Caesarea is located today half way between Tel Aviv and Haifa on
Israel's Mediterranean coast. It was here that Herod the Great
built the city of Caesarea Maritima with Sebastos, its huge
harbour complex. Although Herod chose the then ruinous town of
Straton's Tower as the nucleus for his new city and port, it had
no natural features that made it suited to the formation of a
large harbour, a fact vividly recorded by Flavius Josephus
(Jewish War, 1930: 410-414; Jewish Antiquities 1930:
331-342)(Josephus' Description ). He noted the absence of any
suitable anchorage along the coastline of the region from Dor to
Jaffa, and how even in mild weather conditions the sea was
always rough. The problems associated with the site did not
impede Herod or his engineers and he created an almost entirely
'man-made' harbour using mostly imported skills, material, and
probably labour, within an incredibly short time. There can be
little doubt that Roman specialists were called in to assist
Herod on this project, for in order t