Caesarea Harbor

Herod no doubt built this great harbor to satisfy a practical need, for there was no other sheltered anchorage along the route from Alexandria, in Egypt, to the ports of Syria and Asia Minor. Herod also expected to bring in a nice profit from harbor tolls and customs that would help finance his building schemes. Yet there was another element at work as well, as noted by Josephus. The historian appears to have recorded the exact language of Nicholas of Damascus, a contemporary of Herod and a member of the royal court—the minister of propaganda, in effect. Josephus (and Nicholas) wrote that Herod built the harbor in order to display “the innate greatness of his character” and because, in thrusting the massive breakwaters far out into the sea, the king displayed the ambition to “conquer nature herself.”

Excerpted from Kenneth G. Holum. “Building Power.” Biblical Archaeology Review 30, 5 (2004).