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GATEWAY TO THE WEST. In the late second century B.C.E., the bustling Phoenician port of Dor was an independent city-state bordered by vast kingdoms. According to Josephus, the “tyrant” Zoilos ruled Dor and neighboring Caesarea (at that time called Straton’s Tower) while Roman generals and Seleucid, Ptolemaic and Hasmonean kings jockeyed for power and territories in the Near East. King Alexander Jannaeus most likely took control of Zoilos’s cities around 100 B.C.E. and added them to Judean territory. But abundant trade with the West had already left its mark on Dor.