Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

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Banias Springs and the rock with the cave and the Shrine to Pan

The site of Caesarea Philippi is now called by the antient name Paneas.(..) The hill called Jebel-Sheik which is over this place, had antiently the name of Panius, from which the city and country was called; and tho' some think, that this name was derived from Dan, yet there are others of opinion, that it was from the worship of Pan, there having been a temple on the top of it, supposed to be dedicated to that deity.
Richard Pococke - A Description of the East and Some Other Countries - 1745.
And as the evening drew near, we clambered down the mountain (from the castle), through groves of the Biblical oaks of Bashan, (for we were just stepping over the border and entering the long-sought Holy Land,) and at its extreme foot, toward the wide valley, we entered this little execrable village of Banias and camped in a great grove of olive trees near a torrent of sparkling water whose banks are arrayed in fig-trees, pomegranates and oleanders in full leaf. Barring the proximity of the village, it is a sort of paradise.
M. Twain - The Innocents Abroad - 1869.

Springs

The very first thing one feels like doing when he gets into camp, all burning up and dusty, is to hunt up a bath. We followed the stream up to where it gushes out of the mountain side, three hundred yards from the tents, and took a bath that was so icy that if I did not know this was the main source of the sacred river, I would expect harm to come of it. Twain

Ruin of Caesarea Philippi (Area B) including the reuse of a stone with small cavities for betting games (see a similar one at Thugga in Tunisia)

It was distinguihed from Caesarea at the sea, by the name of Philip the tetrarch, who improved this city, and called it Caesarea in honour of Tiberius. Pococke
(October 1810) Banias is situated at the foot of the Heish (Golan), in the plain. (..) It contains about one hundred and fifty houses, inhabited mostly by Turks: there are also Greeks, Druses, and Anzeyry.
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt - Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (Journal of a tour from Damascus in the Countries of Libanus and Anti-Libanus) - publ. 1822
The ruins here are not very interesting. There are the massive walls of a great square building that was once the citadel; there are many ponderous old arches that are so smothered with debris that they barely project above the ground. (..) But trees and bushes grow above many of these ruins now; the miserable huts of a little crew of filthy Arabs are perched upon the broken masonry of antiquity, the whole place has a sleepy, stupid, rural look about it, and one can hardly bring himself to believe that a busy, substantially built city once existed here, even two thousand years ago. Twain

"Tabula Peutingeriana", a Vth century map of the roads of the Roman Empire: 1) Caesarea Philippi (or Paneas); 2) Damascus; 3) Tiberias; 4) Scythopolis; 5) Ptolemais (Acre); 6) Caesarea (Maritima); 7) Jerusalem or Aelia Capitolina; 8) Joppe (Jaffa)

The ruins described by Twain were those of Caesarea Philippi, a town which flourished after 4 BC when it became the capital of a small state ruled by Philip, one of the sons of King Herod of Judea. It was named Caesarea in honour of the Roman emperors with the addition of Philippi to distinguish it from Caesarea (Maritima), the residence of the Roman governor of the region, and from other towns by the same name, such as today's Kayseri in Turkey.
On the N. E. side of the village is the source of the river of Banias, which empties itself into the Jordan at the distance of an hour and a half, in the plain below. Over the source is a perpendicular rock, in which several niches have been cut to receive statues .... (see text below)

Text and illustration from Burckhardt's book

(..) perpendicular face of the rock, is another niche, adorned with pilasters, supporting a shell ornament. There are two other niches near these, and twenty paces farther two more nearly buried in the ground at the foot of the rock. Each of these niches had an inscription annexed to it, but I could not decipher any thing except the characters above one of the niches which are nearly covered with earth. (..) In the middle niche of the three, which are represented in the engraving, the base of the statue is still visible. (..) The niche in the cavern probably contained a statue of Pan, and the other niches similar dedications to the same or other deities. The cavern or sanctuary of Pan, are described by Josephus, from whom it appears also that the fountain was considered the source of the Jordan. Burckhardt

Shrine to Pan and niches which housed statues of gods

Up yonder in the precipice where the fountain gushes out, are well-worn Greek inscriptions over niches in the rock where in ancient times the Greeks, and after them the Romans, worshipped the sylvan god Pan. Twain
Pan loved nothing better than his afternoon sleep and he took revenge on those who disturbed him with a terrifying loud shout (that's why we call panic a state of terror); in summer he slept in a cave and shrines dedicated to him had the shape of the entrance to a cave (you may wish to see that found at Thassos).

