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Masada and the SicariiSee also The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem, by Flavius Josephus Wikipedia Article: The Jewish-Roman WarsThe Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of Judaea and the Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 CE.[10] The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE) and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) were nationalist rebellions, striving to restore an independent Judean state, while the Kitos War (115–117 CE) was more of an ethno-religious conflict, mostly fought outside the province of Judaea. As a result, there is variation in the use of the term "Jewish-Roman wars." Some sources exclusively apply it to the First Jewish-Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt, while others include the Kitos War as well. The Jewish–Roman wars had a devastating impact on the Jewish people, transforming them from a major population in the Eastern Mediterranean into a dispersed and persecuted minority.[11] The First Jewish-Roman War culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and other towns and villages in Judaea, resulting in significant loss of life and a considerable segment of the population being uprooted or displaced.[12] Those who remained were stripped of any form of political autonomy.[13] Subsequently, the brutal suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in even more severe consequences. Judea witnessed a significant depopulation, as many Jews were killed, expelled, or sold into slavery.[14][15] Jews were banned from residing in the vicinity of Jerusalem, which the Romans rebuilt into the pagan colony of Aelia Capitolina, and the province of Judaea was renamed Syria Palaestina. Collectively, these events enhanced the role of Jewish diaspora, relocating the Jewish demographic and cultural center to Galilee and eventually to Babylonia, with smaller communities across the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and beyond. The Jewish–Roman wars also had a major impact on Judaism, after the central worship site of Second Temple Judaism, the Second Temple in Jerusalem, was destroyed by Titus's troops in 70 CE.[16] The destruction of the Temple led to a transformation in Jewish religious practices, emphasizing prayer, Torah study, and communal gatherings in synagogues. This pivotal shift laid the foundation for the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism, which has been the dominant form of Judaism since late antiquity, after the codification of the Babylonian Talmud.[17] Sequence[edit]The Jewish–Roman wars include the following:[18]
History[edit]Prelude[edit]Main articles: Jacob and Simon uprising and Alexandrian riots (38 CE) Following increasing Roman domination of the Eastern Mediterranean, the client kingdom of the Herodian dynasty had been officially merged into the Roman Empire in the year 6 CE with the creation of the Roman province of Judaea. The transition of the Tetrarchy of Judaea into a Roman province immediately brought a great deal of tensions and a Jewish uprising by Judas of Galilee erupted right away as a response to the Census of Quirinius. Although initially pacified (the years between 7 and 26 CE being relatively quiet), the province continued to be a source of trouble under Emperor Caligula (after 37 CE). The cause of tensions in the east of the Empire was complicated, involving the spread of Greek culture, Roman law, and the rights of Jews in the Empire. Caligula did not trust the prefect of Roman Egypt, Aulus Avilius Flaccus. Flaccus had been loyal to Tiberius, had conspired against Caligula's mother and had connections with Egyptian separatists.[19][better source needed] In 38 CE, Caligula sent Herod Agrippa to Alexandria unannounced to check on Flaccus.[20][better source needed] According to Philo, the visit was met with jeers from the Greek population, who saw Agrippa as the king of the Jews.[21][22] Flaccus tried to placate both the Greek population and Caligula by having statues of the emperor placed in Jewish synagogues.[23][24] As a result, extensive religious riots broke out in the city.[25] Caligula responded by removing Flaccus from his position and executing him.[26] In 39 CE, Agrippa accused Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, of planning a rebellion against Roman rule with the help of Parthia. Herod Antipas confessed and Caligula exiled him. Agrippa was rewarded with his territories.[27] Riots again erupted in Alexandria in 40 CE between Jews and Greeks.[28] Jews were accused of not honoring the emperor.[28] Disputes occurred also in the city of Jamnia.[29] Jews were angered by the erection of a clay altar and destroyed it.[29] In response, Caligula ordered the erection of a statue of himself in the Temple in Jerusalem,[30] a demand in conflict with Jewish monotheism.[31] In this context, Philo writes that Caligula "regarded the Jews with most especial suspicion, as if they were the only persons who cherished wishes opposed to his".