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The Romans had strong interests in the eastern Mediterranean
seaboard. They needed it as a buffer against Parthia, their main enemy in the
East (based where Iran is today). They had to protect the land and sea routes
between Rome and Egypt, for the latter supplied grain to the Empire. (There were
times when an emperor's survival, Nero's, for example, depended on his ability
to provide free grain.) In addition, this coast was a station for the transport
of spices from Arabia Felix ("Happy Arabia": Yemen today). These spices fetched
an enormous profit in the
Roman world. Why? - The upper classes liked to eat red meat. Lacking
refrigeration, either you would eat the entire beast immediately at a feast
where the extended family gathered, or you would salt it. The cooks of Rome used
the spices of Arabia to bring flavor back to salted meat. Salt itself was
valuable – we get the word "salary" from its root. (And a worker's "worth his
salt.")
In addition, there were the perfumes, especially the balsam
manufactured at Jericho and Ein Gedi.) Harbors on this coast,
then, were important to the Romans. Yet south of the Acco-Haifa bay, natural
harbors are few. (See the map below.) Of these, the only well-sheltered example
was Dor. Some 45 miles further south lay Jaffa, but bad weather could make its
entrance extremely dangerous.
Between Dor and Jaffa, at a Phoenician town called Strato's
Tower, Herod, later called "the Great", took a not-very-promising inlet and
transformed it into a harbor.
Why did he choose this spot? Dor was out of the question: the
city lay beyond his realm. Jaffa was largely Jewish. He wanted a free,
untroubled hand to build in the Roman style. This he could do at Strato's Tower,
which Augustus, had given him in 28 BC. Here, then, Herod constructed one of the
biggest harbors in the world (and the first to be built without benefit of
natural breakwaters). The work took thirteen years. He named it "Sebastos,"
which is Greek for "Augustus." As an adjunct, he superseded Strato's Tower with
a new city, Caesarea. It was the land's first major urban center to be
distinctly Roman in plan and architecture. (More about the harbor)
To grasp the significance of Sebastos, we need to step back
forty years from the time when Herod started building it. Another "Great,"
Pompey, had taken the land for Rome in 63 BC, ending a century of Jewish
sovereignty . The Romans organized the northern part of the King's Highway into
a league of ten cities called the Decapolis, The cities on the Great Trunk Road
came under direct Roman rule. The roads formed a kind of pincers, by which Rome
could rule the country.
The Roman hold must have been strengthened, however, after
Herod built his harbor, Sebastos.
Sebastos was connected by relatively easy roads to the
highland city of Sebastia, which Herod had rebuilt on the ruins of a Hellenistic
city. (The latter had stood, in turn, on the ruins of Ahab's capital, Samaria.)
The combination Sebastos-Sebastia formed a pagan dagger thrust from the coast
into the heart of the country. Around this "dagger," in the hitherto sparsely
inhabited Sharon Plain, arose 93 Roman settlements, each near a Roman road
(Levine, p. 6 n. 10).
Imagine you're a Roman sailor coming in through the harbor
gate. You've got Augustus in Rome behind you. But here is Augustus-Sebastos
embracing you. Before and above you is his temple, related to the breakwaters as
head to arms. (These form a unit on a slightly different axis from the rest of
the city.) The pillars of the temple are thirty feet high. Inside is the
emperor's statue, modeled on the famous "Zeus" by Phidias. Up in the hills, an
easy journey, is yet another temple to him in Sebastia.
Augustus! Augustus! Augustus!
With the harbor at Caesarea, Herod effectively joined his
realm to the Roman domain, at the same time establishing for the Romans a
bridgehead to the East. Here we have the beginning of a pattern which repeats
itself through later history. (Whenever the dominant power comes out of the
West, the coastal region develops at the expense of the inner highlands. We see
this with the Romans and the Crusaders: the second Crusader kingdom was confined
to the coast. It is also the case at present: the descendants of the ancient
Israelites (who came from the East), namely, the Jews coming in from the West in
the twentieth century, currently dominate the land. They live mostly in the
coastal plain that their ancestors avoided.)
Little remains upon Herod's platform today. (The chief reason
to stand here is to sight the remains of the harbor beneath the sea and
reconstruct it in imagination.) There are the foundations of the temple, the
Augusteum, along with those of the octagonal Byzantine Church that replaced it.
Just south of these stand the walls of a Crusader chapel. One can find shade
here and remember some of the immense Christian history at Caesarea.
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(r),
(c) Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The
Lockman Foundation. (www.Lockman.org)
© 2003 Near East Tourist
Agency (NET)
Text © 2003 Stephen Langfur
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