May 6, 2022
Sam– We had a really nice experience at Caesarea. We saw a stadium where people fought in gladiator matches as well as a Roman aqueduct near the sea. At a special wall near the floor of the aqueduct, we found rare stones and artifacts from thousands of years ago. It is rumored that Rabbi Akiva was killed there because he refused to follow a Roman order to stop teaching Torah. The story goes that he was brought to the stadium and skinned him alive. As they were killing him, he began to recite the Shema as a final prayer to God before he died. We also saw Roman toilets, which are actually stones you sit on with a space in between them so that where the waste falls down. That sewage system is now filled with mud since it hasn’t been used as a toilet for thousands of years. I was amused that the toilets were situated so that you could still watch the game while you going to the bathroom, and that you could relieve yourself next to a friend.
View pictures from Day 11 here!