[31] Fearing civil war if the order were carried out, Publius Petronius—governor of Roman Syria—delayed implementing it for nearly a year.[32] Agrippa finally convinced Caligula to reverse the order.[28] However, only Caligula's death at the hands of Roman conspirators in 41 CE prevented a full-scale war in Judaea, that might well have spread to the entire Eastern Roman Empire.[33] Caligula's death did not stop the tensions completely and in 46 CE an insurrection led by two brothers, the Jacob and Simon uprising, broke out in the Judea province. The revolt, mainly in the Galilee, began as sporadic insurgency; when it climaxed in 48 CE it was quickly put down by Roman authorities. Both Simon and Jacob were executed.[34] First Jewish–Roman War[edit]Main article: First Jewish–Roman War The First Jewish–Roman War began in the year 66 CE, originating in the Greek and Jewish religious tensions, and later escalated due to anti-taxation protests and attacks upon Roman citizens.[35] In response to the Roman plunder of the Second Jewish Temple and the execution of up to 6,000 Jews in Jerusalem, a full-scale rebellion erupted. The Roman military garrison of Judaea was quickly overrun by rebels, while the pro-Roman king Herod Agrippa II and Roman officials fled Jerusalem. As it became clear the rebellion was getting out of control, Cestius Gallus, the legate of Syria, brought the Syrian army, based on Legio XII Fulminata and reinforced by auxiliary troops, to restore order and quell the revolt. Despite initial advances, the Syrian Legion was ambushed and defeated by Jewish rebels at the Battle of Beth Horon with 6,000 Romans massacred and the legionary eagle lost – a result that shocked the Roman leadership.[citation needed] The experienced and unassuming general Vespasian was then tasked with crushing the rebellion in Judaea province. His son Titus was appointed second-in-command. Vespasian was given four legions and assisted by forces of King Agrippa II. In 67 CE he invaded Galilee. While avoiding a direct attack on the reinforced city of Jerusalem which was packed with the main rebel force, Titus's forces launched a persistent campaign to eradicate rebel strongholds and punish the population. Within several months Vespasian and Titus took over the major Jewish strongholds of Galilee and finally overran Jotapata under command of Yosef ben Matitiyahu, following a 47-day siege. Meantime in Jerusalem, an attempt by Sicarii leader Menahem to take control of the city failed, resulting in his execution. A peasant leader Simon bar Giora was ousted from the city by the new moderate Judaean government and Ananus ben Ananus began reinforcing the city.[citation needed] Driven from Galilee, Zealot rebels and thousands of refugees arrived in Judaea, creating political turmoil in Jerusalem. Zealots were at first sealed in the Temple compound. However, confrontation between the mainly Sadducee Jerusalemites and the mainly Zealot factions of the Northern Revolt under the command of John of Gischala and Eleazar ben Simon became evident. With Edomites entering the city and fighting on the side of the Zealots, Ananus ben Ananus was killed and his forces suffered severe casualties. Simon bar Giora, commanding 15,000 troops, was then invited into Jerusalem by the Sadducee leaders to stand against the Zealots, and quickly took control over much of the city. Bitter infighting between factions of Simon, John and Eleazar followed through the year 69 CE.[citation needed] After a lull in the military operations, owing to civil war and political turmoil in Rome, Vespasian returned to Rome and was accepted as the new Emperor in 69 CE. After Vespasian's departure, Titus besieged the center of rebel resistance in Jerusalem in early 70 CE. While the first two walls of Jerusalem were breached within three weeks, a stubborn stand prevented the Roman Army from breaking the third and thickest wall. Following a brutal seven-month siege, in which Zealot infighting resulted in the burning of the entire food supply of the city to enhance "fighting to the end", the Romans finally succeeded in breaching the weakened Jewish forces in the summer of 70 CE. Following the fall of Jerusalem, Titus left for Rome, while Legion X Fretensis defeated the remaining Jewish strongholds later on, finalizing the Roman campaign in Masada in 73/74 CE.[citation needed] Kitos War[edit]Main article: Kitos War The Kitos War (115–117 CE) also known as mered ha'galuyot or mered ha'tfutzot (Rebellion of the exile) is the name given to the second of the Jewish–Roman wars. The Kitos War consisted of major revolts by diasporic Jews in Cyrenaica, Cyprus, Mesopotamia and Egypt, which spiraled out of control, resulting in a widespread slaughter of Roman citizens and others (200,000 in Cyrene, 240,000 in Cyprus according to Cassius Dio) by the Jewish rebels. The rebellions were finally crushed by Roman legionary forces, chiefly by the Roman general Lusius Quietus, whose nomen later gave the conflict its title, as "Kitos" is a later corruption of Quietus.