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CAESAREA

(Gk. Kaisáreia)

High-level aqueduct brings water to Roman Caesarea from springs on the southern slopes of Mt. Carmel (Photo by Aaron Levin; copyright Combined Caesarea Expeditions)

Caesarea Maritima (1399.2115), a major Greek and Roman port city on the Mediterranean ca. 40 km. (25 mi.) N of Tel Aviv; known also as Caesarea Palestinae, “Caesarea of Palestine.” Herod the Great built it between 22 and 10/9 b.c.e., on the site of an earlier Phoenician and Greek town called Straton’s Tower, naming his new foundation for the Emperor Caesar Augustus. As Josephus described it (BJ 1.408-15), Caesarea was an up-to-date Hellenistic city with markets, theaters, streets on a grid plan, and especially a capacious harbor, likewise named for Augustus (Gk. Sebastós), with artificial moles that protected vessels from powerful coastal storms and currents.

When the Romans annexed Judea in 6 c.e., Caesarea became headquarters of the Roman governors, including Pontius Pilate. Vespasian, acclaimed emperor there in 69, refounded Caesarea as a Roman colony, the first in the province, and it remained metropolis of Palestine and center of the Roman administration to the end of antiquity. Its zenith in population and influence was in the early Christian and Byzantine periods, the 3rd through 5th centuries, when Caesarea was metropolitan see of Palestine and celebrated for biblical scholarship. Origen and Eusebius taught there and created and tended a famous library. In 640/41 the city succumbed to an Arab siege. In the 10th and 11th centuries Muslim Qaisariyyah was a prosperous commercial and agricultural town, much smaller, though, than the ancient city, and in the 12th and 13th centuries it continued as center of a Crusader principality. Destroyed by the Muslims in 1265 and 1278, the site lay mostly abandoned until resettled in 1884 by Bosnian Muslim refugees, of whom a small community survived there until the 1940s.

Caesarea is prominent in the Acts of the Apostles as a principal urban setting of primitive Christianity. Paul sailed from there at the beginning of his mission and landed at Caesarea’s harbor before going up to Jerusalem (Acts 9:30; 18:22). Philip the evangelist apparently brought Christianity to Caesarea soon after the Crucifixion, and years later he and four grown daughters, apparently a nucleus of the Caesarea community, hosted Paul (6:5; 21:8). Arrested by the Roman authorities ca. 60, Paul was kept in arrest at Caesarea by the governor Felix until judged by the next governor Festus and sent from there on to Rome (23:33–27:1). In the meantime, Peter had also brought the Christian message to Caesarea, where he was hosted in the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion (Acts 10). Around this man and his household apparently formed the earliest Gentile Christian community anywhere.

The site was never lost, but only recently have archaeologists explored large tracts of it. Israeli and international teams have explored the harbors extensively, where Herod’s engineers used hydraulic concrete, imported from Italy, to build the moles. Beneath the streets was an elaborate system of sewers and drains, as Josephus described. The Herodian theater has been excavated, and more recently the amphitheater on the coast where Herod sponsored chariot races when he dedicated the city. On the temple platform, above the harbor on its eastern side, was Herod’s temple of Augustus, which had colossal statues of the goddess Roma and Augustus as a god. To the south, jutting into the sea, was the promontory palace, undoubtedly the praetorium of the Roman governors mentioned in Acts, where Paul lay in prison and defended himself before the authorities. Current excavation beneath later levels holds promise of revealing physical remains of the urban setting that first nourished primitive Christianity.

Bibliography. K. G. Holum, R. L. Hohlfelder, R. J. Bull, and A. Raban, King Herod’s Dream: Caesarea on the Sea (New York, 1988); K. G. Holum, A. Raban, and J. Patrich, ed., Caesarea Papers II: Herod’s Temple, the Later Harbor, Byzantine Praetorium and Warehouses, the Gold Coin Hoard, and Other Studies. Journal of Roman Archaeology Sup (forthcoming); A. Raban and K. G. Holum, eds., Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective after Two Millennia. DMOA 21 (Leiden, 1996) (with bibliog.); R. L. Vann, ed., Caesara Papers: Straton’s Tower, Herod’s Harbour, and Roman and Byzantine Caesarea. Journal of Roman Archaeology Sup 5 (Ann Arbor, 1992).

Kenneth G. Holum

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

CAESAREA

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)