two hours after midnight
It was but two hours after midnight , yet many were wakeful in Cæsarea on the Syrian coast . Herod Agrippa , King of all Palestine -- by grace of the Romans -- now at the very apex of his power , celebrated a festival in honour of the Emperor Claudius , to which had flocked all the mightiest in the land and tens of thousands of the people . The city was full of them , their camps were set upon the sea-beach and for miles around ; there was no room at the inns or in the private houses , where guests slept upon the roofs , the couches , the floors , and in the gardens . The great town hummed like a hive of bees disturbed after sunset , and though the louder sounds of revelling had died away , parties of feasters , many of them still crowned with fading roses , passed along the streets shouting and singing to their lodgings .