The Siege of Masada: What Really Happened on the Mountain

Our Masada guide covers how to visit the fortress. This post is about the event that made it famous: the Roman siege at the very end of the Great Jewish Revolt.

The revolt against Rome broke out in 66 CE. By 70 CE the Romans had destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple, but a group of rebels known as the Sicarii, led by Eleazar ben Yair, held out on Masada, the cliff-top palace fortress built by Herod a century earlier. With Herod's storerooms and huge water cisterns, they could survive for a long time.

Around 73 CE (some scholars argue 74), the Roman governor Flavius Silva arrived with the Tenth Legion and auxiliary troops, perhaps around 8,000 men. They built a stone wall right around the mountain, eight military camps whose outlines are still crystal clear from the summit, and then a massive siege ramp of earth and timber up a natural spur on the western side. On top of it they hauled a siege tower and a battering ram and broke through the wall.

According to the historian Josephus, who wrote the only detailed account, the defenders chose to die rather than be enslaved. Eleazar gave two speeches, the men killed their families and then each other, and 960 people died. Two women and five children who hid in a cistern survived to tell the story.

Archaeology adds detail and some questions. Excavations in the 1960s under Yigael Yadin found the ramp, the camps, rebel living quarters, ritual baths, a synagogue and a group of inscribed potsherds that may be the lots described by Josephus. The remains of only a small number of people were found, so how literally to take the mass suicide remains debated.

Stand on the summit, look down on the ramp and the camps, and the story is very real. Join us on our Masada and Dead Sea tour.