[citation needed] The Kitos War led to the disappearance of the influential Jewish community in Alexandria and Egypt, and in the expulsion of Jews from Cyprus.[36] Bar Kokhba Revolt[edit]Main article: Bar Kokhba revolt The Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE,[37] Hebrew: מרד בר כוכבא) was the third major rebellion by the Jews of Judaea and the Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire and the last of the Jewish–Roman wars. The establishment of the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina in Jerusalem by the emperor Hadrian is most likely what sparked the uprising. The Jews of Judaea spent a long time preparing for this rebellion in secrecy, carving out hundreds of underground hideout systems beneath their settlements. Simon bar Kokhba was acclaimed as a Messiah, a heroic figure who could restore Israel. The revolt established an independent state of Israel over parts of Judaea for more than two years, but a Roman army made up of six full legions with auxilia and elements from up to six additional legions finally crushed it.[38] The rebellion is also known as The Third Jewish–Roman War or The Third Jewish Revolt, though some historians relate it as Second Jewish Revolt, not counting the Kitos War, 115–117 CE.[citation needed] AftermathThe rebels' eventual failure was a catastrophe. Due to the brutal suppression of the revolt, which resulted in a huge number of people being killed or captured, Judaea's rural countryside was devastated and depopulated.[39][40][41][42][43] Judaea was no longer the focus of Jewish life, and the province's name was changed to Syria Palaestina.[44][45] The Romans barred Jews from Jerusalem, except to attend Tisha B'Av. Although Jewish Christians hailed Jesus as the Messiah and did not support Bar Kokhba,[46] they were barred from Jerusalem along with the rest of the Jews.[citation needed] The war and its aftermath helped differentiate Christianity as a religion distinct from Judaism (see Split of early Christianity and Judaism).[47] Due to the First Jewish-Roman War, the destruction of the Second Temple ushered in a major time of dramatic reformation in religious leadership, causing the face of Judaism to change. The Second Temple served as the centralized location from which the ruling groups Sadducees and the Pharisees maintained Judaism, with rivaling Essenes and Zealots being largely in opposition. With the destruction of the temple, the major ruling group lost their power – the Sadducees, who were the priests, directly lost their localized power source and were rendered obsolete. Due to this, only one group was left with all the power – the Pharisees, who were the rabbinic group. Rabbinic power did not derive from the temple or from military prowess, but spread to different communities through the synagogues. This changed the way Judaism was practiced on a daily basis, which included changing from sacrificing animals to praying in order to worship God.[48] Rabbinic Judaism became a religion centered around synagogues, and the Jews themselves dispersed throughout the Roman world and beyond.[49] With the destruction of Jerusalem, important centers of Jewish culture developed in the area of Galilee and in Babylonia and work on the Talmud continued in these locations. Before Vespasian's departure, the Pharisaic sage and Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai obtained his permission to establish a Judaic school at Yavne. Zakkai was smuggled away from Jerusalem in a coffin by his students. This school later became a major center of Talmudic study.[citation needed] Hadrian (emperor 117–138 CE) undertook punitive actions towards the Jewish community, including barring them from entering Jerusalem, except on the fast day of Tisha B'Av. Jerusalem itself was re-founded as the Roman polis of Aelia Capitolina, and the Province of Judaea was renamed Syria Palaestina. At the former Jewish sanctuary on the Temple Mount he installed two statues, one of Jupiter and another of himself.[50][citation needed] The Jewish–Roman wars had a dramatic impact on the Jews, turning them from a major population in the Eastern Mediterranean into a scattered and persecuted minority. The Jewish–Roman wars are often cited as a disaster to Jewish society.[11] The defeat of the Jewish revolts altered the Jewish population and enhanced the importance of Jewish diaspora, essentially moving the demographic center of Jews from Judea to Galilee and Babylon, with minor communities across the Mediterranean. Although having a sort of autonomy in the Galilee until the 4th century and later a limited success in establishing the short-lived Sasanian Jewish autonomy in Jerusalem in 614–617 CE, Jewish dominance in parts of the Southern Levant was regained only in the mid-20th century, with the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 CE.[citation needed] See also[edit]
