modern Ḥorbat Qesari
Ancient seaport, Palestine .
Located on the coast of present-day Israel south of the city of Haifa , it was originally a Phoenician settlement. Taken by the Romans and rebuilt in the 1st century BC by Augustus . The capital of the Roman province of Judaea in AD 6, it was the site of an early Christian church and was often visited by St. Paul . It later declined under Byzantine and Arab rule and was destroyed by the Mamlūk sultan Baybars I in the 13th century.