"And I stood upon the sand of the sea"
Caesarea Maritima means Caesarea “by the sea”, and it was also a very sandy location, Josephus's account of Herod building the city in Antiquities of The Jews 15:9:6 talks a lot about Seas and Sand.
My hunch that Caesarea Maritima is in mind here probably doesn't actually affect interpreting anything else much at all, but I find it a fascinating theory for how Revelation works Poetically.
The City was a Roman Colony in Judea, it generally had no Jewish Population and was entirely Pagan until a Gentile Christian community first formed there and probably was still majority Pagan till sometime between Constantine and Theodosius.
It was usually where the Roman Governor resided (Pilate was in Jerusalem during Passover to keep an eye on things during the pilgrimage festival) even after Hadrian made Jerusalem itself a Roman Colony and still even after Christianization, even after Chalcedon finally made the Bishop of Jerusalem outrank Caesarea in the Church Hierarchy.
Naturally it played an important role as a Roman Military base of operation during the 66-73 Roman-Jewish War, and probably also in the Bar-Kochba Revolt though we know less of the details about that war.
Eusebius account of the Martyrs of Palestine during the Diocletian Persecution shows that Caesarea Maritima was the stage for most of that persecution in Palestine, they are called ____ of Caesarea because of where they were Martyred more so then where they were originally from.
Certain Bishops of Caesarea became key theological leaders of Arianism during the reigns of the Arian Emperors, Acacius and Euzoius.
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