Caesarea Maritima Research Paper

The port-city of Caesarea Maritima and the harbor were built by Herod the Great between 25 and 13 BCE. This new city was built upon an already existing city named Strato’s Tower. Caesarea was the largest of King Herod’s building ventures and was named in honor of his patron, Caesar Augustus. The harbor itself was named Sebastos. Herod had hoped the city would became a center for trade in the Judea province. The new city had many public structures including a vast harbor. Some of these structures included temples to Caesar and Roma, an aqueduct, an amphitheater and forum. Herod paid homage to not only Rome but to his Jewish heritage by being able to merge both cultures in this one city. The ancient city sits between the current cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv in northern Israel. Caesarea’s harbor was the largest harbor constructed of its time and many new technologies were used in its construction. Caesarea Maritima has now become a national park where visitors can walk the runs as well as view the ruins of the harbor which lie in the shallow seas.

King Herod was an unpopular ruler and was hated by his subjects. One of the ways King Herod was able to continue to secure his rule was by creating new cities. These new cities would support his rule as well as serve the economy of the country but would not be depend on the other cities to survive. Many new cities were built under King Herod including Caesarea Maritima. The emphasis of this new city Herod was building was on the port. He had hopes of this new city becoming a trade center in the Judea Province, making this city even more important to his empire. During this time, Rome set an importance in the building of new Hellenistic cities and Herod saw himself as an extension of R...

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The Romans did not share Herod’s idea of Caesarea becoming a trade center. The harbor that was built for this reason became something unnecessary. Several excavations have been done over the years to understand the harbor. Researchers have endured the same issues faced by Herod’s builders. Much that would need to be excavated now has been turned into tourist attractions. The vastness of the harbor cannot be certain because of the inability to excavate the site, leaving researchers only the natural configuration of the coastline and the presence of ancient structures earlier excavated. Many of the technology used to create the harbor in Caesarea were sophisticated for the time. The concept to connect both the inner and outer basins of the harbor may have influenced other models after its construction including the Roman harbor at Ostia.