The siege of Masada was the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
's defeat of the
Sicarii
The Sicarii were a group of Jewish assassins who were active throughout Judaea in the years leading up to and during the First Jewish–Roman War, which took place at the end of the Second Temple period. Often associated with the Zealots (altho ...
, occurring from 72 to 73 AD – during the final period of the
First Jewish–Roman War
The First Jewish–Roman War (66–74 CE), also known as the Great Jewish Revolt, the First Jewish Revolt, the War of Destruction, or the Jewish War, was the first of three major Jewish rebellions against the Roman Empire. Fought in the prov ...
– on and around a hilltop in present-day Israel. The siege is recorded by a single contemporary written source, ''
The Jewish War'' by
Flavius Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing ''The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Judaea ...
, a Jewish rebel leader captured by the
Romans, in whose service he became a historian. According to Josephus the long siege by the troops of the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
led to the
mass suicide
Mass suicide is a form of suicide, occurring when a group of people simultaneously kill themselves. Mass suicide sometimes occurs in religious settings. In war, defeated groups may resort to mass suicide rather than being captured. Suicide pacts ...
of the
Sicarii
The Sicarii were a group of Jewish assassins who were active throughout Judaea in the years leading up to and during the First Jewish–Roman War, which took place at the end of the Second Temple period. Often associated with the Zealots (altho ...
rebels and resident Jewish families of the
Masada
Masada ( ', 'fortress'; ) is a mountain-top fortress complex in the Judaean Desert, overlooking the western shore of the Dead Sea in southeastern Israel. The fort, built in the first century BCE, was constructed atop a natural plateau rising ov ...
fortress.
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
A national symbol is a manifestation of a nation or community, serving as a representation of their National identity, identity and values. National symbols may be not only applied to sovereign states but also nations and countries in a state of ...
in the early years of
Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
's nationhood.
Background
Masada has been described as "a lozenge-shaped
table-mountain" that is "lofty, isolated, and to all appearance impregnable".
Historically, the fortress could be reached only by a single pathway that was too narrow for men to walk abreast. This pathway was named "the Snake" for the way it twists and zig-zags to the summit.
Masada was named as the place where
David
David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament.
The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...
rested after fleeing from his father-in-law, King
Saul
Saul (; , ; , ; ) was a monarch of ancient Israel and Judah and, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament, the first king of the United Monarchy, a polity of uncertain historicity. His reign, traditionally placed in the late eleventh c ...
.
Flavius Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing ''The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Judaea ...
, a Jew born and raised in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
, is the only historian to provide a detailed account of the
First Jewish–Roman War
The First Jewish–Roman War (66–74 CE), also known as the Great Jewish Revolt, the First Jewish Revolt, the War of Destruction, or the Jewish War, was the first of three major Jewish rebellions against the Roman Empire. Fought in the prov ...
and the only person who recorded what happened on Masada. After being captured during the
Siege of Yodfat and then freed by
Vespasian
Vespasian (; ; 17 November AD 9 – 23 June 79) was Roman emperor from 69 to 79. The last emperor to reign in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for 27 years. His fiscal reforms and consolida ...
, Josephus chronicled the Roman campaign.
Josephus presumably based his narration on the field commentaries of the Roman commanders.
According to Josephus, Masada was first constructed by the
Hasmoneans. Between 37 and 31 BC
Herod the Great
Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...
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
A garrison is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a military base or fortified military headquarters.
A garrison is usually in a city ...
of Masada and settled there. The Sicarii were commanded by
Eleazar ben Ya'ir,
and in 70 AD they were joined by additional Sicarii and their families expelled from Jerusalem by the Jewish population with whom the Sicarii were in conflict.
Shortly thereafter, following the
Roman siege of Jerusalem and subsequent destruction of the
Second Temple
The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...
, additional members of the Sicarii and many Jewish families fled
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
and settled on the mountaintop, with the Sicarii using it as a refuge and base for raiding the surrounding countryside.
According to Josephus, on Passover, the Sicarii
raided Ein Gedi
Ein Gedi (, ), also spelled En Gedi, meaning "Spring (hydrology), spring of the goat, kid", is an oasis, an Archaeological site, archeological site and a nature reserve in Israel, located west of the Dead Sea, near Masada and the Qumran Caves. ...
, 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
A mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvot'', or ( Ashkenazic) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity.
In Orthodox Judaism, these regulations are steadfastly adhered t ...
'' or the benches found in other early synagogues. It is one of the
oldest synagogues in Israel.
Josephus's narrative

In 72 AD, the Roman governor of Judaea,
Lucius Flavius Silva, led
Roman legion
The Roman legion (, ) was the largest military List of military legions, unit of the Roman army, composed of Roman citizenship, Roman citizens serving as legionary, legionaries. During the Roman Republic the manipular legion comprised 4,200 i ...
