The small town of Straton's Tower was established during the Persian period, when the Palestinian coast was governed by the Phoenician kings of Tyre and Sidon. The town was part of the territory that Herod received from Octavian (Augustus Caesar) after the battle of Actium in 31 B. C.E., when Octavian reconfirmed Herod as king of Judea and increased the size of his kingdom. Herod rebuilt Straton's Tower as a showcase Greco-Roman port city and renamed it Caesarea. Herod's establishment of Caesarea followed the precedent of Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic successors, but instead of naming it after himself he named it in honor of Octavian — a brilliant move that demonstrated Herod's loyalty to his new patron. Herod's city of Caesarea had two components: the settlement (on land), called Caesarea Maritima, and the harbor, called Sebaste (Sebastos is Greek for Augustus). A glance at a map of Palestine reveals that the coastline is relatively even and lacks large natural harbors and anchorages. Herod's new harbor filled this gap, and the city quickly became Palestine's major port city.
Caesarea had a long history and flourished for centuries. Its importance increased after Herod Archelaus was removed from rule in 6 C. E., when it became the seat of the local Roman governor (prefect or procurator) in Palestine (although Herod had a palace at Caesarea, Jerusalem was the capital of his kingdom). After Paul was arrested, he was imprisoned in the Roman governor's palace at Caesarea for two years before being shipped off to Rome for trial and (presumably) execution (Acts 23:23—24, 33). Caesarea was a Greco-Roman city
8.1 Aerial view of Caesarea. Courtesy of Zev Radovan/BibleLandPictures. com.
With a large Gentile population and a minority of Jews. By Paul's time, the inhabitants also included some members of the early church: “The next day we left and came to Caesarea; and we went into the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven, and stayed with him. . . . After these days we got ready and started to go up to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea also came along and brought us to the house of Mnason of Cyprus, and early disciple, with whom we were to stay" (Acts 21:8, 15—16). Tensions between Jews and Gentiles at Caesarea contributed to the outbreak of the First Jewish Revolt in 66 C. E., when a pagan ceremony conducted on the Sabbath near the entrance to a synagogue sparked riots.
Vespasian made Caesarea the headquarters of his operations during the First Revolt. After the revolt, Vespasian raised Caesarea to the rank of a Roman colony, a status that conveyed certain benefits to the population, which now included Roman military veterans. In the centuries that followed, Caesarea continued to grow, reaching its maximum extent during the fifth and sixth centuries C. E. (the Byzantine period). Caesarea was the last major city in Palestine to fall to the Muslims, surrendering in 640 C. E. after a seven-month-long siege. Although Caesarea contracted in size after the Muslim conquest, it continued to be an important commercial hub, as indicated by large quantities of imported pottery from around the Mediterranean. Caesarea was conquered during the First Crusade (1101) and became a key stronghold of the Crusader kingdom in the Holy Land. The Genoese found a green-colored glass vessel in the city and declared it to be the Holy Grail, the goblet used by Jesus at the Last Supper. It was taken to Genoa and placed in the Church of San Lorenzo. Caesarea fell to Saladin in 1187 and was retaken by the Crusaders in 1191.
When the Mamluke ruler Baybars conquered Caesarea in 1265, he razed it to the ground, bringing to an end the city's long history. In the 1870s and 1880s, the Ottomans settled Bosnian refugees at Caesarea (Kaisariyeh). This settlement existed until the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948; some descendants of the Bosnian families still live in the nearby Israeli town of Hadera. After 1948, the Israeli authorities cleared and restored the Crusader fortification walls and moat.
World History
