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In his description of Caesarea Maritima, Flavius Josephus mentions a theater and amphitheater. With several restorations through the years, the theater, as it commands a view of the sea, is still used today. About 1 kilometer south of Herod's harbor, its location is immediately south of Herod’s Palace and was connected to it. Built of local limestone, it could hold approximately 3,500-4,000 spectators.
One of the most remarkable builds of the ancient world, the metropolis of Caesarea Maritima was literally built from the ground up. In the latter years of the 1st century BCE, as a port city, it served Rome’s purpose in extending its military and commercial presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. As Rome’s client king and point man in the East, Herod the Great accomplished this feat by constructing a whole city, complete with a temple, palaces, amphitheater, theater, paved streets, waterworks, and, fundamental to the city’s purpose, Herod's harbor.
Digital Reconstruction of Caesarea Maritima: A Gallery of 11 Images
Caesarea Maritima was a bustling trading hub of the Eastern Mediterranean. Built on earlier ruins, the new metropolis was commissioned by Herod the Great (reign 37-4 BCE), and it became one of the most important trade centers of the day due to its colossal harbor. Herod's harbor was a fortress at sea which both facilitated trade in the Roman Empire and served a military purpose. Besides the harbor, the city had a temple, palaces, an amphitheater, a theater, paved streets, and waterworks.
This gallery features digital reconstructions created as a collaboration of Lithodomos and Patrick Scott Smith, based on archaeological reports and comparative analysis of known Roman construction techniques, Josephus' eyewitness descriptions, and Herodian fortification work at Jerusalem and Masada.
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⇒ Digital Reconstruction of Caesarea Maritima: A Gallery of 11 Images
As the city of Caesarea Maritima was built on an east-west axis, with the temple in between the city and Herod's harbor, the magnificent Cardo Maximus set the tone for those getting to their desired destinations. A wide street impressively lined with columns on both sides, pedestrians were able to walk in the shade of luxurious colonnaded sidewalks paved with mosaics.
As Caesarea Maritima was a center of sporting events in the Mediterranean world, Herod the Great assigned this building to host games every five years, which likely included wrestling, boxing matches, gymnastic events, and possibly gladiatorial spectacles. As was common practice among the Romans, using the Capua amphitheater in Italy as a plausible parallel, this stadium was likely located outside the main gate of the Cardo Maximus at its southern end, where the greatest amount of commercial traffic from the East arrived at the city. To give an idea of the possible scale of the amphitheater by way of a parallel, the amphitheater at Capua had an axis of 170 meters (560 ft) and a total façade height of 46 meters (151 ft).
Home to one of the most popular ancient sports, chariot racing, the hippodrome at Caesarea Maritima was one of the main structures in the city. Dating to the 2nd century CE, it is located along the coast south of the theater. Its perimeter, with a U-shape, reaches a length of 265 meters (869 ft) along the north-south axis.
Among the many buildings and palaces that were built by Herod the Great throughout the city of Caesarea Maritima, perhaps reflecting his own grandiosity, the largest and most splendid palace would have been Herod's. On an east/west rectangular plan, this magnificent structure was perched on a lone promontory on the sea. As excavations reveal, built with two adjacent levels, known as the upper and lower palaces, the lower 80 x 55 meter (260 x 180 ft) structure, closest to the sea, boasted a semicircular colonnaded porch that looked out onto the water. From there, walking back into the building, perimeter rooms would have accessed an inner colonnaded courtyard, the space which was largely filled with a 35 x 18 meter (115 x 60 ft) freshwater pool. With a stairway leading up to it, the Upper Palace was dominated by a large 64 x 42 meter (210 x 138 foot) colonnaded courtyard.
As part of Herod the Great's building program, as Herod's Harbor housed 40 acres of water, with its circular configuration, to deflect extreme north-bound waves, along with the lighthouse and outsized tower at the entrance, two free-standing edifices, also at the entrance, indicate their deflective purpose, to further calm the water for the manageable passage of ships. Using archaeological reports...
