Page 22 - A Walk to Caesarea / Joseph Patrich

8 Historical Review

sea), from a late papyrus unearthed in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt (P. Oxy.1380, 94–95, p.
197), which notes the acclamations of Isis in different cities of the Mediterranean
basin. In Hellenistic Straton’s Tower the worshippers of Isis honored her as Hellas
(the personification of Greece) and Agathê (the good), the titles of the local Tyche.
Possibly, a large, later architectural complex, which sprawls over two terraces and
at the side of which was found a Roman marble statue of the Tyche of Caesarea
(see below), marks the location of this temple outside the walls of Straton’s Tower
(in Hellenistic Dor, as well, the large temple of Apollo/Asclepios, was discovered
outside its walls).

The Herodian City – From Herod to the Destruction of the
Second Temple (10 BCE–70 CE)

Herod king of Judea under Roman aegis (4–37 BCE) made Caesarea the
administrative capital of his large kingdom. The city was named after Caesar
Augustus, Herod’s patron, the first Roman emperor. Caesarea remained a capital
city afterwards, as well, when direct Roman rule was established in Judaea after the
banishment of Archelaus son of Herod in 6 CE and converting his holdings into
a Roman province ruled by governors. The Roman governor settled into Herod’s
palace, called “Herod’s praetorium” (Acts 23:35). King Agrippa I and his family
also lived there during his short reign (41–44). At first the Roman governor in
Caesarea was of an equestrian rank (with the title prefect). Later, after the brief
term of Agrippa I, his rank was procurator. Until the Great Revolt that resulted
in the destruction of the Second Temple, the governor of Judaea in Caesarea did
not have a legion at his command, but only auxiliaries from Samaria/Sebaste and
Caesarea, and he was subordinate to the Roman governor of the province of Syria,
of a senatorial rank, who commanded four legions. In 71, under Vespasian, Caesarea
became a Roman colony. In 66–70, the years of the Great Revolt, when Vespasian
and his son Titus commanded the Roman army in Judaea, no regular governors
were appointed. Afterward, the status of the province changed, and its governors
were of senatorial rank.

Herod’s Building Projects in Caesarea (Fig. 11)

“And when he <Herod> observed that there was a place near the sea, formerly called Strato’s Tower, which
was very well suited to be the site of a city, he set about making a magnificent plan and put buildings all
over the city, not of ordinary material but of white stone. He also adorned it with a very costly palace/
palaces, with civic halls and – what was greatest of all and required the most labour – with a well-
protected harbor, of the size of Piraeus …

In a circle round the harbor there was a continuous line of dwellings constructed of the most polished
stone, and in their midst was a mound on which there stood a temple of Caesar, visible a great way off to
those sailing into the harbor, which had a statue of Rome, and also one of a Caesar. The city itself is called