Wikipedia Article: The Siege of MasadaThe siege of Masada was one of the final events in the First Jewish–Roman War, occurring from 72 to 73 AD on and around a hilltop in present-day Israel. The siege is known to history via a single source, Flavius Josephus, a Jewish rebel leader captured by the Romans, in whose service he became a historian. According to Josephus the long siege by the troops of the Roman Empire led to the mass suicide of the Sicarii rebels and resident Jewish families of the Masada fortress. Masada has been described as "a lozenge-shaped table-mountain" that is "lofty, isolated, and to all appearance impregnable". Historically, the fortress could be reached only by a single pathway that was too narrow for men to walk abreast. This pathway was named "the Snake" for the way it twists and zig-zags to the summit. Masada was named as the place where David rested after fleeing from his father-in-law, King Saul. Flavius Josephus, a Jew born and raised in Jerusalem, is the only historian to provide a detailed account of the First Jewish–Roman War and the only person who recorded what happened on Masada. After being captured during the Siege of Yodfat and then freed by Vespasian, Josephus chronicled the Roman campaign. Josephus presumably based his narration on the field commentaries of the Roman commanders. According to Josephus, Masada was first constructed by the Hasmoneans. Between 37 and 31 BC Herod the Great fortified it as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt. In 66 AD, at the beginning of the First Jewish–Roman War, a group of Jewish extremists called the Sicarii overcame the Roman garrison of Masada and settled there. The Sicarii were commanded by Eleazar ben Ya'ir, and in 70 AD they were joined by additional Sicarii and their families expelled from Jerusalem by the Jewish population with whom the Sicarii were in conflict. Shortly thereafter, following the Roman siege of Jerusalem and subsequent destruction of the Second Temple, additional members of the Sicarii and many Jewish families fled Jerusalem and settled on the mountaintop, with the Sicarii using it as a refuge and base for raiding the surrounding countryside. According to modern interpretations of Josephus, the Sicarii were an extremist splinter group of the Zealots and were equally antagonistic to both Romans and other Jewish groups. It was the Zealots, in contrast to the Sicarii, who carried the main burden of the rebellion, which opposed Roman rule of Judea. According to Josephus, on Passover, the Sicarii raided Ein Gedi, a nearby Jewish settlement, and killed 700 of its inhabitants. Archaeology indicates that the Sicarii modified some of the structures they found at Masada; these include a building that was modified to function as a synagogue (it may in fact have been a synagogue to begin with), although it did not contain a mikvah or the benches found in other early synagogues. It is one of the oldest synagogues in Israel. In 72 AD, the Roman governor of Judaea, Lucius Flavius Silva, led Roman legion X Fretensis, a number of auxiliary units and Jewish prisoners of war, totaling some 15,000 men and women (of whom an estimated 8,000 to 9,000 were fighting men) to lay siege to the 960 people in Masada. The Roman legion surrounded Masada and built a circumvallation wall, before commencing construction of a siege ramp against the western face of the plateau, moving thousands of tons of stones and beaten earth to do so. Josephus does not record any attempts by the Sicarii to counterattack the besiegers during this process, a significant difference from his accounts of other sieges of the revolt. The ramp was completed in the spring of 73, after probably two to three months of siege. A giant siege tower with a battering ram was constructed and moved laboriously up the completed ramp, while the Romans assaulted the wall, discharging "a volley of blazing torches against ... a wall of timber", allowing the Romans to finally breach the wall of the fortress on April 16, 73 AD. When the Romans entered the fortress, however, they found it to be "a citadel of death". The Jewish rebels had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and had killed each other, declaring "a glorious death ... preferable to a life of infamy". According to Josephus, "The Jews hoped that all of their nation beyond the Euphrates would join together with them to raise an insurrection", but in the end there were only 960 Jewish Zealots who fought the Roman army at Masada. When these Zealots were trapped on top of Masada with nowhere to run, Josephus tells us that the Zealots believed "it [was] by the will of God, and by necessity, that [they] are to die." Historical interpretationsAccording to Shaye Cohen, archaeology shows that Josephus' account is "incomplete and inaccurate" and contradicted by the "skeletons in the cave, and the numerous separate fires". Cohen speculates that "some Jews killed themselves, some fought to the death, and some attempted to