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
Cæsarea was considered, after the fall of Jerusalem, to be the capital
of Palestine. Sometimes it was spoken of as part of the “land” by the
Jews, sometimes it was excluded. Jews, Syrians, and Samaritans dwelt in
it, and the place was the scene of many bloody feuds between them. In
the Talmud the port (Leminah), and the famous promenade along the mole
are noticed, but I find no ancient account of the great aqueducts which
brought water to the city, otherwise supplied only by a single well. One
of these is carried from springs on the Carmel hills, a distance of
eight miles, on arches with a double channel, and is perhaps the finest
engineering work in the country, evidently of Roman origin; the second,
or low level, brings water from the pool above the dam in the Crocodile
River. The manner in which the rocky ridge along the coast is pierced,
and long rock-staircases cut down to the tunnel, with the separation of
the two channels when crossing the great marshes, are indications of
high scientific education in the builders. The native tradition says
that the two aqueducts were made, by two daughters of a king, for a
wager as to who should first convey water to the capital.
The history of Cæsarea is one of many vicissitudes. It became a
bishopric in 200 A.D., and was the home of Origen and of Eusebius. The
Franks took it in 1001, when the green glass dish, called “the Holy
Grail,” was found by the Genoese. Saladin conquered it in the fatal year
1187; but its walls were again erected by Gautier d’Avesnes, in 1218,
and the place was taken back by the Moslems the same year. Ten years
later it was again taken, and again fell. In 1251 it was re-fortified by
St. Louis; but the invincible Bibars destroyed it in 1265. The
restorations of St. Louis are still plainly distinguishable from the
older work of Gautier.
On the south side of the town the Crusading towers project into the sea
along the great mole, and stand probably on the site of Herod’s tower
Drusus. On the north the pillars of the Roman town have been used up to
form a long jetty, running parallel with the reefs; and other shafts
have, as at Ascalon, been built into the walls. On the top of the
southern hill, within the Crusading walls, are the foundations of the
fine cathedral, and to the north is a second smaller church. These are
the only public buildings which remain distinguishable, and the whole
extent, within the Roman enceinte, is now but a mass of fallen masonry,
excepting the dark, dismantled towers and scarps of the
thirteenth-century fortress, and the shapeless tower on the mole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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