Page 21 - A Walk to Caesarea / Joseph Patrich

A Walk to Caesarea: A Historical-Archaeological Perspective 7
b

warriors of Straton’s Tower who fought against the Hasmoneans. After its conquest, Fig. 10b
Jannaeus settled Jews in it. In the first century BCE, Strabo notes that in Straton’s
Tower there was only a landing-place (prosormos), reflecting the poor condition of Hellenistic cist graves
the settlement before Herod’s re-founding of the site as Caesarea. This situation is uncovered beneath the upper
discerned from the descriptions of the site by Flavius Josephus. terrace of Herod’s palace

In the north of the city two circular towers, apparently Hellenistic, were
preserved. In other directions, one can trace the spread of the Hellenistic city
by the distribution of graves from that time (which were usually outside the city
walls). This allocation shows that Straton’s Tower was much smaller than Herodian
Caesarea (Fig. 9). Burials in amphorae were found in the east and south (Fig. 10a).
Further away, under the upper terrace of Herod’s palace, Hellenistic cist graves were
discovered hewn into the rock (Fig. 10b).

Hellenistic pottery, mainly from the second century BCE, was found in sizable
quantities in the sea and on land, mainly in the north, in the area of the late
synagogue and within the Herodian harbor. Architectural remains from that time
uncovered thus far are scant and limited solely to the northern zone, outside the
circular towers. On the basis of these remains, Avner Raban proposed that Straton’s
Tower had two harbors, one in the north and the other at the site where the Herodian
inner harbor was built later. Both were of the closed harbor type, contained within
the coast line (limen kleistos). A Hellenistic well was found at the bottom of a moat
next to the northern Crusader gate. Rich Hellenistic fills were discovered in the
foundation trenches of the Herodian temple along with meager remains of a single
wall. Stones with drafted margins and a projecting boss were interpolated into the
foundation of the Herodian temple originating perhaps in a monumental Hellenistic
structure – possibly Zoilus’ palace – that preceded the temple.

We learn of the possible existence in this period of a temple to the city goddess –
Tyche (who has been identified as the pan-Hellenistic goddess Isis, mistress of the