hide and escape. The Romans were in no mood to take prisoners and massacred all whom they found." According to Kenneth Atkinson, there is no "archaeological evidence that Masada's defenders committed mass suicide." According to archaeologist Eric H. Cline, Josephus' narrative is impossible because the Romans would have immediately pressed their advantage, leaving no time for Eleazar's speech or the mass suicides. Instead, Cline proposes that the defenders were massacred by Romans. LegacyThe siege of Masada is often revered in modern Israel as "a symbol of Jewish heroism". According to Klara Palotai, "Masada became a symbol for a heroic 'last stand' for the State of Israel and played a major role for Israel in forging national identity". To Israel, it symbolized the courage of the warriors of Masada, the strength they showed when they were able to keep hold of Masada for almost three years, and their choice of death over slavery in their struggle against an aggressive empire. Masada had become "the performance space of national heritage", the site of military ceremonies. Palotai states how Masada "developed a special 'love affair' with archeology" because the site had drawn people from all around the world to help locate the remnants of the fortress and the battle that occurred there. Ancient battle divides Israel as Masada 'myth' unravelsIt was the most famous archaeological excavation of the century after the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. For years in the Sixties archaeologists worked at Masada, the mountain fortress which towers over the southern end of the Dead Sea, seeking evidence of the last battle and mass suicide in AD73 of Jewish rebels against the Roman empire. The story of the last redoubt, of Jews fighting to the end against the Roman legions, had instant appeal in Israel and abroad. Soldiers of the Israeli armoured corps used to trek to Masada to hold their annual swearing- in ceremony. But Masada is no longer a symbol of unity. And, within the past week, exactly what happened on the mountain top 2,000 years ago has provoked charge and counter-charge. Were its defenders the heroic hard core of the great Jewish revolt against Rome, or a gang of killers who became victims of a last Roman mopping-up operation? Was Elazar Ben-Yair, the commander, right to persuade his 960 followers to kill each other - if, indeed, the suicide occurred at all? As a result of the controversy, Aryeh Barnea, head of a Jerusalem school, last week called off a trip by pupils to Masada. "I decided to cancel the ceremony in which it is customary to present Elazar Ben Yair as a hero," he said, "since he apparently murdered hundreds of innocent persons before the siege." Dr Ze'ev Moshel, one of the original excavators, was outraged. He said that the collapse of the Masada myth was unjustified and its defenders "believed they embodied Jewish independence". Most Israeli archaeologists now accept that what really happened at Masada was very different from the picture painted by Professor Yigael Yadin, the archaeologist and former chief of staff of the Israeli army, who carried out the highly publicised excavations in 1963-65. At a cost of about pounds 920,000 in current values, mostly provided by British donors including the Observer newspaper, Professor Yadin claimed to have found evidence for the heroic version of what happened at the fortress. The project was always more bizarre than the hundreds of Israeli and foreign volunteers who worked on the site might have realised. The only literary source is Josephus Flavius, the Jewish historian who had himself taken part in the revolt before joining the Roman side. His account says that the defenders of Masada took no part in the war against Rome during the siege of Jerusalem, but instead plundered local villages including En Gedi on the Dead Sea, where "women and children, more than 700 in number, were butchered". Professor Nachman Ben-Yehuda, the author of The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel, published in 1995, traced the development of the Masada mythology and the tailoring of archaeological evidence to promote its status as a nationalist icon. He is scathing about Professor Yadin's conclusions, and says these were systematically modified to support the story of Josephus. Yadin was anxious to find bones of the 960 defenders and their families, and in November 1963 the remains of three skeletons were found, identified as a man aged 20-22, a woman of 17-18 and a child of 11-12. According to the transcript of a discussion which took place at the time, he said: "It is obvious that the child and woman cannot be mother and son because of the age difference." But in his book on Masada three years later, he speaks of finding the skeleton "of a man in his twenties who was perhaps one of the commanders of Masada". He does not mention the ages of the woman and child, allowing him to suggest that he may have discovered a Masada fighter with his family. Another