Caesarea: dream city of the New Testament

A visit to the Holy Land can bring biblical history alive. David Down tells of his first visit to one important New Testament site that tells a lot about the times.

Caesarea Maritama, 100 km north-west of Tel Aviv, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, is a must-see for any visitor to the Holy Land. Deserted since 1265 AD when the Muslim warrior Sultan Baybars I captured it from the Crusaders and destroyed it, today it is an Israeli national park. Shops and snack bars cater for tourists who wander the beachfront ruins. And recent excavations have breathed life back into this ancient port city, opening the theatre, Hippodrome, an aqueduct, and the site of King Herod’s palace to the curious.

The harbour of Caesarea is described by underwater archaeologists who’ve explored it as a “20th-century wonder built 2000 years ago.” It had been captured by Pompey in 63 BC, then given to Cleopatra by Marc Antony. It was the most important harbour in Judea in New Testament times, and the centre of much activity, as recorded in the book of Acts. Paul is recorded as having passed through the city on three occasions. At that time it was still a new city, virtually constructed out of the sand on the site of Strato’s Tower.

There are no natural harbours anywhere along the eastern Mediterranean seaboard, so Herod the Great expanded it, making an artificial harbour in 9 BC. To offer docks protected from the prevailing south-west current, he first built a 60-metre breakwater to the south, upon which were constructed massive vaulted warehouses. A little further to the north he then built a 300-metre semicircular basin protected by a seawall, into deep water. The massive walls were built of what we would call concrete.

Cement would normally dissipate when plunged into water, so Herod’s engineers had huge wooden frames made and lowered into the water. Then lime plaster mixed with a special scoria brought from Italy was piped into the frames; it set before it could wash away.

Nearer the shore on the south side, the wall was only the height of the sea so that at high tide waves broke over the top. This resulted in a tidal flow of water out the harbour entrance, which dredged it, along with a flushing of the city’s underground sewer. It was the most important harbour in Judea in New Testament times.

I first visited Caesarea in 1958. I’d travelled from India by car, towing a caravan, and arrived at Caesarea after dark. I parked the caravan beside the road and slept until morning. When I stepped out of the caravan in the daylight, I was surprised to see I’d camped right beside the theatre. At that time it was unexcavated and almost completely buried, but I could see from the typical semicircular outline what it was.
The following year a team of Italian archaeologists began the excavation, a task that took four years to complete. In the process, they made a significant discovery. It was a slab of stone on which is the inscription (translated): “Tiberium which Pontius Pilate the Prefect of Judea dedicated.”

This was an important discovery, for it was the first time the name of Pilate, the Roman Prefect who had officiated at the trial of Jesus Christ, had ever been found in the archaeological record.

It was in this theatre that the grandson of Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa I, appeared in his dazzling royal robes and made a political speech. The crowd applauded loudly and shouted, “The voice of a god and not of a man!” (Acts 12:22, NKJV). Herod was duly flattered by the acclamation and did nothing to deny his deification, but “immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died” (verse 23).

The Jewish historian Josephus also reported this incident saying, “Agrippa did not reject this adulation, which dangerously approached idolatry, nor did he admonish his flatterers for their explicit impiety. Hence God punished him with a sharp pain in his belly, from which he died in agony five days later” (Jewish Antiquities 19:343-51).

This led Kenneth Holum, writing in Biblical Archaeologist Review, to say: “That the same event is told in two independent and near-contemporary texts increases our confidence that the event actually occurred” (September 2004, page 38).

Just to the west of the theatre, a rocky ledge juts into the sea. Herod chose this to build a luxurious palace, in the centre of which was a swimming pool. This palace complex included an administrative building where prisoners were tried. It would have been here that the apostle Paul appeared before Herod Agrippa II, who listened to Paul’s defence and exclaimed, “You almost persuade me to become a Christian” (Acts 26:28, NKJV).

The aqueduct that brought water into Caesarea was also a remarkable accomplishment. It tapped a spring on Mount Carmel, some 20 kilometres to the northeast, and brought it through a series of tunnels and above-ground channels into the city.

Along the waterfront between the theatre and the harbour was a 300-metre-long, U-shaped stadium for chariot races and athletic events. Spectators could be seated on rows of seats on the east side of the stadium and could watch the events, with the sparkling blue waters of the Mediterranean as a backdrop. It would be hard to imagine a more dazzling situation for a Roman stadium.

Some 500 metres to the east is the hippodrome, the site of horseracing. It was half a kilometre in length and capable of seating up to 30,000 spectators. In the centre of the hippodrome is a large granite obelisk from Egypt. This was unearthed and re-erected as recently as 2001. It had broken into three separate pieces, which have been joined together and stands on a base made for it.

Herod was actually an Edomite, but professed the Jewish religion. He recognised the might of Rome and pandered to Augustus Caesar for support. Politically his policies worked, but soon after, enjoying a hedonist existence, he died an agonising death. Was it worth it? Eternity alone will judge that, for the answer lies in the question posed by Jesus in Mark 8:36: “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”