There are three Caesareas to chose from:
- Modern (on coast)
- Maritima (on coast just north of Modern; Roman ruins)
- Philipi (North; Pan's Grotto)
Caesarea Maritima (also Caesarea Palestinae;[1] Greek: Παράλιος Καισάρεια, Parálios Kaisáreia) is an Israeli National Park in the Sharon plain, including the ancient remains of the coastal city of Caesarea.
The city and harbor were built under Herod the Great during c. 22–10 BC near the site of a former Phoenician naval station known as Stratonos pyrgos (Στράτωνος πύργος).[2] It later became the provincial capital of Roman Judea, Roman Syria Palaestina and Byzantine Palaestina Prima provinces. The city was populated throughout the 1st to 6th centuries CE and became an important early center of Christianity during the Byzantine period, but was mostly abandoned following the Muslim conquest of 640. It was re-fortified by the Crusaders, and finally slighted by the Mamluks in 1265.
The name Caesarea (Καισάρεια) was adopted into Arabic as Qaysaria قيسارية . The location was all but abandoned in 1800. It was re-developed into a fishing village by Bosniak Muslim immigrants after 1884, and into a modern town of after 1940, in 1977 incorporated as the municipality of Caesarea (Hebrew Kesariya קיסריה) within Israel's Haifa District, about halfway between the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa.[3]
The ruins of the ancient city, on the coast just about 2 km south of modern Caesarea, were excavated in the 1950s and 1960s and the site was incorporated into a new national park in 2011.
Foundation
The site of the former Phoenician naval station was awarded to Herod the Great in 30 BC. Herod built his palace on a promontory jutting out into the sea, with a decorative pool surrounded by stoas. He went on to build a large port and a city, which he named in honour of his patron Caesar Augustus.[1][4]
In the year AD 6, Caesarea became the civilian and military capital of Iudaea Province and the official residence of the Roman procurator Antonius Felix, and prefect Pontius Pilatus.[5]
This city is the location of the 1961 discovery of the Pilate Stone, the only archaeological item that mentions the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, by whose order Jesus was crucified.[6] It is likely that Pilate used it as a base, and only went to Jerusalem when needed.[7] It is also the supposed location of "Herod's tomb".[8]
Roman Judea
The city was described in detail by the 1st-century Roman Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.[9] Josephus describes the harbor as being as large as the one at Piraeus, the major harbor of Athens.[10] Remains of the principal buildings erected by Herod and the medieval town are still visible today, including the city walls, the castle and a Crusader cathedral and church. Caesarea grew rapidly, becoming the largest city in Judea, with an estimated population of 125,000 over an urban area of 3.7 square kilometres (1.4 sq mi). According to Josephus, the outbreak of the Jewish revolt of AD 66 was provoked by Greeks of a certain merchant house in Caesarea sacrificing birds in front of a local synagogue.[11]
According to Josephus, Caesarea was the scene in AD 26 of a major act of civil disobedience to protest Pilate's order to plant eagle standards on the Temple Mount of Jerusalem.[12]
The emperor Vespasian raised its status to that of a Colonia, with the name Colonia Prima Flavia Augusta Caesarea.
In AD 70, after the Jewish revolt was suppressed, games were held here to celebrate the victory of Titus. Many Jewish captives were brought to Caesarea Maritima; Kasher (1990) claims that 2,500 captives were "slaughtered in gladiatorial games".[13]
After the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, Caesarea became the provincial capital of the Judaea Province, before the change of name to Syria Palaestina in 135, in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt.[14] Caesarea was one of four Roman colonies for veterans in the Syria-Phoenicia region.[15]
Caesarea is mentioned in the 3rd century Mosaic of Rehob, with respect to its non-Jewish population.
Sebastos harbor
When it was built in the 1st century BC, Sebastos Harbor ranked as the largest artificial harbor built in the open sea, enclosing around 100,000 m2.[16][17][18] King Herod built the two jetties of the harbor between 22 and 15 BC,[19] and in 10/9 BC he dedicated the city and harbor to Caesar (sebastos is Greek for Augustus).[20] The pace of construction was impressive considering size and complexity. The breakwaters were made of lime and pozzolana, a type of volcanic ash, set into an underwater concrete. Herod imported over 24,000 m3 pozzolana from Pozzuoli, Italy, to construct the two breakwaters: the 500 meter long on the south and the 275 meter long on the north.[21] A shipment of this size would have required at least 44 shiploads of 400 tons each.[19] Herod also had 12,000 m3 of kurkarquarried to make rubble and 12,000 m3 of slaked lime mixed with the pozzolana.
