Caesarea Maritima (Ar. Qayṣariyya, Heb. Keisarya, Qesarya) of classical antiquity was a Palestinian harbour some twenty-five miles south of the site of present-day Haifa. The construction of the harbour on the Phoenician ruins known as the Tower of Strabo (one of the ancient kings of Sidon) was begun by the Edomite king Herod the Great (r. 37-4 B.C.E.), in honour of his suzerain, the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar, and thus bore the latter's name (Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, The Holy Land. An archaeological guide