Quote:I did get it wrong in using the Ashara spelling instead of the Astarte STRT spelling. BYT STRT, Temple of Astarte, aka Strato's Tower. And perhaps I should have said the original baris as it is not clear the names were the same. I have always assumed the name derived from Marc Antony.
Now you really have me confused. Strato's Tower, as far as I know, refers to a Phoenician coastal fortress which was taken by the Hasmoneans in the early first century BC and subsequently taken by Pompey Magnus in 63. Eventually the Romans gave the region to Herod the Great who built the new city of Caesarea Maritima on the site.
The idea that Herod would name the Antonia Fortress for Mark Antony makes sense...or would have had it been built earlier than 19BC. Antony probably arranged the death of the last Hasmonean king Antigonus who had backed the Parthians when they invaded Judaea c 40 BC. Antony would have had plenty of reason to kill him and a little helping hand to Herod was probably the least of them. But. Antony was dead by 30 BC and Herod had crawled to Octavian and switched sides. He was confirmed in his kingship by Octavian and naming something for Octavian's enemy some 11 years later seems like a dreadfully unpolitical thing for a superior politician like Herod to have done. However, Roman nobility being what it was, Mark Antony had married Octavian's sister, Octavia, and the second daughter from that union was named Antonia and she was married to Nero Claudius Drusus who was the son of Augustus' wife, Livia, by her first marriage. Tiberius was the other son from that pair and Antonia was the mother of the Emperor Claudius. So...if you were going to suggest that the tower was named for Antonia I might buy that.