five years later, writing in the Encyclopedia Judaica, all doubts have vanished: "The skeletons ... represent the remains of an important commander of Masada and his family." In fact, says Professor Ben-Yehuda, the Sixties excavators were disappointed that they found so little to confirm the last stand and mass suicide. The most obvious sign of the Roman assault is the sandy ramp, built on a rocky spur, which reaches up to the top of the mountain. There were arrowheads, but not of the high-quality type used by the Romans. A recent study estimates the length of military operations at Masada at six weeks, not the long siege described in Israeli school textbooks. Professor Jerome Murphy-O'Connor of the Ecole Biblique, a research institute in Jerusalem, does not believe the account of mass suicide. In Josephus it is preceded by two lengthy speeches by Ben-Yair, reported verbatim, in which he persuades his people to kill each other. The survival of his words is inherently unlikely, since Josephus also says that only two women and five small children were alive when the Romans entered the fortress. Professor Murphy-O'Connor says Josephus "invented the speech of Elazar [Ben-Yair] to lay the blame for the war, not on the Jewish people as such, but on a minority of violent revolutionaries". Professor Yadin wanted to prove that the defenders of Masada were the hard-core supporters of a national resistance movement led by the Zealots, the movement which fought in Jerusalem. He interpreted scrolls found at Masada as showing that the defenders came from different sects and groups, though the scrolls may have been looted from nearby villages. What Josephus actually said was that the defenders of Masada were Sicarii, an extreme Jewish group who specialised in assassination and had killed the High Priest in Jerusalem. The debate about what happened at Masada is conducted with such energy and venom in Israel because it symbolises two views of the country and its present policies. These are as relevant in 1997 as when Josephus wrote 2,000 years ago. One is that Israel is a besieged fortress whose defenders must fight to the end against an implacable enemy. The other, upheld by Professor Ben-Yehuda, is that today, as in the past, the refusal to compromise of such extremists as the Sicarii at Masada and the leaders of the doomed revolt against Rome bring only death and destruction to the Jewish people. The Masada mysteryI n 73 or 74 CE, 960 Jewish zealots – men, women and children – committed suicide on top of the mountain of Masada by the Dead Sea in Israel rather than be captured by the Romans. The story, told by the Roman historian Josephus, is one of the most famous from antiquity. But did it actually happen? Yigael Yadin, the late Israeli archaeologist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who excavated the site in the mid-1960s, said that it did. Moreover, he also said that the objects found during his dig proved it. His subsequently published book, Masada: Herod’s Fortress and the Zealots’ Last Stand (1966), was a bestseller. It was no secret that Yadin’s excavations at sites in Israel, such as at Hazor in the 1950s and at Masada in the 1960s, were in part undertaken in the hope of reinforcing Jewish claims to the land by linking them to biblical stories and other famous events. Some have long charged Yadin with a political agenda detached from the truth – and cast a shadow over his interpretations of the finds at Masada and elsewhere in the Levant. In 1995 and 2002, Nachman Ben-Yehuda, a sociologist also at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published his own interpretation of the finds from Masada in two separate books – The Masada Myth and Sacrificing Truth. He concluded that Yadin had been incorrect in many of his interpretations, perhaps deliberately so, in the interest of creating a nationalist narrative to help the young state of Israel forge an identity for itself. Subsequently, Amnon Ben-Tor, who is now the Yigael Yadin Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and who had excavated with Yadin at Masada, published a spirited defence of Yadin and his findings, titled Back to Masada (2009). In this book, Ben-Tor went through the archaeology again, dismissing each of Ben-Yehuda’s points and basically confirming Yadin’s point of view. Yet the dispute goes on. The story of Masada is more than just a story of the archaeological excavations. It is an example of how archaeologists use historical information to supplement what they find during their excavations and to flesh out the bare details provided by the archaeological discoveries. Yadin made particular use of the writings of Flavius Josephus – the Jewish general turned Roman historian who wrote two books about the Jews in the first century CE and who is the primary source for what might have taken place on top of Masada nearly 2,000 years ago. And Masada shows how the relationship between archaeology and the historical record cuts both ways; since