Architects had to devise a way to lay the wooden forms for the placement of concrete underwater. One technique was to drive stakes into the ground to make a box and then fill it with pozzolana concrete bit by bit.[17] However, this method required many divers to hammer the planks to the stakes underwater and large quantities of pozzolana were necessary. Another technique was a double planking method used in the northern breakwater. On land, carpenters would construct a box with beams and frames on the inside and a watertight, double-planked wall on the outside. This double wall was built with a 23 cm (9 in) gap between the inner and outer layer.[22] Although the box had no bottom, it was buoyant enough to float out to sea because of the watertight space between the inner and outer walls. Once it was floated into position, pozzolana was poured into the gap between the walls and the box would sink into place on the seafloor and be staked down in the corners. The flooded inside area was then filled by divers bit by bit with pozzolana-lime mortar and kurkar rubble until it rose above sea level.[22]
On the southern breakwater, barge construction was used. The southern side of Sebastos was much more exposed than the northern side, requiring sturdier breakwaters. Instead of using the double planked method filled with rubble, the architects sank barges filled with layers of pozzolana concrete and lime sand mortar. The barges were similar to boxes without lids, and were constructed using mortise and tenon joints, the same technique used in ancient boats, to ensure they remained watertight. The barges were ballasted with 0.5 meters of pozzolana concrete and floated out to their position. With alternating layers, pozzolana based and lime based concretes were hand placed inside the barge to sink it and fill it up to the surface.[22]
At its height, Sebastos was one of the most impressive harbors of its time. It had been constructed on a coast that had no natural harbors and served as an important commercial harbor in antiquity, rivaling Cleopatra’s harbor at Alexandria. Josephus wrote: “Although the location was generally unfavorable, [Herod] contended with the difficulties so well that the solidity of the construction could not be overcome by the sea, and its beauty seemed finished off without impediment.”[23] However, there were underlying problems that led to its demise. Studies of the concrete cores of the moles have shown that the concrete was much weaker than similar pozzolana hydraulic concrete used in ancient Italian ports. For unknown reasons, the pozzolana mortar did not adhere as well to the kurkar rubble as it did to other rubble types used in Italian harbors.[21] Small but numerous holes in some of the cores also indicate that the lime was of poor quality and stripped out of the mixture by strong waves before it could set.[21] Also, large lumps of lime were found in all five of the cores studied at Caesarea, which shows that the mixture was not mixed thoroughly.[21] However, stability would not have been seriously affected if the harbor had not been constructed over a geological fault line that runs along the coast. Seismic action gradually took its toll on the breakwaters, causing them to tilt down and settle into the seabed.[23] Also, studies of seabed deposits at Caesarea have shown that a tsunami struck the area sometime during the 1st or 2nd century.[24] Although it is unknown if this tsunami simply damaged or completely destroyed the harbor, it is known that by the 6th century the harbor was unusable and today the jetties lie more than 5 meters underwater.[25]
Early Christian center
According to the Acts of the Apostles, Caesarea was first introduced to Christianity by Philip the Deacon,[26] who later had a house there in which he gave hospitality to Paul the Apostle.[27] It was there that Peter the Apostle came and baptized Cornelius the Centurion and his household, the first time Christian baptism was conferred on Gentiles.[28]Paul's first missionary journey. When newly converted Paul the Apostle was in danger in Jerusalem, the Christians there accompanied him to Caesarea and sent him off to his native Tarsus.[29] He visited Caesarea between his second and third missionary journeys,[30] and later, as mentioned, stayed several days there with Philip the Deacon. Later still, he was a prisoner there for two years before being sent to Rome.[31]
In the 3rd century, Origen wrote his Hexapla and other exegetical and theological works while living in Caesarea. The Nicene Creed may have originated in Caesarea.
