Page 161 - A Walk to Caesarea / Joseph Patrich

A Walk to Caesarea: A Historical-Archaeological Perspective 147
ab

preserved to a height of 3 m, at the foot of which two benches were built, is paved Fig. 164a–b
with large gray marble slabs above an earlier white mosaic floor of crude tesserae. a. The “Byzantine Esplanade”,
This piazza is 11.6 m wide. Standing at its northern end are a pair of columns
between two short walls. The columns probably supported an arch. Placed in the marble paved and with porphyry
two northern corners of the piazza were two colossal, seated statues facing each and white marble statues in the
other (Fig. 164a–b). Both of them are headless and their limbs are broken. The far corners. View to the north
statue to the right, whose original height was above 3 m, is seated on a gray granite b. The “Byzantine Esplanade”,
throne (which may not be the original one) (Fig. 165); it is a purple granite statue proposed reconstruction. View
that has been identified as emperor Hadrian presented as the Olympian Zeus, to the north
holding a scepter in his right hand and a globe in his left, with a laurel wreath
upon his head (Fig. 21 above, p. 23). The statue opposite it, 2.70 m high, is of Fig. 165 (left)
white marble (Fig. 166). Some have suggested that this was a statue of Augustus in The statues of the “Byzantine
the shape of Olympian Zeus, which was placed in the temple Herod built on the Esplanade”. A view from the rear on
temple platform in honor of Augustus and Rome. According to its style, however, it the throne, made of gray granite, on
dates from the second century CE, later than Herod’s time. Further north, beyond which the porphyry statue sits
a wide staircase, stretched an elongated esplanade paved with crude mosaic
Fig. 166 (right)
Marble statue in the shape of
Olympian Zeus decorating the
“Byzantine Esplanade”