OneJerusalem.com

Went by the old city of Caesarea the other day. It was very windy and clear. Not too many people around and a great time for a few shots. I saw this sign when entering the old city:

On the site of what was once a Phoenician town, Strato’s Tower, King Herod (37-4 BCE) built a resplendent city and named it Caesarea in Honor of his patron, Augustus Caesar. Its inhabitants – Romans, Samaritans, and Jews – enjoyed the pleasures of the Roman world: Water in plentiful supply, bathhouses, and places of entertainment.
In 6 CE Caesarea became the seat of the Roman governors, the status of the city’s Jews deteriorated, and in 66 CE they rebelled against the Romans. When Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE, Caesarea became the Roman provincial capital of Judea.

The city reached the height of its prosperity in the Byzantine period (fourth to sixth centuries CE). It retained its status as an important center of Christian scholarship and its harbor became the gateway to the Holy Land for thousands of pilgrims. The Jewish community grew, and religious academies, where famous sages taught, were founded in the city.

After the Moslems conquered the land in the seventh century, Caesarea’s status diminished. In 1101, the Crusaders captured the town. Eighty-six years later, Saladin
conquered it and destroyed its walls. The present fortifications were built in 1251 by the French King Louis IX.

Following the Mameluke conquest in 1265, the city was abandoned. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman authorities settled a group of Bosnian Moslem refugees there.

The remains of ancient Caesarea attest to the city’s illustrious past