Herod the Great, after annexing the Golan in 20 BCE, had erected here a temple of "white marble" in honor of his patron, Augustus.

Philip the Tetrarch of Batanaea, which encompasses the Golan and the Hauran, in the year 3 BCE, founds a city at Paneas, which becomes the administrative capital of Philip's large tetrarchy

Flavius Josephus, in The Antiquities of the Jews, refers to the city as Caesarea Paneas; the New Testament as Caesarea Philippi (to distinguish it from Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast).

Al-'Aziz takes control of Baniyas in 975 in an attempt to subdue the anti-Fatimid agitation of the Sunni Mahammad bin Ahmad al-Nablusi and his followers.