Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and AdventureConder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
History
Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure
Conder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
Palestine -- Description and travel
Here at Cæsarea we have a description of the port and public buildings
which contains undoubted inaccuracies. He represents the port as equal
in size to the Piræus, but it measures scarcely two hundred yards across
either way, whilst the famous harbour of Athens was three quarters of a
mile long and over six hundred yards in breadth. Josephus also speaks of
the mole on the south side of the harbour as being “two hundred feet.”
This can hardly mean in length, for the present measure is more than a
hundred and thirty yards, and, if he means in breadth, the estimate is
exaggerated, for the greatest width at present is eighty-five feet.
Thus, without taking any notice of the great length given for the stones
sunk to form part of the breakwater, we find that Josephus estimates the
harbour as equal to one of twenty times its capacity, and the mole at
over double its real width. It must indeed be remembered that he wrote
neither at Cæsarea nor at Piræus, and that exact surveys had then no
existence. Yet this case is sufficient to prove that the measurements
twice given (Ant. xv. 9, B.J. i. 21) are unreliable, and the
descriptions exaggerated.
In shape the port of Cæsarea was not unlike the Piræus. The southern
mole was adorned with towers, and had three colossi at the end,
supported on two huge blocks of stone; on the north side a reef ran out,
and was also adorned with three colossi on a tower. A temple of white
stone stood opposite the mouth of the port, and of this the foundations
appear still to exist--a wall with niches for statues, well worthy of
examination as being of white stones, whilst all the other buildings are
of brown-coloured masonry. In this temple were colossal statues of Cæsar
and of Rome.
An amphitheatre, still remaining, was also built, to the south by the
sea, capable of holding, as Josephus says, a vast number, for its
diameter is 560 feet, and it could contain 20,000 persons. The theatre
appears to have been within its circuit, where it still remains, but the
hippodrome, over 1000 feet long, seems unnoticed by the historian. It is
to the east, and in it are the remains of a goal post of granite, a
magnificent truncated cone seven feet six inches high, once standing
apparently on a base, a single block of red granite thirty-four feet
long. How such blocks were moved it is difficult to imagine; nor was the
material to be obtained in Palestine, being a fine kind of granite, so
hard that the peasantry endeavouring to cut the stele into millstones,
have only penetrated a few inches into the stone.
The wall of the Roman town was traced, and found to embrace an area of
four hundred acres; but Crusading Cæsarea was much smaller, being only
about thirty acres, within a rectangle of six hundred yards by two
hundred and fifty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account