Dine and Worship: The Roman Complex in Front of the Pan Grotto in Paneas/ Caesarea Philippi

Abstract

Paneas, situated at the foot of mount Hermon, is where the Hermon River emerges from a spring at the foot of a cliff with a natural cave. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the cave and nearby terrace served mainly for the cult of Pan. Herod the Great built in Paneas a temple to Augustus, and his son erected there his capital, Caesarea Philippi. A salvage excavation was recently conducted in front of the cave in the area that formerly was identified as Herod’s Augusteum. The new excavations have proven that during the Roman period, the place was unroofed and open to the cave, which was full of water. The water flowed out through a large aqueduct, water installations were constructed in the courtyard, and niches flanked on the west and east. The complex is dated to the last third of the 1st century C.E. and is attributed to Agrippa II, who built there a nymphaeum-triclinium facing a grotto in Italian style. Afterward, the courtyard was used as a cult place to Pan, and hydromantic rituals were performed in the cave. The sources for this complex will be discussed, as well as the changes that took place there through time.