Masada

Masada is located at the top of a rock outcropping near the Dead Sea in the Judean Desert. Its height is about 1,500 feet above the Dead Sea or 400 feet above sea level.

Flavius Josephus is the only significant source of information about Masada. In 40 B.C., Herod the Great and his family fled from Jerusalem to Masada in a time of danger. A short time later, 37-31 B.C., he erected and fortified buildings there, fearing a peril from Jews, and one “more serious from Cleopatra of Egypt.” 

At the outbreak of the first Jewish Rebellion, Masada was captured by a band of Zealots, led by Menahem, son of Judah. When Jewish rivals killed Menahem, his nephew, Eleazar ben Yair, escaped to Masada and was the leader there until its capture in 74 A.D. 

When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D., Masada remained the only point of Jewish resistance. Only a very few surviving fighters managed their way to join the rebels at Masada. It did, however, become the base for Jewish guerilla operations. 

In 72 A.D. the Roman governor Flavius Silva resolved to suppress this outpost of resistance. He marched against Masada at the head of the Tenth Legion, its auxiliary troops, and Jewish war prisoners; in all totaling ten to fifteen thousand people. They established about 8 camps at the base of Masada and built a wall around it to prevent any rebels from escaping.

Then they constructed a rampart up the western side of the fortress. In the spring of 74 A.D., having moved a battering ram to the top, they breached the fortress of Masada only to find the 960 men, women, and children dead—preferring to take their own lives rather than be taken as slaves. 

Josephus writes:

“Since we long ago resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God Himself, Who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice...We were the very first that revolted, and we are the last to fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God has granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom.”

“Let our wives die before they are abused, and our children before they have tasted of slavery, and after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually." Eleazar ordered that all the Jews' possessions except food be destroyed, for "[the food] will be a testimonial when we are dead that we were not subdued for want of necessities; but that, according to our original resolution, we have preferred death before slavery."

(Copied from plaques at the ruins of Masada)