¹ Millar, F., The Roman Near East 31 BC-AD 337 (Cambridge, MA 1993) 31Google Scholar speaks of a Certain ‘fluency and changeableness’ in the structures of power in the Near East following Actium. He also suggest that following Actium Rome had little more than a ‘bridgehead’ in this area, namely the province of Syria. Octavian had more to do to guarantee Rome's effective political control of this crucial area than simply assert his authority over areas that had been loyal to Antony. His policies evolved as transient circumstances and opportunities dictated and as his own understanding of the complexities of the politics of the region deepened.

² Millar's account of the meeting between Octavian and Herod, Roman Near East (n.l) 30-2, follows Schürer, E., History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BC-AD 135) I, ed. Vernes, G. and Millar, F. (Edinburgh 1973) 289Google Scholar. Both accounts are based on Josephus. The relevant passages are cited in my text.

³ Hohlfelder, R.L., ‘Beyond Coincidence? Marcus Agrippa and King Herod’ JNES 59 (2000) 242Google Scholar. Braund, D., Rome and the Friendly Kings, The Character of the Client Kingship (London 1984) 75Google Scholar, comments that any removal of client kings in the east following Actium would only have risked ‘major disruption within their various kingdoms’ and possibly destabilised the entire region. Octavian's most immediate need was to assure stability in a moment of considerable uncertainty.

⁴ Joseph, . BJ 1.396–7Google Scholar; AJ 15.217Google Scholar: Josephus also notes that more territory was awarded to Herod c. 23 B.C. One can only wonder at the timing of this grant and its possible relationship to the commencement of the building of Caesarea and Sebastos. Josephus also states that this additional grant of land enhanced the king's distinction even more. (Joseph, . BJ 1.398Google Scholar).

⁵ Raban, A., Two Harbours for Two Entities?,’ in Vann, R.L. (ed.) Caesarea Papers: Straton's Tower, Herod's Harbour, and Roman and Byzantine Caesarea (Ann Arbor, 1992)Google Scholar.

⁶ Hohlfelder, , ‘Beyond Coincidence?’ (n.3) 243Google Scholar.

⁷ Herod had visited Alexandria on his way to Rome following the Parthian invasion of his country in 40 B.C. He had met Cleopatra before leaving by ship from Alexandria's harbour late in the fall or early in the winter of the same year (Joseph, . AJ 15 97)Google Scholar.

⁸ This subject is thoroughly covered in Zanker's, P. book, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor 1988)Google Scholar. My article owes much to this account. My basic premise is that Herod knew Rome, Augustus, and M. Agrippa well and observed carefully how the physical transformation of Rome was meant to foster a political ideology. When he had the opportunity to do something similar along the eastern Mediterranean coast, he used the occasion to confirm his loyalty to Rome, Augustus and the ideology of the imperial cult. At the same time he announced and enhanced his own ambitions to be the most powerful client king in the Roman Empire.

⁹ Zanker, , Power of Images (n.8), 89, 139Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Zanker, , Power of Images (n.8), 71Google Scholar.

¹¹ Hohlfelder, , ‘Beyond Coincidence?’ (n.3) 246–7Google Scholar.

¹² Roller, D.W., The Building Program of Herod the Great (Berkeley 1998) 66–75Google Scholar. Josephus tells us that when Augustus visited Syria c. 20 B.C he gave Herod some additional lands, but does not say specifically that the two men actually met then (BJ 1. 399Google Scholar) But in AJ 15. 363Google Scholar, he mentions that at the conclusion of the emperor's visit Herod escorted Caesar to the sea. This account surely is the correct one. Herod would not have missed an opportunity to visit Augustus when the emperor was so close to his kingdom. It may have been Herod's visit that triggered the assignment of additional land. The king was very aware that such opportunities should not be missed for they strengthened his ties with Rome. Roller, (The Building Program of Herod 3Google Scholar) assumes that the two men met in 20 B.C.

¹³ Zanker, , Power of Images (n.8), 15Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Roller, , The Building Program of Herod (n.12) 42Google Scholar makes the same point: ‘Architecture and urban renewal were among the most vital subjects in Rome at this time, and Herod's previous and future interest in these matters makes it a certainty that he avidly sought out information, both visual and oral, on the architectural enhancement of the city.” He further claims that Herod's one-week stay in Rome in 40 B.C. was “a major formative experience of his life.” ibid. 11. He may be correct.

