Siege of Masada

The hilltop fortress of Masada, in present-day Israel, was successfully besieged and taken by Roman imperial forces between 72 and 73 AD, during the final period of the First Jewish–Roman War. At the time, the fortress was held by members of the Sicarii rebel group. The siege is recorded by a single contemporary written source, The Jewish War by Josephus. According to Josephus, the long siege ended with the mass suicide of the Sicarii and resident Jewish families.

In modern times, the story of the siege was revived as the Masada myth, a selectively constructed narrative based on Josephus's account. The mythical narrative became a national symbol in the early years of Israel's nationhood.

Background

Masada has been described as "a lozenge-shaped table-mountain" that is "lofty, isolated, and to all appearance impregnable".

According to Josephus, Masada was first constructed by the Hasmoneans. Between 37 and 31 BC Herod the Great fortified it as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt. In 66 AD, at the beginning of the First Jewish–Roman War, a group of Jewish extremists called the Sicarii overcame the Roman garrison of Masada and settled there. The Sicarii were commanded by Eleazar ben Ya'ir,

According to Josephus, on Passover, the Sicarii raided Ein Gedi, a nearby Jewish settlement, and killed 700 of its inhabitants.

Archaeology indicates that the Sicarii modified some of the structures they found at Masada. These include a building that was modified to function as a synagogue. It may in fact have been a synagogue to begin with, although it did not contain a mikvah or the benches found in other early synagogues. It is one of the oldest synagogues in Israel.

Siege

thumb|Remnants of Camp F, one of several [[legionary camps just outside the circumvallation wall around Masada]]

In 72 AD, the Roman governor of Judaea, Lucius Flavius Silva, led Roman legion X Fretensis, a number of auxiliary units and Jewish prisoners of war, totaling some 15,000 men and women, of whom an estimated 8,000 to 9,000 were fighting men, to lay siege to the 960 people in Masada.

According to military strategist Edward Luttwak, the Roman effort at Masada, deploying vast resources and engineering ingenuity to eliminate a small pocket of resistance in an isolated desert fortress of no strategic importance, may have been intended as a message to those considering rebellion: the Romans would relentlessly pursue and crush rebels, even at great cost, to eradicate any trace of resistance.

The Roman legion surrounded Masada and built a circumvallation wall, before commencing construction of a siege ramp against the western face of the plateau, moving half a million tons of earth. Josephus does not record any attempts by the Sicarii to counterattack the besiegers during this process, a significant difference from his accounts of other sieges of the war.

thumb|The Roman siege ramp seen from above. This was partly rebuilt for [[Masada (miniseries)|a 1981 TV miniseries, "Masada".]]

The ramp was completed in the spring of 73, after probably two to three months of siege. A giant siege tower with a battering ram was constructed and moved laboriously up the completed ramp, while the Romans assaulted the wall, discharging "a volley of blazing torches against ... a wall of timber",

Mass suicide narrative and debate

Josephus's narrative

According to Josephus's account, when the Romans finally entered Masada, they found it to be "a citadel of death". The fighters faced a choice between death and accepting Roman rule, which in their eyes amounted to chillul hashem (desecration of God's name), since they recognized God alone as lord and refused to serve any mortal. Stern noted that even those willing to submit could expect only enslavement, while women faced sexual disgrace as well. He noted that suicide during the First Jewish Revolt was also attested by Josephus in Gamla and Yodfat in 67 CE, and by both Josephus and Cassius Dio during the burning of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. He compared the situation to that of Jewish communities in the Rhineland massacres of 1096 and those of the York massacre in 1190, suggesting the same impossible choice between death and dishonor. Cohen speculates that "some Jews killed themselves, some fought to the death, and some attempted to hide and escape. The Romans were in no mood to take prisoners and massacred all whom they found."

According to Kenneth Atkinson, there is no "archaeological evidence that Masada's defenders committed mass suicide." According to archaeologist Eric H. Cline, Josephus' narrative is impossible because the Romans would have immediately pressed their advantage, leaving no time for Eleazar's speech or the mass suicides. Instead, Cline proposes that the defenders were massacred by Romans.

American archaeologist Jodi Magness has written archaeology cannot prove or disprove the account of Josephus because the human remains found can be interpreted differently.

The Masada site was extensively excavated between 1963 and 1965 by an expedition led by Israeli archaeologist and former military Chief-of-Staff Yigael Yadin.

Masada myth

The Masada myth is the early Zionist retelling of the Siege of Masada, a selectively constructed narrative based on Josephus's account, with the Sicarii instead depicted as national heroes, and in which the Sicarii were described as a splinter group of the Zealots.

The siege of Masada and the resulting Masada myth is often revered in modern Israel as "a symbol of Jewish heroism".

Siege of Masada

Background

Siege

Mass suicide narrative and debate

Josephus's narrative

Masada myth

Further reading

History

Archeological reports