Caesarea Maritima: Its Strategic and Political Significance to Rome

Abstract

JOSEPHUS is only ancient writer to describe founding of Caesarea Maritima. Others remark about its renown as a trading station' and its importance in Palestine excelling all others in size and in laws,2 but they report Caesarea 200 years after its establishment. Josephus extols Caesarea's harbor, subterranean vaults, theatre, and amphitheatre,3 and mourns plight of Jews there at outbreak of war with Rome,4 but he leaves us wondering why such a grand city should be built as companion to a port whose only purpose was . . a haven, that was always free from waves of sea.5 Josephus seems pleased that Caesarea was as large as Pyraeum of Athens and so vastly superior to older ports of Joppa and Dor. They suffered from the impetuous south winds that beat upon them, which rolling sands that come from sea against shores, do not admit of ships lying in their station.6 Caesarea's engineers, however, effectively overcame these hazards to shipping. Port Caesarea was built on site of a shipping station of uncertain age called Strato's Tower whose merchants or civic leaders were in league with Ptolemais, Dor, and Gaza. Zoilus was tyrant of Strato's Tower when it was a free city during rule of Judea by Alexander Janneus (104-78 B.c.),7 but Strabo knew Strato's Tower as a mere anchorage on coastal run between Phoenicia and Egypt.8 Its existence certainly goes back to Hellenistic Age, and its name suggests that it was founded and supported by kings of Sidon who in fourth century were named Strato. On other hand, as suggested by A. H. M. Jones, this be a hellenization of Migdol Astart, just as personal name Strato represents Abd Astart.9 One may find mention of region in name Ashtartu in Amarna letters (no. 256), but its absence from records between thirteenth and fourth centuries B.C. is hard to explain.'0 Pompey may have known more about importance in earlier ages of Strato's Tower than did Josephus or Strabo because he re-established it when he took cities out of hands of Hasmoneans in order to reduce their economic power. Reduction of power in one quarter meant concentrating it elsewhere, and Roman sensitivity to sources of power was as keen in Pompey as in his successors who later controlled Rome's eastern frontier. It is likely that Strato's Tower was a large