¹⁵ Millar, , Roman Near East (n.1), 40Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Josephus offers an extraordinary statement regarding Herod's status in the eyes of both Augustus and Agrippa: ‘Herod was regarded by Caesar as second only to Agrippa, and by Agrippa as second only to Caesar.’ (Joseph, . BJ 1.400Google Scholar and AJ 15.361Google Scholar, Loeb translation) If this assessment is not simply hyperbole, one might safely assume that Herod's communications with both men far transcended the routine letters that usually passed between Rome and her client kings.

¹⁷ I explore this point more fully in Hohlfelder, , ‘Beyond Coincidence?’ (n.3), 248Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Holum, K.G., Hohlfelder, R.L. (eds. J, King Herod's Dream, Caesarea on the Sea (New York 1988) 73Google Scholar. Roller, , Building Program of Herod (n.12), 259Google Scholar, does not address reasons he choose to build Caesarea and Sebastos beyond saying that Herod needed to create the seaport any major state was expected to have.’ (133).

¹⁹ The application, adaptation, and expansion of Roman technology in the construction of Sebastos are topics that have been well covered in recent studies. See Brandon, C., ‘Cements, Concrete and Settling Barges at Sebastos: Comparisons with Other Roman Harbour Examples and the Descriptions of Vitruvius’, in Raban, A. and Holum, K.G. (eds), Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective after Two Millennia (Leiden 1996) 25–40Google Scholar, and ‘The Concrete-Filled Barges of King Herod's Harbour of Sebastos', in Swiny, S., Hohlfelder, R.L., and Swiny, H.W. (eds), Res Maritimele—Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean from Prehistory to Late Antquity (Atlanta 1997) 45–57Google Scholar; Hohlfelder, R.L., ‘Building Sebastos: The Cyprus Connection,’ UNA 22 (1999) 154–63Google Scholar; Hohlfelder, R.L., ‘Caesarea's Master Harbor Builders: Lessons Learned, Lessons Applied?’ in Raban, and Holum, (eds), Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective, 77–101Google Scholar; Hohlfelder, , ‘Beyond Coincidence?’ (n.3) 252Google Scholar; Oleson, J.P., ‘The Technology of Roman Harbours,’ UNA 17 (1988) 147–58Google Scholar; Oleson, J.P. and Branton, G., ‘The Technology of King Herod's Harbour,’ in Vann, R.L., Caesarea Papers (n.5), 49–67Google Scholar and ‘The Harbour of Caesarea Palaestinae: A Case Study of Technology Transfer in the Roman Empire’, Mitteilungen, Leichtweiß-Institut für Wasserbau 117 (1992) 387–421Google Scholar, and the works there cited.

²⁰ Suet. Aug. 60 informs us, more vaguely than we would like, that several client kings founded Caesareas urbes in their own realms throughout the empire. Although Suetonius provides no specific list, Herod's port city would have been high or first in any putative ranking. Not only did he establish a Caesarea, he doubled the impact of this gesture of homage to Rome by naming the harbour of his port city Sebastos. Thanks to Josephus, we have details of its founding and its adornments not available for the other ones. Lacking literary comparanda but taking the Jewish historian's account at face value, one can say that arguably it was the finest of all of the Caesarens urbes. Nothing in Josephus's account suggests otherwise. Braund, D., Rome and the Friendly Kings (n.3) 109Google Scholar, comments on the significance of these cities: ‘Within the kingdom, these cities stood as vast monuments to the king's connections with Rome and the emperor in particular. At the same time, as great foundations, they were also monuments to the ruler's kingship, in the Hellenistic tradition. These cities were invariably important entities in their particular areas and some, especially ports, were key centres in the Mediterranean world as a whole.’ Braund does not speak directly to Herod, Caesarea or Sebastos, but his observation certainly fits the Jewish king's city of the sea and its elaborate harbour facility.

²¹ During the years before Actium, Cleopatra had been very successful in obtaining bits of Herod's kingdom (Joseph, . BJ 1.387Google Scholar). Had Antony prevailed in 31 B.C., she most likely would gotten more and perhaps all of it.

