Masada is a fortress built on a high, flat-topped mountain overlooking the Dead Sea. Herod the Great built the fortress on Masada as a personal refuge between 37 and 31 BCE. He built a casemate wall around the entire mountaintop, luxurious palaces with typical Roman bathhouses, large cisterns for collecting water, and many storerooms. The Romans later placed a garrison on the mountain, but it was eventually deserted.
Josephus, who gives the only ancient account of the history of Masada, tells the story of the last stand of the rebel Jewish forces during the First Jewish Revolt. The rebels who entrenched themselves at Masada were a varied group, some of whom were Essenes, others Samaritans, and the leader was a Sicarii named Eleazar ben Yair. The group built the synagogue and multiple mikvaot in the mountaintop fortress and proved to be a thorn in the side of the Romans. After the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple in 70, the group gained more refugees.
In 73 or 74 CE the Roman Tenth Legion Fretensis, under the command of Flavius Silva, laid seige to the fortress. The only problem the Romans had was that there was no way to access the top of the mountain. The Roman legion built a seige wall surrounding the entire mountain as well as eight camps for themselves at various points around the perimeter. The Roman forces then constructed a huge seige ramp on the western side of the fortress.
A few months into the seige the Romans began battering the wall at the top of the seige ramp and were very close to entering the fortress. Eleazar ben Yair convinced the leaders of the rebels that the preferable way to die was at their own hands, not at the hands of the Romans. So, the group drew lots for ten men, who went from family to family and killed the people, fathers, mothers, and children all laying down together. Then those ten men drew lots and one of them killed the rest and fell on his own sword afterwards. When the Romans entered the city they found only two women and five children still alive (they had hidden themselves during the suicide). According to Josephus, the Romans were in awe at the sight of the slain: "Nor could they do other than wonder at the courage of their resolution, and the immovable contempt of death which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through with such an action as that was." (Wars of the Jews, Book 7, Chapter 9, Section 2)
The Roman armies destroyed much of the fortress and considered the place to be off-limits. In the 5th century a Byzantine monastery was founded there, but it was only situated on one side of the mountaintop. Most of the fortress lay undisturbed until the site was rediscovered in the late 19th century. Major excavations at the site were conducted in the 1960's.
It is hard not to be impressed with Masada's size and the symbolism it holds for Jews everywhere. I did not have nearly enough time to look around the fortress, and I would love to spend a day just poking around and looking at everything, plus walking the Snake Path.
Link: Jewish Virtual Library.
