Masada

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Siege of Masada

Conflict

First Jewish-Roman War

Date

Late 72 - early 73 CE

Place

Masada, in modern-day eastern Israel

Result

Roman victory

Combatants
Jewish Zealots	Roman Empire
Commanders
Elazar ben Ya'ir	Lucius Flavius Silva
~1,000	15,000
Casualties
Virtually all inhabitants	Unknown, if any

This article is about the Judean fortress. For other usages, see Masada (disambiguation).

Masada is a Latin corruption of the Hebrew name Metzada (מצדה), derived from the word "metzuda" (מצודה), meaning "fortress". It is the site of ancient palaces and fortifications in Israel on top of an isolated rock plateau on the eastern edge of the Judean desert overlooking the Dead Sea. Masada became famous for the 73 CE battle (one of the last in the Great Jewish Revolt) between the site's Jewish defenders and besieging Roman troops, during which almost all surviving defenders committed mass suicide when defeat became imminent.

1 Geography
2 History
3 The site today
4 Bibliography
5 External links

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Geography

Image:Massada Israel.jpg Image:Masada01.jpg

The cliffs on the east edge of Masada are about 450 meters high, dropping off to the Dead Sea, and the cliffs on the west are about 100 meters high; the natural approaches to the cliff top are very difficult. The top of the plateau is flat and rhomboid shaped, approximately 600 by 300 meters. There was a casemate wall around the top of the plateau totalling 1400 meters long and 4 meters thick with many towers, and the fortress included storehouses, cisterns that were refilled by rainwater, barracks, palaces and an armory. Three narrow, winding paths led from below to fortified gates. Location 31°19′N 35°21′E

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History

According to Flavius Josephus, a 1st century Jewish historian, Herod the Great fortified Masada between 37 and 31 BCE as a refuge for himself should his Jewish subjects rise up against him. In 66 CE, at the beginning of the Great Jewish Revolt against the Romans, a group of Jewish rebels called the Zealots (Heb: kana'im) commanded by Elazar ben Ya'ir, took Masada from the Roman garrison stationed there. In 70 CE they were joined by additional Zealots and their families who were expelled from Jerusalem by the other Jews living there shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem, and for the next two years used Masada as their base for raiding and harassing Roman and Jewish settlements alike.

Image:Roemerlager bei masada.jpg

Then, in 72 CE, the Roman governor of Iudaea, Lucius Flavius Silva, marched against Masada with the Roman legion X Fretensis and laid siege to the fortress. After failed attempts to breach the wall, they built a circumvallation wall and then a rampart against the western face of the plateau, using thousands of tons of stones and beaten earth. Josephus does not record any major attempts by the Zealots to counterattack the besiegers during this process, a significant difference from his accounts of other sieges against Jewish fortresses, suggesting that perhaps the Zealots lacked the equipment or skills to fight the Roman legion. It is believed by many that the Romans used Jewish slaves to build the rampart, whom the Zealots did not dare kill because of their beliefs.

The ramp was complete in the spring of 73 CE after approximately two to three months of siege, allowing the Romans to finally breach the wall of the fortress with a battering ram. When they entered the fortress, however, the Romans discovered that its approximately one thousand defenders had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and committed mass suicide rather than face certain capture or defeat by their enemies. Because the Jewish religion looks down upon the act of suicide, however, the defenders were reported to have drawn lots and slain each other in turn, down to the last man, who would be the only one to actually take his own life, as per Josephus' account. The argument is made that the storerooms were left standing to show that the defenders retained the ability to live and chose the time of their death. This account of the siege of Masada was apparently related to Josephus by two women who survived the suicide by hiding inside a cistern along with five children and repeated Elazar ben Yair's final exortation to his followers, prior to the mass suicide, verbatim to the Romans.

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The site today

Image:Israel-Massada Platform.jpg

The site of Masada was identified in 1842 and extensively excavated in 1963-1965 by an expedition led by Israeli archeologist Yigael Yadin. A pair of cable cars now carries those visitors who do not wish to climb the ancient snake path, now restored on the eastern side of the mountain (access via the Dead Sea road). The Roman ramp still stands on the western side and can be climbed on foot. Many of the ancient buildings were restored, and also the wall-paintings of Herod's two main palaces, and the Roman-style bath-houses that he built. The synagogue, storehouses, and houses of the Jewish rebels were also found and restored. The meter-high wall that the Romans built around Masada can be seen, together with 11 barracks for the Roman soldiers. Water cisterns two-thirds of the way up the cliff drain the nearby wadis by an elaborate water system, which explains how the rebels managed to have enough water for such a long time.

Masada is used by the Israeli army for swearing-in ceremonies and other events and has been a UNESCO's World Heritage Site since 2001. An audio-visual show is presented nightly on the western side of the mountain (access by car from the Arad road or by foot, down the mountain via the Roman ramp path).

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Bibliography

M. Avi-Yonah et al., Israel Exploration Journal 7, 1957, 1-160 (excavation report Masada)
Y. Yadin, Masada, London 1966
Y. Yadin, Israel Exploration Journal 15, 1965 (excavation report Masada)

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