²² Josephus goes so far as to claim that Augustus and Agrippa had noted that Herod aspired to obtain the kingship of Egypt! He states that ‘his realm was not equal to his magnanimity, for he desired to be King of all Syria and Egypt.’ (AJ 16.41Google Scholar, Loeb translation). This dream, of course, was never achieved, but it does suggest the Jewish king hoped for a more important role in the sphere of the Roman world than he ever achieved.

²³ See Goodman, Martin, ‘Judaea,’ CAH 9.749Google Scholar. Although Roller does not seek to explore the motivation for Herod's building activities, one can easily use the evidence and analysis he has compiled to argue that the king was attempting to enhance his status as Rome's most important client king in a strategic quadrant of the empire. See Building Program of Herod (n.12) 259: ‘In one sense the matter (of motivation) is not an important one, because it is the products of the motivation that are the legacy of Herod.’ One wishes, however, he had been willing to engage in historical speculation on this important point. D. Braund, however, sees Herod's euergetism beyond his own kingdom in a very different light. Although he generalises about all client kings, his comments seem particularly applicable to Herod. Such activity, he states, ‘“bonded” the king not only to Rome but to the empire at large, helping to make him a “world-figure” equal to the most prominent of Romans.’ Rome and the Friendly King (n.3) 79Google Scholar. If we believe Josephus (cited above, n.15), all the king's activities, including his extraterritorial building program, succeeded in sustaining his status to the third most important figure in the Augustan world behind Augustus and Agrippa.

²⁴ See Beebe, K.H., ‘Caesarea Maritima: Its Strategic and Political Significance to Rome’ JNES 42 (1983) 195–207Google Scholar. Cf. Hohlfelder, , ‘Beyond Coincidence?’ (n.3) 247–8Google Scholar for a somewhat different interpretation.

²⁵ See Geoffrey Rickman on distinctions between port cities and harbours in antiquity, ‘Towards a Study of Roman Ports,’ in Raban, A., Harbour Archaeology, BAR International Series 257 (Oxford 1985) 105–14Google Scholar.

²⁶ The tremendous size of the harbour installations, far more extensive than Caesarea ever needed, and their distinct character (Holum, and Hohlfelder, , King Herod's Dream [n.18] 79Google Scholar) support Raban's contention that Sebastos had a separate administrative identity and may have been intended as a royal harbour for Herod's entire kingdom (Holum and Hohlfelder, King Herod's Dream, 112Google Scholar. This administrative duality existed through the reign of Nero. After Vespasian's refoundation of Caesarea as a Roman colony, there would have been no need or rationale for continuing such an arrangement. It is unclear, however, whether the harbour continued to be called ‘Sebastos’ after the Flavian refounding, or if the name Tortus Augusti’ came into common parlance. That name was still in use during the mid 3rd century when it appears on a rare coin issued by Trajan Decius. See Hohlfelder ‘The Changing Fortunes of Caesarea's Harbours’ in Raban (n.19) 78. It is also useful to remember that Portus too had an independent administrative status and its own program of visual imagery.

²⁷ Ciianfrotta, P.A., ‘Harbor Structures of the Augustan Age in Italy,’ in Holum and Raban, Caesarea Marilima: A Retrospective [n.19] 65–76Google Scholar.

²⁸ Roller, , The Building Program of Herod (n.12) 138Google Scholar, states that Sebastos represented a technological ‘transition from Hellenistic Greece to Imperial Rome.’ One doubts if that was Herod's intent per se, although the final structure can easily be seen a bridge between the harbour technology of the past and the future.

²⁹ Meiggs, Russell, Roman Ostia (Oxford 1973) 153Google Scholar.

³⁰ I here follow Meiggs, , Roman Ostia (n.29) 46Google Scholar, who acknowledges that Augustus may have give ‘some thought’ to reviving Caesar's plan, but he suggests that ‘it is virtually certain that he did not begin the work.’