we cannot be certain that Josephus’s discussions are 100 per cent accurate, we can use archaeology to corroborate – or to challenge – the ancient text. Masada also serves as a cautionary tale about using (or misusing) archaeological evidence to support a nationalistic agenda, as some scholars have suggested Yadin did. The debate over Masada involves the trustworthiness of Josephus’s account; the credibility of Yadin, perhaps the most famous of all Israeli archaeologists; and the influence of nationalism on the interpretation of archaeological discoveries. Whom do we believe? How should we view this seemingly tragic, heart-wrenching ancient site and event? And can we ever tap evidence from thousands of years in the past to establish the origins, legal claims and birthright of peoples today? M asada is a tall mountain with a flat plateau on top, longer than it is wide, rising high above the surrounding dry and arid desert. It has been a tourist attraction ever since Yadin’s excavations in the mid-1960s. Hundreds of tourists per day now roam around the ruins on top of the mountain – half a million visit every year. It is the second most popular tourist site in Israel, after Jerusalem, and was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2001. It lies at the southern end of the Dead Sea, far to the south of Qumran and most of the caves in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The top is accessible on foot only via a narrow winding track known as the Snake Path, which leads 400 metres (1,300 feet) up the front face of the massif and the Roman siege ramp still in place on the western side. It gets so hot here that rules have been put in place instructing tourists that they may begin the climb only if it is before 9:30 in the morning. After that, there’s too much chance of getting dehydrated during the ascent. Those who begin climbing before dawn are rewarded by one of the most spectacular sunrises they will ever see, but most tourists opt to ride up in the cable cars that have been installed, gliding above the Snake Path and waving to those below. The work that Yadin conducted at Masada over two excavation seasons – from October 1963 to May 1964, and again from November 1964 to April 1965 – was a milestone for archaeology in several ways. For example, Yadin was the first to use international volunteers to help dig the site. He recruited participants by placing ads in newspapers, both in Israel and in England, and wound up with volunteers from 28 countries. The sheer numbers that took part is also amazing – Yadin claimed to have had no fewer than 300 volunteers digging at Masada at any given moment during his excavations. Those included volunteers from the Israel Defense Forces, high-school students and kibbutz members, in addition to the international participants. The logistics of running the dig were staggering. Archaeologists active today, who were graduate students at the time, talk about helicopters flying tools and equipment up to the top of the mound, though the more usual route was to carry everything up the western side of the mound via the Roman siege ramp. Expedition members lived in tents pitched at the foot of this same Roman ramp. The excavation itself has become the stuff of legend. Yadin said that when they first began planning the excavation, they couldn’t see any structures with a recognisable plan on top of Masada. The entire area, he said, seemed to be covered with ‘mounds of stone and rubble’. In actuality, many of the buildings could be seen quite plainly, once the team took aerial photographs so that they knew where to dig. By the time they finished the excavations, they had discovered that Masada was an elaborate palatial settlement, originally built by King Herod after his successful journey to Rome in 40 BCE, in case he ever had to flee Jerusalem and seek refuge elsewhere. It was later taken over and occupied by the Sicarii, or Dagger Men, rebels fighting Rome in the aftermath of the First Jewish Revolt more than seven decades later. They found numerous small items: hundreds of coins, pieces of pottery with inscriptions on them, and small pieces of jewellery Masada actually boasted two palaces. One was at the northern end of the rock plateau. It had three levels embedded in the side of the cliff and was placed to grab summer breezes in the intense heat of the Judaean desert. The other palace was on Masada’s western side. In addition to the two palaces, Yadin’s team found rooms and buildings that served as tanneries, workshops and even a synagogue. They also found numerous storage areas to hold food and other provisions, some of which had jars that still contained charred grain and cisterns for holding rainwater, for there was no fresh water to be had in the arid desert region that surrounded Masada. Some of the walls were covered in plaster painted with images in deep blues, brilliant reds, yellow and black, of which only fragments now remain. A few of the floors were inlaid with mosaics