Niches of the Shrine to Pan

The inscription under the main niche is dated year 150 from Pompey's entry at Paneas in 63 BC. It reads: "Dedicates to Pan, son of Diopan (the lover of tunes) who loves Ekho (a nymph) - (by) The priest Victor, son of Lysimachus". All inscriptions are written in Greek, but are placed in a typical Roman frame.
The shrine was built next to an actual cave the depth of which, according to Flavius Josephus, a historian of Jewish origin, could not be measured.

Springs and Roman bridge

The stream flows on the north side of the village; where is a well built bridge and some remains of the ancient town, the principal part of which seems, however, to have been on the opposite side of the river, where the ruins extend for a quarter of an hour from the bridge. Burckhardt
There are heavy-walled sewers through which the crystal brook of which Jordan is born still runs; (..) there is a quaint old stone bridge that was here before Herod's time, may be. Twain

Esplanade of the temples: in the foreground a capital from the Temple to Zeus built by Emperor Trajan

The hewn stones round the spring may have belonged, perhaps, to the temple of Augustus, built here by Herod. (..) Round the source of the river are a number of hewn stones. (..) No walls remain, but great quantities of stones and architectural fragments are scattered about. I saw also an entire column, of small dimensions. Burckhardt
Other more traditional temples were built to the sides of the Shrine to Pan. One was dedicated to Emperor Augustus. Another one was dedicated to Zeus by Emperor Trajan. In 178, at the time of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, a small courtyard was dedicated to Nemesis, goddess of divine justice. In 220 Emperor Heliogabalus promoted the construction of a temple dedicated to the Dancing Goats of Pan.

Palace of Agrippa

Scattered every where, in the paths and in the woods, are Corinthian capitals, broken porphyry pillars, and little fragments of sculpture. Twain
Herod owed his kingdom to the Romans and in particular to Mark Antony, who supported his cause with the Senate. Herod swiftly shifted his allegiance to Augustus after the defeat and death of Antony. In order to strengthen his position he named Agrippa one of his sons in honour of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus and his assumed heir.
The Romans gradually deposed the sons of Herod from their mini-kingdoms, but some of them were granted roles as governors of towns and territories in the frame of the Roman Empire. Agrippa II, grandson of Herod, was for some time the de-facto ruler of a territory larger than that of his grandfather. He built a large palace, warehouses and baths at Caesarea Philippi.

Palace of Agrippa - granite columns

In the village itself, on the left side of the river, lies a granite column of a light gray colour, one foot and a half in diameter. Burckhardt
The incorrigible pilgrims have come in with their pockets full of specimens broken from the ruins. I wish this vandalism could be stopped. They broke off fragments from Noah's tomb; from the exquisite sculptures of the temples of Baalbec; from the houses of Judas and Ananias, in Damascus; from the tomb of Nimrod the Mighty Hunter in Jonesborough; from the worn Greek and Roman inscriptions set in the hoary walls of the Castle of Banias; and now they have been hacking and chipping these old arches. Heaven protect the Sepulchre when this tribe invades Jerusalem! Twain
After the Muslim conquest in the VIIth century Caesarea Philippi declined and it gradually became a minor village, notwithstanding its strategic position. It was part of Syria until 1967. The temples and the springs are now managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.
The image used as background for this page shows a detail of one of the niches.

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Nimrod Castle
Acre (Akko)
Turner's excursion to Kaifah (Haifa)
Tiberias
Holy sites in Galilee
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