Today Nazareth is the largest Arab city in Israel, numbering 70,000 Muslims and Christians. The conical dome of the R of the Annunciation stands out among many smaller buildings, a constant landmark. Just north of it stands the Church of St. Joseph. The Franciscan property containing these churches probably covers most of the ancient village. Just to the west (where Casa Nova is today) was the cemetery. To the east was a valley (now Pope Paul VI street) and then a large field. About 500 yards outside the town, at the base of the northern slope, there are three springs whose water is channeled In the heart of the market is the Synagogue Church, where Jesus preached on the Sabbath. Nearby is the Mensa Christi Church, built above a rock identified by pilgrims of yore as the table where Jesus and the disciples dined. On the edge of Nazareth rises Precipice Mountain, from whose summit splendid Galilee landscapes are revealed. Crossing to the town's northern rim, Jesus would have seen the acropolis of Sepphoris (see map above). This city must have carried bitter associations for the villagers. In Jesus' infancy, after the death of Herod the Great, it had risen in revolt, and the Romans had taken rough revenge, selling the inhabitants as slaves. The scars would still have been fresh. The Galileans also groaned, no doubt, under the burden of taxes and rents that they had to pay to maintain the aristocrats of such a luxurious city, especially Herod's son, the tetrarch of Galilee, Antipas. Relatives of Jesus, who believed in him as the Christ, continued to live in Nazareth in the centuries before the first church was built here. During the persecution by Decius (249-51), a man named Conon was arrested. He told the court: "I am from the city of Nazareth in Galilee. I am of the family of Christ, to whom I offer a cult [which has existed] from the time of my ancestors." Caesarea National Park History This area has had a long and checkered history. It was initially settled during the Hellenistic period (third century B.C.E.), when the Phoenicians built a small port city that they named Straton?s Tower. In 90 B.C.E., Alexander Jannaeus captured Straton?s Tower as part of his policy of developing the shipbuilding industry and enlarging the Hasmonean kingdom. Straton?s Tower remained a Jewish city for two generations, until the Roman conquest of 63 B.C.E. when the Romans declared Straton?s Tower an autonomous city. The city underwent a great number of changes under Herod, who among other things renamed it Caesarea in honor of the emperor. In 22 B.C.E. he began co The historian Polybius (2nd century BC) tells us that the battle occurred at a place he knew as Paneon (meaning, the sanctuary of Pan). The name Banias reflects the Arabic pronunciation for Paneas, "city of Pan," sometimes called Paneon. Since no other location in the land bears such a name, the site of the crucial battle was probably here. Polybius also reports that Antiochus used elephants, which threw the enemy into a panic.