The Apostolic Constitutions says that the first Bishop of Caesarea was Zacchaeus the Publican, followed by Cornelius (possibly Cornelius the Centurion) and Theophilus (possibly the address of the Gospel of Luke).[32] The first bishops considered historically attested are those mentioned by the early church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, himself a bishop of the see in the 4th century. He speaks of a Theophilus who was bishop in the 10th year of Commodus (c. 189),[33] of a Theoctistus (216–258), a short-lived Domnus and a Theotecnus,[34] and an Agapius (?–306). Among the participants in the Synod of Ancyra in 314 was a bishop of Caesarea named Agricolaus, who may have been the immediate predecessor of Eusebius, who does not mention him, or who may have been bishop of a different Caesarea. The immediate successors of Eusebius were Acacius (340–366) and Gelasius of Caesarea (367–372, 380–395). The latter was ousted by the semi-Arian Euzoius between 373 and 379. Lequien gives much information about all of these and about later bishops of Caesarea.[35]
Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem still has a metropolitan see in Caesarea, currently occupied by metropolitan Basilios Blatsos, since 1975.
The Latin archbishopric of Caesarea in Palestina was made a Roman Catholic titular see in 1432 (Zweder van Culemborg).[36]
Melkite Catholic Church[37] also consider Caesarea a titular see.
Theological library
Through Origen and especially the scholarly presbyter Pamphilus of Caesarea, an avid collector of books of Scripture, the theological school of Caesarea won a reputation for having the most extensive ecclesiastical library of the time, containing more than 30,000 manuscripts: Gregory Nazianzus, Basil the Great, Jerome and others came to study there. The Caesarean text-type is recognized by scholars as one of the earliest New Testament types. The collections of the library suffered during the persecutions under the Emperor Diocletian, but were repaired subsequently by bishops of Caesarea.[38] It was noted in the 6th century, but Henry Barclay Swete[39] was of the opinion that it probably did not long survive the capture of Caesarea in 640, though a modern historian[who?] might attribute more destruction to its previous capture by the Sassanids (in 614).
Byzantine period
Caesarea became the capital of the new province of Palaestina Prima in 390.
As the capital of the province, Caesarea was also the metropolitan see, with ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Jerusalem, when rebuilt after the destruction in the year 70. In 451, however, the Council of Chalcedon established Jerusalem as a patriarchate, with Caesarea as the first of its three subordinate metropolitan sees.
Caesarea remained the provincial capital throughout the 5th and 6th centuries. It fell to Sassanid Persia in the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, in 614, and was re-conquered by Byzantium in 625, but was lost for good to the Muslim conquest in 640.
The fall of the city was allegedly the result of the betrayal of a certain Yusef, who conducted a party of troops of Muawiyah into the city.[40] The city appears to have been partially destroyed upon its conquest. The 7th-century Coptic bishop John of Nikiû, claims "the horrors committed in the city of Caesarea in Palestine", while the 9th-century historian Al-Baladhuri merely states that the city was "reduced".[41]
Later history
Arab rule
The former Palaestina Prima was now administered as Jund Filastin, with the capital first at Ludd and then at Ramla. Al-Biladhuri (d. 892) mentions Qaysaria as one of ten cities captured in the conquest of Palestine.
The city likely remained inhabited for some time under Arab rule, during the 7th and 8th century, albeit with much reduced population. Archaeological evidence shows a clear destruction layer identified with the conquest of 640, followed by some evidence of renewed settlement in the early Umayyad period.[42] It appears that the harbour remained in use for some time, but it was allowed to silt up and it was unusable by the 9th century.[citation needed]
By the 11th century, it appears that the town had once again been developed into a fortified city. Writing in 1047, Nasir-i-Khusraw describes it as "a fine city, with running waters, and palm-gardens, and orange and citron trees. Its walls are strong, and it has an iron gate. There are fountains that gush out within the city".[43] This is in agreement with William of Tyre's description of the Crusaders' siege in 1101, mentioning catapults and siege engines used against the city fortifications.[44]
Crusades
Caesarea was re-taken by Baldwin I in the wake First Crusade, in 1101. Michael the Syrian records that the city was "devastated upon its capture",[45]
William of Tyre (10.15) describes the use of catapults and siege towers, and states that the city was taken in an assault after fifteen days of siege and given over to looting and pillaging. He also mentions (10.16) the discovery of a "vessel of the most green colour, in the shape of a serving dish" (vas coloris viridissimi, in modum parapsidis formatum) which the Genuese thought to be made of emerald, and accepted as their share of the spoils. This refers to the hexagonal bowl known as the Sacro Catino in Italian, which was brought to Genoa by Guglielmo Embriaco and was later identified as the Holy Chalice.[46]
Caesarea was incorporated as a lordship (dominion) within the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the Latin See of Caesarea was established, with ten archbishops listed for the period 1101–1266 (treated as titular see from 1432–1967). Archbishop Heraclius attended the Third Lateran Council in 1179.
