Caesarea Maritima is the city Herod the Great built from nothing on an exposed, harborless coast and turned into the grandest port in the eastern Mediterranean. For six centuries it served as the Roman capital of the province, the place where Peter baptized the first Gentile, where Paul was imprisoned for two years, and where the great church historians Origen and Eusebius worked. Today it is one of the most visited archaeological sites in Israel.
A City Built for Spectacle
Herod built Caesarea between 22 and 10 BCE and dedicated it to his patron Augustus Caesar. The city was designed as a showcase of Roman culture, with three entertainment venues that rivaled anything in the empire. The theater, seating approximately 4,000, was one of the oldest Roman theaters in the eastern Mediterranean, with performances set against the backdrop of the sea. The hippodrome, stretching 460 meters along the coast, seated 15,000–20,000 spectators for chariot races. And the amphitheater to the south hosted gladiatorial combat and animal hunts for crowds of 10,000 or more. It was in the theater that the famous Pilate Stone was discovered in 1961 — a limestone block bearing the inscription “Pontius Pilatus, Prefect of Judaea,” the only archaeological evidence of Pilate’s existence.
Herod’s Impossible Harbor
The coastline at Caesarea is straight and exposed — no natural bay, no shelter from storms. Herod created an entirely artificial harbor on the open sea, which he named Sebastos (Greek for Augustus). The historian Josephus compared it to Piraeus, the great port of Athens. Two massive breakwaters extended from the shore — the southern one approximately 600 meters long, the northern about 250 meters — enclosing roughly 40 acres of protected water. The engineering was revolutionary: the Romans used hydraulic concrete, a mixture of volcanic ash (pozzolana) imported from Puteoli near Naples, mixed with lime and aggregate, poured into wooden caissons that were floated into position and sunk. This concrete set and hardened underwater. Towers, warehouses, and a lighthouse modeled on the Pharos of Alexandria stood at the harbor entrance. Within two centuries, tectonic subsidence began pulling the harbor beneath the waves, where it remains today.
Birth of Gentile Christianity
Caesarea is where Christianity crossed its most important threshold. According to Acts 10, the Apostle Peter traveled from Joppa to Caesarea to visit Cornelius, a Roman centurion of the Italian Cohort and a “God-fearer” — a Gentile who worshipped the God of Israel but had not converted to Judaism. After a vision in which God told Peter “do not call anything impure that God has made clean” (Acts 10:15), Peter entered Cornelius’s house, preached, and the Holy Spirit fell upon the Gentile household. Peter baptized them — the first non-Jews to enter the Christian faith. This moment, which took place in Caesarea, opened the gates of the church to the entire world.
Caesarea was also where the Apostle Paul was imprisoned for two years in Herod’s Praetorium (Acts 23–26), appearing before governors Felix and Festus and delivering his famous defense before King Agrippa II before being sent to Rome for trial.
Caesarea in the 4th Century: Capital of Christian Learning
By the 4th century, Caesarea was a cosmopolitan city of approximately 50,000 inhabitants, the administrative capital of Roman Palestine, and one of the most important intellectual centers of early Christianity. Origen (c. 185–253 CE), the great theologian expelled from Alexandria, established a school and library in Caesarea containing an estimated 30,000 scrolls, and produced the Hexapla — a monumental six-column comparison of Old Testament texts. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260–339 CE), the “Father of Church History,” served as bishop here, wrote the first comprehensive history of the Christian church, delivered the opening address at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, and used Origen’s library to produce his Onomasticon, a geographical dictionary of biblical places that scholars still consult today.
Aqueducts
A city of 50,000 needed vast quantities of water. Two aqueducts supplied Caesarea: the High-Level Aqueduct, originally built by Herod and later repaired by Roman legions (inscriptions from the Legio X Fretensis and Legio VI Ferrata date repairs to Hadrian’s reign), brought water from springs on Mount Carmel about 13 kilometers away. Its dramatic stone arches running along the beach are the iconic image of Caesarea. A second parallel channel was added in the 2nd century CE, creating the double arcade visible today. The Low-Level Aqueduct carried water from the Crocodile River (Nahal Taninim) dam, supplementing the supply from a closer, lower source.
Crusader City
Caesarea was captured by the Crusaders in 1101 with the help of a Genoese fleet. According to Crusader legend, a green glass vessel found during the conquest was identified as the Holy Grail — the Sacro Catino, taken to Genoa, where it remains in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo. The fortifications visitors see today date primarily to King Louis IX of France, who rebuilt the walls, moat, and gatehouse in 1251–1252 during the Seventh Crusade. The walled Crusader city covers only about 13 acres — a fraction of the Roman-era city. The Mamluks under Sultan Baibars conquered Caesarea in 1265 and systematically dismantled the fortifications.
What’s Under the Waves
The Caesarea Underwater Archaeological Park, one of the first in the world, allows divers and snorkelers to explore the submerged remains of Herod’s harbor. Marked underwater trails with waterproof explanatory signs lead visitors past massive concrete breakwater blocks, ancient anchors, shipwrecks from multiple periods, warehouse foundations, and architectural fragments that tumbled into the sea over centuries. The harbor ruins lie 5–8 meters underwater, preserved by the same sea that swallowed them.
The
One of the finest Byzantine mosaic floors in Israel was found in a large 6th–7th century villa in the northern residential quarter. The polychrome mosaic, covering approximately 14 by 16 meters, depicts dozens of bird species — peacocks, doves, eagles, flamingos, parrots, ducks — set in a paradisiacal garden of fruit and flowers. Greek dedicatory inscriptions frame the panels. The mosaic is housed in a dedicated pavilion within the national park.
Caesarea Today
Modern Caesarea is unique in Israel — the only community managed by a private organization, the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation. A small, affluent residential community of roughly 5,000 residents, it is also home to Israel’s only 18-hole golf course and the Ralli Museum of Latin American art. The national park draws over 500,000 visitors annually, and the restored Roman theater hosts concerts and performances against the same Mediterranean backdrop that Herod’s audiences enjoyed two thousand years ago.
Visit with Hoshen Tours
Caesarea is where the ambition of Herod, the spread of Christianity, the scholarship of the church fathers, and the drama of the Crusades all converge in a single archaeological park on the sea. Hoshen Tours visits the theater, the harbor, the Crusader city, the aqueduct, and the Bird Mosaic, telling two thousand years of history with the Mediterranean as the backdrop.