³¹ How such technology would have been passed from one generation to another is not clear. One assumes that an apprentice-master builder system was in place. If so the Roman master builders who had worked at Sebastos may well have shared their experience with the next generation of harbour specialists and so on. It is clear, however, that the development of new engineering techniques did not automatically sweep away the old, for harbour construction did not follow a linear development after Caesarea. See Hohlfelder, R.L., ‘The Building of the Roman Harbour at Kenchreai: Old Technology in a New Era’, in Raban, A., Harbour Archaeology (Oxford 1985) 81–6Google Scholar. Rather, new advances enriched the collective fund of available solutions for maritime building problems. Older construction traditions were followed when they were more expedient. Decisions based on factors other than the availability of technology determined how harbour installations would be constructed or repaired. See Oleson, , ‘Technology of Roman Harbours’ 147–58Google Scholar and Hohlfelder, R.L., ‘Cacsarca's Master Harbor Builders: Lesson Learned, Lessons Applied?’ in Raban and Holum, Caesarea Maritima (n.19) 77–101Google Scholar.

³² Rickman, G., ‘Portus in Perspective,’ in Zevi, A.G. and Claridge, A., ‘Roman Ostia’ Revisited (Rome 1996) 290Google Scholar.

³³ See Kahn, L.C., ‘King Herod's Temple of Roma and Augustus at Caesarea Maritima’, Raban and Holum, Caesarea Maritima (n. 19), 130–45Google Scholar. For recent excavations on the Temple Platform, see Holum, K.G., ‘The Temple Platform: Progress Report on the Excavations,’ in Holum, K.G., Raban, A. and Patrich, J. (eds.) Caesarea Papers 2 (Portsmouth, Rhode Island 1999) 12–34Google Scholar.

It remains unclear whether the temple was more Hellenistic (perhaps on the model of the Serapeion in Alexandria), Roman or Jewish in its design and execution or an amalgam of all of these traditions. Holum, ‘The Temple Platform’ (n.32) 26 n.26, sees the antecedents for the temple in the Hellenistic East rather than in Rome. In the context of this paper, one could certainly see how a temple at Caesarea honoring Roma and Augustus that reflected in some way the Temple in Jerusalem that was being constructed coevally might serve Herod's interests well. In establishing an architectural linkage between the divinities being honored might have afforded in Jewish terms the highest honor Herod could offer to Augustus. Josephus's description of the building, and his comparisons of the cult statues within to the Phidian Zeus at Olympia and Hera at Argos by Polycleitus, leave no doubt that it was the foremost building in the harbour (and in Caesarea itself). It had clearly been intended to be in architectural dialogue with both building programs, while serving as the visual bridge between them.

³⁴ Williams, C., ‘The Refounding of Corinth: Some Roman Religious Attitudes’ in Macready, S. and Thompson, F.H. (eds.) Roman Architecture in the Greek World (London 1987)31Google Scholar.

³⁵ According to Syme, Ronald, The Roman Revolution (Oxford 1960) 474Google Scholar Herod was ‘one of the earliest and most zealous to propagate the new faith’, i.e. the imperial cult.

³⁶ Holum and Hohlfelder, King Herod's Dream (n.18) 105Google Scholar.

³⁷ On the Famous Torlonia Relief found at Portus (date c. A.D. 200), one can see individuals on an incoming ship offering a sacrifice on a shipboard altar. See Casson, L.The Ancient Mariners (Princeton 1991) pi. 42Google Scholar. Sacrifices to various divinities before, during, and after maritime voyages were probably part of normal maritime life. Extending the sacrificial umbrella to include Roma and Augustus, particularly in harbours where a temple to them existed, may well have become common in imperial maritime ritual.

³⁸ For the technology of Sebastos, see above n.19.

³⁹ What may also have been another image or symbol of homage was not something that Herod built in Sebastos but rather something that he chose not to build. Josephus does talk about seawalls and towers on the breakwaters, but he does not indicate that they were harbour fortifications. The towers could have served many non-military purposes, while the seawall was part of a system of defense in depth against the often-violent seas that pounded the Caesarea coast. The underwater excavations, currently in their fifth decade of almost continuous field seasons, have produced no incontrovertible evidence of maritime fortifications for the Herodian installations either within or without Sebastos. A blocking device, perhaps a chain, with the necessary lifting apparatus might have been able to close the c. 85m. wide harbour entrance, but no trace of such equipment has been found. If Sebastos was built de novo without fortifications, what more profound statement of Herod's allegiance and commitment to imperial Rome could he have offered? In the new Roman world that Augustus was forging, in a new harbour of a loyal client king defenses were redundant.

