Herod named the new city in honor of Caesar Augustus, and in 6 AD Caesarea (also known as Caesarea Mar-itima) became the capital of the Roman province of Judea. It remained the seat of Roman power in the area until the downfall of the empire. It was the Roman prefect of Caesarea from 26 to 36 AD, Pontius Pilate, who ordered the crucifixion of Jesus. The first evidence of Pilate’s existence outside the accounts of the Gospels and the historian Josephus was found here in 1961.

In 66 AD, a riot between Jews and Romans in Caesarea sparked the six-year Jewish Rebellion, which ended in the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. When the Romans finally squelched the rebellion in 70 AD (except for the holdouts at Masada), they celebrated by sacrificing thousands of Jews in Caesarea’s amphitheater. Sixty years later, a second Jewish uprising, the Bar Kokhba Revolt, was also brought to a bitter end. This time the Romans were more selective-10 Jewish sages, among them the famous Rabbi Akiva, were tortured to death in the arena.