Saladin retook the city in 1187; it was recaptured by the Crusaders in 1191. In 1251, Louis IX of France fortified the city, ordering the construction of high walls (parts of which are still standing) and a deep moat. The city was finally lost in 1265, when it fell to the Mamluks, who destroyed it completely to prevent its re-emergence as a fortress, in line with their practice in other formerly-Crusader coastal cities.
Ottoman era
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Caesarea lay in ruins until the nineteenth century, when the village of Qisarya (Arabic: قيسارية, the Arabic name for Caesarea) was established in 1884 by Bushnaks (Bosniaks) – immigrants from Bosnia, who built a small fishing village on the ruins of the Crusader fortress on the coast.[47][48]
Archaeology and reconstruction
Archaeological excavations in the 1950s and 1960s uncovered remains from many periods, in particular, a complex of Crusader fortifications and a Roman theatre. Other buildings include a temple dedicated to Caesar; a hippodrome rebuilt in the 2nd century as a more conventional theater; the Tiberieum, which has a limestone block with a dedicatory inscription.[6] This is the only archaeological find with an inscription mentioning the name "Pontius Pilatus"; a double aqueduct that brought water from springs at the foot of Mount Carmel; a boundary wall; and a 200 ft (60 m) wide moat protecting the harbour to the south and west. The harbor was the largest on the eastern Mediterranean coast.
The main church, an octagonal martyrion, was built in the 6th century and sited directly upon the podium that had supported a Roman temple, as was a widespread Christian practice. The Martyrion was richly paved and surrounded by small radiating enclosures. Archaeologists have recovered some foliate capitals that included representations of the Cross. The site, used by Herod for his pagan temple, then reconsecrated as a church, would in time be re-occupied, this time by a mosque.
An elaborate government structure contained a basilica with an apse, where magistrates would have sat, for the structure was used as a hall of justice, as fragments of inscriptions detailing the fees that court clerks might claim attest. A well-preserved 6th-century mosaic gold and colored glass table patterned with crosses and rosettes was found in 2005.[49][50]
In 1962, a team of Israeli and American archaeologists discovered in the sand of Caesarea Maritima three small fragments of one Hebrew stone inscription bearing the partial names of places associated with the priestly courses (the rest of which had been reconstructed), dated to the third-fourth centuries. The uniqueness of this discovery is that it shows the places of residence in Galilee of the priestly courses, places presumably resettled by Jews after the Great Jewish Revolt under Hadrian.[51][52][53][54]
Since 2000 the site of Caesarea Maritima is included in the "Tentative List of World Heritage Places" of the UNESCO.[4]
Caesarea Philippi
Caesarea Philippi: remnants of the temple of Pan with Pan's grotto. The white-domed shrine of Nabi Khadr shows in the background.
| |
 
Shown within Golan Heights
| |
| Alternate name | Neronias |
|---|---|
| Location | Golan Heights |
| Coordinates | 33.246111°N 35.693333°E |
| Type | settlement |
| History | |
| Cultures | Hellenistic, Roman |
- This site is identical with Banias, and is not to be confused with Philippi of Macedonia (modern Greece), or with Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean, or the town Caesarea in Israel, or with Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia.
- This article deals with the history of the site known today as Banias between the Hellenistic and Early Islamic periods. For other periods, see Banias.
