CAESAREA PHILIPPI, anciently a city (mod. Banias), at the southern end of the Hermon range where from a cave issues a source of the Jordan. It was the scene of a great battle in which Palestine was won from the Ptolemies by Antiochus (Polybius, xvi. 18). A village now occupies the site. North of it is the famous "Grotto of the spring," whose well was bottomless (Josephus, Bell. Jud. i. 21. 3), and the actions of whose indwell ing deity could be affected by casting into the waters a victim (Eusebius, vi. 18). Baal worship was no doubt practised here in early times and its identification with The Baal God of Joshua or the Baal Hermon of I Chronicles is not improbable. Baal gave way to Grecian "Pan and the Nymphs" (inscription in the grotto). The name Paneas (whence Banias) was applied to the whole district. Augustus presented the region to Herod who erected a temple to his benefactor and set therein the emperor's image. Philip the Tetrarch enlarged and embellished the town, naming it Caesarea after Augustus and adding Philippi to dis tinguish it from the Caesarea (Palestinae) of his father. Agrippa II. to honour Nero changed the name to Neronias, but the name did not endure. Jesus visited the neighbourhood and gave here the great charge to Peter (Mark viii. 27). Here Vespasian refreshed his army with a three weeks' rest before his advance into Galilee. Here, too, Titus after the downfall of Jerusalem held gladiatorial contests on a large scale.
In the 4th cent. Caesarea was erected into an episcopal see. It was taken by the crusaders (1129), the emir of Damascus (1132), and the emir of Aleppo (113 7) in a three-cornered con test. It was burned by the Syrians (1157). Some broken columns and carved stones, parts of the old walls and citadel, traces of an aqueduct and some niches in the rock beside the spring are the sole reminders of a vanished glory. A fine mediaeval fortress, dismantled in the 13th cent., stands on a lofty conical hill above the spring.