CAESAREA PALESTINAE, a seaport south of Carmel (mod. Kaisariyeh) , built (25-13 B.C.) by Herod the Great as port of his capital Sebaste (Samaria) on a Phoenician site known to the ancients as Straton's (Astarte?) Tower. The site with its richly architectured structures (palaces, temple, amphitheatre, hippodrome, aqueducts) is described by Josephus (Antiq. xv. 9.6.) . The harbour "free always from the waves of the sea" was constructed by reinforcing with vast stone blocks two reefs which stretched seawards. A quay encircled the whole harbour on which were arches "where the mariners dwelt." The harbour had a name and fame distinct from the town which, indeed, it partly over shadowed. Caesarea witnessed important events in the lives of Peter, Philip and Paul. It saw the first incidents in the great revolt of the Jews against the Romans (66 A.D.). There Vespa sian was proclaimed emperor (69 A.D.) . Under Alexander Severus it became the metropolis of Syria and its bishop in consequence the Metropolitan, an office which Eusebius held from 315 to 318. There Procopius was born and there Origen made his home. When the Moslems occupied it in 638 its sea power faded and it rapidly shrank in size and importance. Under the Crusaders it partially revived. They rebuilt and walled a part (about of the Roman city adjacent to the harbour to serve as a citadel. It was taken in 11O1 by Baldwin I., on which occasion the "Holy Grail" was discovered, by Saladin (1187), by Richard I. (I 191) . Louis IX. strengthened its fortifications (1 251) and it was finally demolished by Beibars (1265). Stones from the ruins were trans ported to Acre and Jaffa for building purposes during the 19th century. Turkey transferred thither a small Bosnian community in 1878. Anchorage (io fathoms) is possible in summer m. from the shore. At Tell Barak, 6 m. inland, two 2nd century sarcophagi, finely sculptured, were discovered in 1924. They are now in the Jerusalem Museum. See L. Haefeli, Caesarea am Meer. Topographie and Gesch chte der Stadt neck Josephus and Apostel gescliichte