Caesarea Philippi – Ancient Greek: Καισαρεία Φιλίππεια or Caesarea Paneas (Καισαρεία Πανειάς); called "Neronias" for a short period of time – was an ancient Roman city located at the southwestern base of Mount Hermon. It was adjacent to a spring, grotto and related shrines dedicated to the Greek god Pan, and called "Paneas" since the Hellenistic period, a name which mutated in time to Banias, as we know it until today (not to be confused with Baniyas in northwestern Syria). The surrounding region was known as the "Panion".
The city is mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew[1] and Mark.[2] The city, called Banias and now nearly uninhabited, is an archaeological site in the Golan Heights.
Banias does not appear in the Old Testament. Philostorgius, Theodoret, Benjamin of Tudela, and Samuel ben Samson all incorrectly identified it with Laish (i.e. Tel Dan).[3] Eusebius of Caesarea however, accurately placed Dan/Laish in the vicinity of Paneas, but at the fourth mile on the route to Tyre.[4]
History
Hellenistic Paneas
Alexander the Great's conquests started a process of Hellenisation in Egypt and Syria that continued for 1,000 years. Paneas was first settled in the Hellenistic period. The Ptolemaic kings, in the 3rd century BC, built a cult centre.
Panias is a spring, today known as Banias, named for Pan, the Greek god of desolate places. It lies close to the "way of the sea"mentioned by Isaiah,[5] along which many armies of Antiquity marched. In the distant past a giant spring gushed from a cave in the limestone bedrock, tumbling down the valley to flow into the Huela marshes. Currently it is the source of the stream Nahal Senir. The Jordan River previously rose from the malaria-infested Huela marshes, but it now rises from this spring and two others at the base of Mount Hermon. The flow of the spring has decreased greatly in modern times.[6] The water no longer gushes from the cave, but only seeps from the bedrock below it.
Paneas was certainly an ancient place of great sanctity and, when Hellenised religious influences were overlaid on the region, the cult of its local numen gave place to the worship of Pan, to whom the cave was dedicated and from which the copious spring rose, feeding the Huela marshes and ultimately supplying the river Jordan.[7] The pre-Hellenic deities that have been associated with the site are Ba'al-gad or Ba'al-hermon.[8]
The Battle of Panium is mentioned in extant sections of Greek historian Polybius's history of "The Rise of the Roman Empire". The battle of Panium occurred in 198 BC between the Macedonian armies of Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucid Greeks of Coele-Syria, led by Antiochus III.[9][10][11] Antiochus's victory cemented Selucid control over Phoenicia, Galilee, Samaria, and Judea until the Maccabean revolt. The Hellenised Sellucids built a pagan temple dedicated to Pan (a goat-footed god of victory in battle [creator of panic in the enemy], desolate places, music and goat herds) at Paneas.[12]
Roman Period
During the Roman period the city was administered as part of Phoenicia Prima and Syria Palaestina, and finally as capital of Gaulanitis (Golan) was included together with Peraea in Palaestina Secunda, after 218 AD. The ancient kingdom Bashan was incorporated into the province of Batanea.[13]
Herod and Philip (20 BC-AD 34)
On the death of Zenodorus in 20 BC, the Panion, which included Paneas, was annexed to the Kingdom of Herod the Great.[14] He erected here a temple of "white marble" in honour of his patron. In the year 3 BC, Philip II (also known as Philip the Tetrarch) founded a city at Paneas. It became the administrative capital of Philip's large tetrarchy of Batanaea which encompassed the Golan and the Hauran. Flavius Josephus refers to the city as Caesarea Paneas in Antiquities of the Jews; the New Testament as Caesarea Philippi (to distinguish it from Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast).[15][16] In 14 AD, Philip II named it Caesarea in honour of Roman Emperor Augustus, and "made improvements" to the city. His image was placed on a coin issued in 29/30 AD (to commemorate the founding of the city), this was considered as idolatrous by Jews but was following in the Idumeantradition of Zenodorus.[17]
Province of Syria (AD 34-61)
On the death of Philip II in AD 34, the tetrachy was incorporated into the province of Syria with the city given the autonomy to administer its own revenues.[18]
"Neronias" (AD 61-68)
In 61 AD, King Agrippa II renamed the administrative capital as Neronias in honour of Roman Emperor Nero: "Neronias Irenopolis" was the full name.[19] But this name held only till 68 AD when Nero committed suicide.[20] Agrippa also carried out urban improvements[21] It is possible that Neronias received "colonial status" by Nero, who created some colonies[22]
During the First Jewish–Roman War, Vespasian rested his troops at Caesarea Philippi in July 67 AD, holding games over a period of 20 days before advancing on Tiberias to crush the Jewish resistance in Galilee.[23]
Gospel association
In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is said to have approached the area near the city, but without entering the city itself. Jesus, while in this area, asked his closest disciples who they thought he was. Accounts of their answers, including the Confession of Peter, are found in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Here Saint Peter made his confession of Jesus as the Messiah and the "Son of the living God", and Christ in turn gave a charge to Peter.