⁴⁰ Hohlfelder, , ‘Changing Fortunes’ (n.3) 77Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Joseph, . BJ 1.412Google Scholar; Vann, R.L., ‘The Drusion: a Candidate for Herod's Lighthouse at Caesarea Marítima,’ UNA 20 (1991) 123–39Google Scholar. In mentioning the Drusion, Josephus does not place it at the terminus of either breakwater nor does he explicitly state it was a lighthouse. In my article, ‘Herod the Great's City on the Sea,’ National Geographic 171 (1987) 261Google Scholar, I placed a lighthouse at the end of the Southern Breakwater, a siting Vann accepted. C. Brandon, who continues the underwater explorations at Caesarea in conjunction with Avner Raban, now believes that the spur extending from the massif of the main Southern Breakwater is too narrow (c. 7m. by 14m.) to support a monumental edifice like a lighthouse. If one did stand there, it would have been little more than a fire platform and would in no way have visually dominated the harbour scape. It is likely that Sebastos, following the Alexandrian model and for practical purposes, did have such a vital structure. Therefore, it must have been located elsewhere. The siting of such a structure on a small bit of rocky islet or headland located closer to the shore and later embedded in the Southern Breakwater is the most likely location. No excavations or surveys of this highest point on either breakwater, now the site of an abandoned restaurant, have produced any evidence to support this conjecture.

⁴² Roller, , Building Program of Herod (n.12) 135Google Scholar, sees this sequence of events slightly differently. He suggests that the dedication to Drusus came after his death and was occasioned by Livia's funding of the celebratory games. He may be correct.

⁴³ Hohlfelder, , ‘Beyond Coincidence?’ (n.3) 247, n.26Google Scholar. Reddé, M., Mare Nosturm les Infra-sluctures, le Dispositif et l'Histoire de la marine Militaire sous l'Empire romain (Rome 1986) 498Google Scholar speaks of a ‘une petite flotte de guerre’ built by Herod and placed at Agrippa's disposal in 14 B.C. for use in the eastern provinces. He suggests that it was still stationed at Caesarea and available for use by Vespasian during the Jewish War A.D. 68-70 (241).

⁴⁴ His interest in Cyprus was confirmed when Augustus gave him a concession for half of the copper mines on the island and allowed him to administer the other half as well. (Joseph, . AJ 16.28Google Scholar) During this time, Paphos had a shipbuilding industry and may well have been commissioned by Herod to build his fleet. See Hohlfelder, , ‘Building Sebastos’ (n.19) 161Google Scholar. He was also quite familiar with the shipbuilding activities on Rhodes for it was there that he had a trireme built specifically to take him to Rome in 40 B.C. after his near fatal voyage from Alexandria to Pamphylia (Joseph, . BJ 1.279–65Google Scholar; AJ 14.375–89Google Scholar). At the fall meetings of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Toronto, Avner Raban mentioned in the annual Caesarea workshop that he had recently found structures that might have been navalia (1 viewed these walls extending to the sea in June 2003 and was less suie of their function than Raban.) One hopes for an expeditious and detailed publication of what could be a most important discovery.

⁴⁵ Perhaps nothing better illustrates Augustus's feelings about Herod and his dynastic murders than the dark quip reported by Macrobius, (Saturnalia 2.4.41Google Scholar): ‘1 would rather be his pig than his son.’

⁴⁶ I wish to thank the numerous administrators and research committees of the University of Colorado, particularly the Council on Research and Creative Work, for their generous support of my research on Caesarea Maritima over the years. 1 also wish to thank the American Academy in Rome, where this article was written, for permitting me once again to use its library and facilities during the spring of 2003 as a visiting scholar. There can be no finer place for a scholar to pursue his/her investigations of the world of ancient Rome. I always feel honored and privileged to join this vibrant intellectual community. 1 also gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance for my underwater fieldwork at Caesarea from 1978 to 1992 provided by the National Geographic Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities and numerous private donors. Most of all, I extend my gratitude to all the hundreds of volunteers from around the world and my numerous professional colleagues who made working at Caesarea so stimulating. From the endless, informal discussions of Herod, Caesarea, the ancient maritime word, etc. that filled our days and nights, much of what might be useful in my article came to life. I wish I could be more specific in assigning credit where credit may be due, but our time in the field was a continuous and stimulating amorphous seminar where ideas were shared openly and debated freely and often sharply. For anyone interested in Herod and any aspect of his city of the sea, there could have been no better or more fruitful intellectual incubator.