If we climb the steps at the southern end and look northeast, we see nearby a broad lower duct, which provided water to the city in the Byzantine period from a dam at the Crocodile River to the north. We can also see the promontory of Dor, whose harbor suffered decline after Herod's was built. We see, too, the upper part of Mt. Carmel, with the tower of Haifa University.

At the time Herod built Caesarea, the technology of the aqueduct had long existed. In the 7th century BC, the Assyrian king Sennacherib built ducts to Nineveh (34 miles long!) and Erbil, including tunnels and bridges. (Cf. Hezekiah's tunnel in Jerusalem.) In the land of the Bible, however, we do not find aqueducts bringing water into cities until the Hasmonean period. It appears that city dwellers required a strong government, one that could provide security over a large territory, before they could descend from the crowded tells and live at a distance from the source of their water. The security provided first by the Hasmoneans, but especially by Herod during the pax romana, made possible large cities in the flatlands. Without such security, the growing population would have had to emigrate -- as it later did.