Caesarea

On the site of a small anchorage named Strato’s Tower, Herod the Great built this city (Kay-SAHR-ya in Hebrew) for his emperor in Rome at the end of the first century BC. The extensive remains include a Roman theater, Byzantine mosaics, aqueducts, a Crusader city, and a 2000-year old harbor with sophisticated engineering rivaling that of any modern Israeli port. Caesarea deserves a visit despite its infrequent bus service; the ruins of the ancient city constitute one of Israel’s finest arche-oiogical sites. Though the ruins are not yet ruined, a dozen tacky cafes and gift shops, a beach club, a diving center, and even a disco have already been built among them, under the auspices of the ominously named Caesarea Development Corporation,

Phoenician travelers of the 4th century BC first established a small settlement and harbor called Strato’s Tower on the main trading route between Phoenicia and Egypt. The settlement, along with the rest of the coastal strip, eventually fell into the hands of Caesar Augustus, who granted it to Herod the Great, governor of Judea. Because of its choice location and access to the harbor, Herod turned Strato’s Tower into one of the great cities of the eastern Roman Empire. Construction began in 22 BC, and only 12 years later Strato’s Tower was a splendid Roman city boasting a theater, a hippodrome, a rhinodome, aqueducts carrying fresh water from the north, and a harbor capable of accommodating 300 ships.