Adonis (now Nahr Ibrahim), near Byblus, began to run red in July (Thammuz), owing to the red earth washed down from the mountains, then it was believed that the beautiful Adonis was slain on Libanus by the savage boar of the war-god. With lamentations and cries the women sat in the shrine at Byblus; or lingered by the wayside lamenting the death of Adonis. They cut off their hair, tore their breasts, and cried out--Ailanu, ailanu (woe to us). Adonis was lost, and was now called Thammuz (the Departed).[557] A time of lamentation was observed, during which his wooden image was washed and anointed, and laid upon a bier, which the priests carried about with their garments rent and beards shorn. But the god appeared again; he came to life again, as it seems, with the new spring. And as the lamentations for his death had been excessive, so also was the sensuality with which his return to life was celebrated.[558] Hence we must assume that in Adonis was personified the vernal sun, the bloom of vegetation, which so soon begins to droop. If it was the boar of the war-god, _i.e._ of Moloch, which slew Adonis, as one account maintains, then in the minds of the Syrians the destructive sun-god, the glow of the midsummer sun which makes vegetation wither, was the cause of the death of Adonis.