Masada - The Breaching Point

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When the Roman army determined how to attack the rebels in Masada, they brought down Jewish slaves to construct a dirt ramp from the valley floor to the fortress wall. That ramp provided the way to get a battering ram to a gate.

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A historical marker at the site reads:

“Here the siege of Masada ended. The ramp that the Romans had built up to the summit of the mountain reached to below this point. At the top of the ramp rose the siege tower, and in it was the battering ram with which the Romans assaulted the casement wall. However, the rebels had built a wall of earth and wood, against which the battering ram was ineffective:

‘Observing this, Silva, thinking it easier to destroy this wall be fire, ordered his soldiers to hurl at it [at the gate] showers of burning torches...which now through and through was all ablaze’ --Josephus Flavius

Click on photo to enlarge it [replica of a Roman assault tower]

When night fell, and it was clear that the situation was hopeless and that the Romans would break in at dawn, Eleazar Ben Ya’ir assembled his followers and called for mass suicide:

‘The Romans, expecting further opposition...were at a loss to conjecture what had happened...Here encountering the mass of the slain, instead of exulting as over enemies, they admired the nobility of their resolve and the contempt of death displayed by so many in carrying it, unwavering, into execution.’ --Josephus Flavius

The excavations here uncovered ballista balls and arrowheads, numerous slingshots and signs of burning, evidence of the battle that raged at this spot.”