siege of Masada

Masada, siege of (ad 73), one of the final acts of the Jewish revolt against Rome which began in ad 66. Masada, a high outcrop of rock by the Dead Sea, had been fortified in the mid-2nd century bc and again by Herod the Great in the 30s bc. It was seized early in the revolt by the Sicarii sect of alleged assassins led by Eleazar ben Yair. In ad 73, with Jerusalem captured and the rest of the province subdued, the Roman governor, Flavius Silva, laid siege with Legion X Fretensis. The account by the turncoat Jewish leader and historian Josephus claims to have been derived from the two women survivors, but is regarded as heavily embroidered (though confirmed in outline by archaeological excavation in the 1950s and 1960s). Over several months Silva constructed a siege wall, with towers and eight camps, right round the plateau, and then an assault ramp up which he rolled a massive siege tower equipped with a battering ram and artillery. The final assault, on the day after the defences had been breached and fired, revealed that the 960 defenders had taken their own lives.

Bibliography

• Josephus, The Jewish War, 7. 275-406.
• Yadin, Yigael, Masada (London, 1966)

— N. Boris Rankov