According to the Christian ecclesiastical tradition, a woman from Paneas, who had been bleeding for 12 years, was miraculously cured by Jesus.[24]
Byzantine Period
Julian the Apostate
On attaining the position of Emperor of the Roman Empire in 361 AD Julian the Apostate instigated a religious reformation of the Roman state, as part of a programme intended to restore the lost grandeur and strength of the Roman State.[25] He supported the restoration of Hellenic paganism as the state religion.[26] In Panease this was achieved by replacing the Christian symbols. Sozomen describes the events surrounding the replacement of a statue of Christ (which was also seen and reported by Eusebius):-
- "Having heard that at Caesarea Philippi, otherwise called Panease Paneades, a city of Phoenicia, there was a celebrated statue of Christ, which had been erected by a woman whom the Lord had cured of a flow of blood. Julian commanded it to be taken down, and a statue of himself erected in its place; but a violent fire from the heaven fell upon it, and broke off the parts contiguous to the breast; the head and neck were thrown prostrate, and it was transfixed to the ground with the face downwards at the point where the fracture of the bust was; and it has stood in that fashion from that day until now, full of the rust of the lightning."[27]
Early Islamic period
In 635 AD, Paneas gained favourable terms of surrender from the Muslim army of Khalid ibn al-Walid, after the defeat of Heraclius's army. In 636 AD, a newly formed Byzantine army advanced on Palestine, using Paneas as a staging post, on the way to confront the Muslim army at Yarmuk.[28]
The depopulation of Paneas after the Muslim conquest was rapid, as the traditional markets of Paneas disappeared (only 14 of the 173 Byzantine sites in the area show signs of habitation from this period). The Hellenised city fell into decline. The council of al-Jabiyah established the administration of the new territory of the Umar Caliphate, and Paneas remained the principal city of the district of al-Djawlan (the Golan) within Jund Dimashq, jund meaning "military province" and Dimashq being the Arabic name of Damascus, due to its strategic military importance on the border with Filistin (Palestine).[29]
Around 780 AD, the nun Hugeburc visited Caesarea and reported that the town had a church and a "great many Christians".[30]
Bishopric (Byzantine Period until present)
Caesarea Philippi became the seat of a bishop at an early date: local tradition has it that the first bishop was the Erastus mentioned in Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans(Romans 16:23). What is historically verifiable is that the see's bishop Philocalus was at the First Council of Nicaea (325 AD), that Martyrius was burned to death under Julian the Apostate, that Baratus was at the First Council of Constantinople in 381. Flavian, (420) Bishop of Caesarea Philippi[31][32][33][34] and Olympius at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. In addition there is mention of a Bishop Anastasius of the same see, who became Patriarch of Jerusalem in the 7th century.
In the time of the Crusades, Caesarea Philippi became a Latin Church diocese and the names of two of its bishops, Adam and John, are known.[35][36][37][38] No longer a residential bishopric, Caesarea Philippi is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.[39] It is also one of the sees to which the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch has appointed a titular bishop.
Archaeology
Today Caesarea Philippi is a site of archeological importance, and lies within the Hermon Stream Nature Reserve.[40] The ruins are extensive and have been thoroughly excavated. Within the city area the remains of Agrippa's palace, the cardo, a bath-house and a Byzantine-period synagogue can be seen.[41]
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