Page 29 - A Walk to Caesarea / Joseph Patrich

A Walk to Caesarea: A Historical-Archaeological Perspective 15

The celebrations included competitions in music (mousika), athletics (gymnika),
and horse and chariot races (hippika) – three elements typical of Greek-style games.
Additionally, the festivities included Roman-style
spectacles: wild animals attacking each other, fights
between individual gladiators (munera gladiatorum),
criminals condemned to death as prey for the
beasts, and staged animal hunts (venationes). The
spectacles and competitions were held in the
theater and the amphitheater; the receptions for
the various delegations and the meals apparently
took place in the courtyards and halls of the palace.
The winners of the Caesarea games taking first,
second, and third place were awarded valuable
prizes.

Religion and Cult Fig. 16

The cult of the ruling emperor was marked each The Pilate stone. A Latin
year in the temple overlooking the harbor and inscription mentioning
the entire city and by a procession through the the name of the Roman
city’s streets. Chariot races, gladiatorial combats, procurator Pontius Pilate,
and hunting performances in the stadium were the Roman prefect who
an integral part of these celebrations. Another sentenced Jesus to crucifixion
occasion on which spectacles of this type were
held in Caesarea, as in other cities, was the dies
imperii (the anniversary of the emperor’s accession)
in honor of the ruling emperor, held annually on
the 20th of November. Herod erected a number of
temples in the city, and he set up cultic statues in it as well. In the Pilate Stone (Fig.
16), found in secondary use in the Roman theater, a tiberieum is mentioned, a shrine
or altar constructed in honor of the emperor Tiberius (another suggestion is that the
reference is to a lighthouse named for Tiberius). It was located, presumably, near the
theater. Two fine, short walls that delimit two steps, a few meters wide, at the western
end of the rounded plaza behind the theater are, perhaps, remnants of this altar.

Municipal Administration

The affairs of the polis Caesarea were administered by a city council (boule). The
celebrated philosopher Apollonius of Tyana, in a letter to the city’s magistrates,
praises its size, rules, and Greek customs. The population of the Herodian city
included Jews, Gentiles (Greeks/Syrians in the terms of Josephus), and a few
Christians. The Jews lived in all parts of the city and not in a separate quarter; this