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. 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 thousands of tons of stones and beaten earth to do so. 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.

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
A battering ram is a siege engine that originated in ancient times and was designed to break open the masonry walls of fortifications or splinter their wooden gates. In its simplest form, a battering ram is just a large, heavy log carried ...
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",
allowing the Romans to breach the wall of the fortress on April 16, 73 AD.
When the Romans entered the fortress, they found it to be "a citadel of death".
The Jewish rebels had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and had killed each other, declaring "a glorious death ... preferable to a life of infamy".
Scholarly analysis
According to
Shaye Cohen, archaeology shows that Josephus' account is "incomplete and inaccurate" and contradicted by the "skeletons in the cave, and the numerous separate fires". 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.
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 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
Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
retelling of the Siege of Masada, a selectively constructed narrative based on
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
's account, with the
Sicarii
The Sicarii were a group of Jewish assassins who were active throughout Judaea in the years leading up to and during the First Jewish–Roman War, which took place at the end of the Second Temple period. Often associated with the Zealots (altho ...
instead depicted as national heroes, and in which the Sicarii were described splinter group of the
Zealots
The Zealots were members of a Jewish political movements, Jewish political movement during the Second Temple period who sought to incite the people of Judaea (Roman province), Judaea to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the Land ...
.
[ Ben-Yehuda, Nachman]
The Masada Myth: Scholar presents evidence that the heroes of the Jewish Great Revolt were not heroes at all
, ''The Bible and Interpretation''
The siege of Masada and the resulting
Masada myth is often revered in modern Israel as "a symbol of Jewish heroism".
According to Klara Palotai, "Masada became a symbol for a heroic 'last stand' for the State of Israel and played a major role for Israel in forging national identity."
To Israel, it symbolized the courage of the warriors of Masada, the strength they showed when they were able to keep hold of Masada for almost three years, and their choice of death over slavery in their struggle against an aggressive empire. Masada had become "the performance space of national heritage", the site of military ceremonies.
Palotai states how Masada "developed a special 'love affair' with archeology" because the site had drawn people from all around the world to help locate the remnants of the fortress and the battle that occurred there.
In works
* ''Masada: An Historical Epic'', 1927 poem by
Yitzhak Lamdan
*
''The Antagonists'' (novel), 1971 novel
*
''Masada'' (miniseries), 1981 American miniseries
*
''The Dovekeepers'', 2011 novel
* ''
The Dovekeepers'', 2015 miniseries
See also
*
Masada myth
*
Jewish–Roman wars
The Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of Judaea against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 CE. The conflict was driven by Jewish aspirations to restore the political independence lost when Rome conquer ...
*
Zealots (Judea)
*
Miła 18, Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto
International:
*
Puputan, mass suicide in
Bali
Bali (English:; Balinese language, Balinese: ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller o ...
*
Teutons: Mass suicide of the women of the Teutones
*
Destruction of Psara, a similar heroic mass suicide in Greek history
General:
*
Mass suicide
Mass suicide is a form of suicide, occurring when a group of people simultaneously kill themselves. Mass suicide sometimes occurs in religious settings. In war, defeated groups may resort to mass suicide rather than being captured. Suicide pacts ...
References
Further reading
History
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Ben-Yehuda, Nachman.
Sacrificing Truth: Archaeology and the Myth of Masada', Humanity Books, 2002.
*
*
Archeological reports
* Avi-Yonah, Michael et al., ''Israel Exploration Journal'' 7, 1957, 1–160 (excavation report Masada)
* Yadin, Yigael. ''Israel Exploration Journal'' 15, 1965 (excavation report Masada).
*
*
* Netzer, E., ''Masada; The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965.'' Vol III. IES Jerusalem, 1991.
* Roller, Duane W. ''The Building Program of Herod the Great'', Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998.
* Netzer, Ehud. ''The Palaces of the Hasmoneans and Herod the Great.'' Jerusalem: Yed Ben-Zvi Press and The Israel Exploration Society, 2001.
* Ehud Netzer, ''The Rebels' Archives at Masada'', Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2 (2004), pp. 218–229
* Bar-Nathan, R., ''Masada; The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965'', Vol VII. IES Jerusalem, 2006.* Jacobson, David, "The Northern Palace at Masada – Herod's Ship of the Desert?" ''Palestine Exploration Quarterly'', 138,2 (2006), 99–117.
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70s in the Roman Empire
70s conflicts
Jews and Judaism in the Roman Empire
Mass suicides
Sieges involving the Roman Empire
Last stands
First Jewish–Roman War
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1st-century battles
Flavian military campaigns
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