Caesarea was originally called Straton's Tower after its founder Straton (Abd-Ashtart), who was probably a ruler of Sidon in the 4th century B.C.E. (Jos., Ant., 13:395). The city is first mentioned in 259 B.C.E. by Zeno, an official of Ptolemy II, as a harbor where he disembarked on his way to Jerusalem. During the dissolution of the Seleucid kingdom it fell into the hands of a tyrant called Zoilus. In 96 B.C.E. Alexander Yannai captured the city and it remained part of the Hasmonean kingdom until its restoration as an autonomous city by Pompey; it was rebuilt by Gabinius in 63 B.C.E. (Ant., 13:324ff., 395). After being for some time in the possession of Cleopatra, it was returned by Augustus to Herod (Ant., 15:215ff.), who greatly enlarged the city and renamed it Caesarea in honor of the emperor. Herod surrounded it with a wall and built a deep sea harbor (called Sebastos, i.e., Augustus in Greek); the new city was officially inaugurated in about 13 B.C.E. The population of Caesarea was half gentile and half Jewish and the divergent claims of the two groups to citizenship and municipal rights led to frequent disputes (Ant., 20:173ff.; Wars, 2:266ff.; 284ff.). After Herod's death (4 B.C.E.) Caesarea fell to his son Archelaus, but after his banishment to Gaul in 6 C.E. it became the seat of the Roman procurators of Judea. Except for the brief reign of Agrippa I (41–44), who died in Caesarea (Acts 12:19–23), the city remained the capital of Roman and Byzantine Palestine. The clashes between Jewish and gentile communities finally sparked the Jewish war against Rome in 66 C.E. During the war Vespasian made Caesarea his headquarters and when he became emperor he raised it to the rank of a Roman colony – Colonia Prima Flavia Caesarea. The city prospered in the first and early second centuries but the harbor began to fill with sand in the late second century.

Caesarea was one of the first gentile cities visited by the apostles Peter and Paul (Acts 10:1, 24; 11:11; 21:8); Paul was imprisoned there before being sent to Rome (Acts 23:23ff.). During the Bar Kokhba War (132–135) the city was the headquarters of the Roman commander Julius Severus, and after the fall of Bethar several prominent Jewish leaders, including R. Akiva, were martyred there. In the third century Caesarea was a center of Christian learning; its celebrated scholars included Origen and later Eusebius, archbishop of Caesarea. Although it was the capital of Roman Palestine, Jewish life flourished there from the third century onward. The Talmud mentions judges or rabbis who lived in Caesarea, particularly R. Abba, R. Adda, R. Ḥanina, R. Assi, R. Hosheya, R. Hezekiah, and R. Ahava b. Zeira (Er. 76b; TJ, Shab. passim). R. Abbahu, the most important local leader, represented the Jewish community before the Roman governor (Ket. 17a, et al.). The Talmud also refers to the synagogue of Caesarea (Kenishta Maradta – possibly the "Synagogue of the Revolt," TJ, Ber. 3:1, 6a, et al.); it was situated near the harbor and prayers were said there in Greek (Alunistin; "Hellenic"; TJ, Sot. 7:1, 21b). Caesarea contained a large number of Samaritans who were recruited for the city guard (TJ, Av. Zar. 1:2, 39c). The city reached its greatest extent in Byzantine times when it was surrounded by a semicircular wall; it was then served by two aqueducts, one from Naḥal Tanninim and the other from the mountains near today's Zikhron Ya'akov. In the late Byzantine period Caesarea was the capital of the province of Palaestina Prima. It was the last Palestinian city to fall to the Muslims in 640. According to Arabic sources the Jewish inhabitants of Caesarea showed the conquerors a way into the fortress. In 1265 Caesarea fell to Baybars, and the Mamluks systematically destroyed the city, which remained in ruins – serving as a quarry for the pashas of Acre – until 1884, when it was resettled by Muslim refugees from Bosnia who lived there for a short time, and whose place was taken by Arabs. A few remains of Straton's Tower have been found north of the CrusaderPage 334 city. The Herodian city is represented by the remains of a harbor (moles and vaulted magazines), one vault possibly serving as foundation of the Temple of Augustus, and the remains of a wall with round towers. The Roman and Byzantine cities (although mostly still buried under 12 feet (4 m.) of sand) are also amply represented by a city wall, hippodrome, theater, and a paved square, with staircase and mosaics, where Roman statues were set up, in secondary use in Byzantine times. The foundations of a cathedral and of another church outside the wall, paved with fine mosaics depicting beasts and birds, as well as the remains of a synagogue, have been uncovered near the harbor at its northern end. From the Crusader period, the wall of Louis IX, with its sloping fosse, gateways, and towers, has been cleared and partly restored. Many remains of sculpture (including a very large porphyry statue) and hundreds of inscriptions (among them the first epigraphic mention of Pontius Pilate and of Nazareth) have been found in this site. Caesarea's exploration has been undertaken by the Israel Department of Antiquities, the Hebrew University, the Instituto Lombardo of Milan, the Link Underwater Expedition, and the Israel Department for the Preservation of Antiquities and Landscape. The full investigation of the huge site has, however, hardly begun.