Everything about Masada totally explained
Masada (a
romanisation of the
Hebrew מצדה,
Metzada, from מצודה,
metzuda, "fortress") is the name for a site of ancient
palaces and
fortifications in the
South District of
Israel on top of an isolated rock
plateau, or large
mesa, on the eastern edge of the
Judean Desert overlooking the
Dead Sea. Masada became famous after the
First Jewish-Roman War (also known as the Great Jewish Revolt) when a
siege of the fortress by troops of the
Roman Empire may have led to a
mass suicide of the site's
Jewish
Sicarii fugitives when defeat became imminent. Since the sole source of information is
Josephus, whose historical accuracy is suspect, this popular conception of mass suicide may not have occurred. Today, Masada is a very popular tourist destination.
Geography
The cliffs on the east edge of Masada are about 1,300 feet (400 m) high and the cliffs on the west are about 300 feet (90 m) high; the natural approaches to the cliff top are very difficult. The top of the plateau is flat and
rhomboid-shaped, about 1,800 feet (550 m) by 900 feet (275 m). There was a
casemate wall around the top of the plateau totaling 4,300 feet (1.3 km) long and 12 feet (3.7 m) thick, with many towers, and the fortress included storehouses,
barracks, an
armory, the palace, and
cisterns that were refilled by
rainwater. Three narrow, winding paths led from below up to fortified gates.
History
According to
Josephus, a
first-century Jewish
Roman historian,
Herod the Great fortified Masada between 37 and 31
BCE as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt. In
66 CE, at the beginning of the First Jewish-Roman War against the Roman Empire, a group of Judaic extremist rebels called the
Sicarii took Masada from the Roman
garrison stationed there.
The accuracy of Josephus' account is key to whether a mass suicide ever took place. Since he was a Jew collaborating with the Romans, it's possible that by describing a mass suicide he was attempting to depict the Zealots as a savage group, completely distinct from Jews that were willing to live peacefully under Roman rule. But nevertheless, as the sole record of events that took place then, according to Josephus, the Sicarii were an extremist group.
According to some modern interpretations of Josephus, the Sicarii are considered an extremist splinter group of the Zealots. The Zealots (according to Josephus), in contrast to the Sicarii, carried the main burden of the rebellion, which opposed Roman rule of
Judea (as the
Roman province of
Iudaea, its
Latinized name).
The Sicarii on Masada were commanded by Elazar ben Ya'ir (who may have been the same person as
Eleazar ben Simon), and in 70 CE they were joined by additional Sicarii and their families that were expelled from
Jerusalem by the Zealots with whom the Sicarii were in conflict shortly before the
destruction of Jerusalem and the
Second Temple.
Archaeology indicates that they modified some of the structures they found there; this includes a building which was modified to function as a synagogue facing
Jerusalem, (in fact, the building may originally have been one), although it didn't contain a
mikvah or the benches found in other early synagogues. Remains of two mikvahs were found elsewhere on Masada.
In 72, 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 doesn't record any attempts by the Sicarii to counterattack the besiegers during this process, a significant difference from his accounts of other sieges against Jewish fortresses. He did record a raid on a nearby Jewish settlement called Ein-Gedi prior to the siege, where the Sicarii killed 700 of the inhabitants.
Some historians also believe that Romans may have used Jewish
slaves to build the rampart, whom the Zealots (these historians see them as Zealots rather than Sicarii) were reluctant to kill because of their beliefs, however as sicarii believed that Jews who didn't belong to their sect could be robbed and killed with impunity this is disputed. According to Dan Gill, geological observations in the early 1990s revealed that the 375 foot high assault ramp consisted mostly of a natural spur of bedrock that required a ramp only 30 feet high built atop it in order to reach the Masada defenses. This discovery would diminish both the scope of the construction and of the conflict between the Sicarii and Romans, relative to the previous perspective in which the ramp was an epic feat of construction.
The rampart was complete in the spring of 73, after approximately two to three months of siege, allowing the Romans to finally breach the wall of the fortress with a
battering ram on
April 16. When they entered the fortress, however, the Romans discovered that its 936 inhabitants had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and committed mass suicide rather than face certain capture, defeat, slavery or execution by their enemies.
The account of the siege of Masada was 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 exhortations to his followers, prior to the mass suicide, verbatim to the Romans. Because
Judaism strongly discourages
suicide, Josephus reported that the defenders had drawn lots and killed each other in turn, down to the last man, who would be the only one to actually take his own life. This account, too, may be at issue, however, since
Judaism also discourages
murder and some historians believe the suicide account to be an invention by Josephus. They claim suicide is unlikely as the defenders had neither the opportunity nor the unanimity required. Josephus says that Eleazar ordered his men to destroy everything except the foodstuffs to show that the defenders retained the ability to live, and so chose the time of their death over slavery but archaeological excavations have shown that storerooms which contained their provisions were burnt. Josephus also reported that the Romans found arms sufficient for ten thousand men as well as iron, brass and lead which casts further doubt on the account. Historians also point out the parallels between the incidents at
Jotapata and Masada such as Eleazar's second speech corresponding to the speech which Josephus himself delivered at Jotapata under similar circumstances and the transference of the lottery motif from the former to the latter.
There is significant disagreement among historians as to the veracity of the Josephus story. Josephus had only claimed to have heard the story second-hand himself. There is also considerable controversy in the archaeological reporting. The primary archeologist, Yigael Yadin, has recently come under charges of professional misconduct. Marches to Masada are still popular in the IDF, and a requirement for many units, such as
Nahal.
Masada has been a
UNESCO World Heritage Site since
2001. An audio-visual light 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).
In 2007, a new museum opened at the site in which archeological findings are displayed within a theatrical setting.
Citations
Further Information
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