Masada
Encyclopedia : M : MA : MAS : Masada
- This article is about the Judean fortress. For other usages, see Masada (disambiguation).
Geography
The cliffs on the east edge of Masada are about 451 m high, dropping off to the Dead Sea, and the cliffs on the west are about 100 m high; the natural approaches to the cliff top are very difficult. The top of the plateau is flat and rhomboid-shaped, about 600 by 300 m. There was a casemate wall around the top of the plateau totaling 1400 m long and 4 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 to fortified gates.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 in the event of a revolt. In 66 CE, at the beginning of the First Jewish-Roman War (also called the Great Jewish Revolt) against the Roman Empire, a group of Jewish rebels called the Zealots (kana'im, "zealous ones") who objected to Roman rule of Judea (as the Roman province of Iudaea, its Latin name).
Commanded by Elazar ben Ya'ir (who may have been the same person as Eleazar ben Simon), the Zealots took Masada from the Roman garrison stationed there. In 70, 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 the Second Temple), and for the next two years used Masada as their base for raiding and harassing Roman and Jewish settlements alike.
Then, 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 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. Some historians also believe that Romans may have used Jewish slaves to build the rampart, whom the Zealots were reluctant to kill because of their beliefs.
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 approximately 1000 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 (which would probably have led to slavery or execution). Because Judaism strongly discourages 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. The storerooms were apparently 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.
The site today
The site of Masada was identified in 1842 AD and extensively excavated in from 1963 AD to 1965 AD 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 area remained largely untouched by humans or nature in the past two millennia, due to the location's remoteness from human habitation and its arid environment. The Roman ramp still stands on the western side and can be climbed on foot. Many of the ancient buildings were restored from their remnants, as were the wall-paintings of Herod's two main palaces, and the Roman-style bathhouses that he built. The synagogue, storehouses, and houses of the Jewish rebels were also found and restored. The meter-high circumvallation wall that the Romans built around Masada can be seen, together with 11 barracks for the Roman soldiers just outside this wall. 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.
The Masada legacy has been used in a similar context by the British Mandate of Palestine, which planned the Masada plan to man defensive positions on Mount Carmel with Palmach fighters, in order to stop Erwin Rommel's expected drive through Palestine in 1942 AD. The plan was abandoned following Rommel's defeat at El Alamein. Today Masada is used by the Israel Defense Forces and youth movements for swearing-in ceremonies, where participants swear the oath that "Masada shall never fall again."
Masada has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001 AD. 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).
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)
See also
- Masada (miniseries) — a 1981 TV miniseries based on the Masada siege events
- Numantia, where the Arevaci preferred suicide over surrendering to the Romans, has a similar meaning in Spanish culture.
External links
- [Masada in the Jewish Encyclopedia]
- [The credibility of Josephus]
- [LIVIUS article on Jewish Wars]
- [World Heritage Sites page]
- [Israel National Parks Authority page]
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