featuring elaborate designs like those found more commonly in Greece or Rome. Presumably artisans hired by Herod the Great created these, perhaps to emulate what he had seen in Rome. Yadin reconstructed some of the original buildings from fallen stones. The best example of this at Masada was the large complex of storerooms that were in the northeastern part of the site. Here, just the lower portions of the walls were left, but the stones from higher up in the walls were all lying right where they had fallen. Yadin and his team used every available stone to rebuild the walls, which turned out to be 11 feet high. In order to show what they had done, they painted a black line to separate the lower part that they had excavated from the upper part that they had reconstructed. Yadin said they put ‘every grain of earth … through a special sieve’. Nearly 50,000 cubic yards of dirt was sifted – the first time that every single bucket of dirt had been sifted at an excavation in Israel. As a result, they found numerous small items that would probably have been missed otherwise, including hundreds of coins, pieces of pottery with inscriptions on them, and small pieces of jewellery such as rings and beads. The coins allowed Yadin to date very precisely the remains that they were uncovering – particularly the coins that had been made just a few years earlier, during the First Jewish Revolt. The first Jewish rebellion began in 66 CE, when the Jews in what is now Israel rose up against the Romans who were occupying their land. The revolt lasted until 70 CE, at which point the Romans captured Jerusalem and burnt most of it to the ground, including the Temple that had been built there by Herod the Great to replace the original one constructed by King Solomon, which had been destroyed by the Neo-Babylonians centuries earlier. It is said that both the First and Second Temples – that is, those built by Solomon and Herod, respectively – were destroyed on the same day of the year, which is today a Jewish day of mourning known as Tisha B’Av. When the rebellion ended, a group of rebels managed to escape the destruction of Jerusalem and settled at Masada. Led by a man named Eleazar ben Ya’ir, these were the Sicarii. They took over the fortified buildings and palaces that Herod had originally built on top of Masada as a place of last refuge. In his account of what happened, though, Josephus got some of the details wrong, and so we suspect that perhaps he wasn’t ever there himself, but was using someone else’s notes. For instance, he says that Herod ‘built a palace … at the western ascent … but inclined to its north side.’ In actuality, as noted, the archaeologists found two palaces, not one – at the west and at the north – on top of Masada. Some of the other details that Josephus gives, though, are quite correct – for instance, he describes the baths that were built there, the fact that the floors in some of the buildings ‘were paved with stones of several colours’, and that many pits were cut into the living rock to serve as cisterns. Josephus must be referring to the sort of mosaics that Yadin found still partially intact on some of the floors. As to the cisterns that he mentions, some of them dug into the rock on top of Masada were simply enormous. Yadin estimated that they each had a capacity of up to 140,000 cubic feet of water; added together, they could hold almost 1.4 million cubic feet or more than 10 million gallons of water. The Romans surrounded Masada with a wall that went the entire way around the mountain on the desert floor, so that no one could escape In the end, the rebel group held out for three years, raiding the surrounding countryside for food, until the Romans decided to put an end to them and the final remnants of the rebellion. Josephus wrote that the Romans, led by General Flavius Silva, surrounded Masada with a wall that went the entire way around the mountain on the desert floor, with separate garrisons or fortresses built at spaced intervals along the wall, so that no one could escape. Today, eight of Flavius’s fortresses can still be seen from the top of Masada when looking down at the surrounding countryside. Next, the Romans began constructing a long ramp built of earth and stones, making use of a natural ridge that reached from the desert floor to within ‘300 cubits’ of the top of Masada. Once the ramp was constructed, siege engines, like a battering ram and catapults that flung large stones and ballistae that shot huge arrows, could be wheeled upon its length and used against the walls of Masada. Josephus noted: There was … a tower made of the height of 60 cubits, and all over plated with iron, out of which the Romans threw darts and stones from the engines, and soon made those that fought from the walls of the place to retire, and would not let them lift up their heads above the works. Today, full-size replicas of some of these siege engines can be seen at the site, left there after ABC filmed a miniseries about Masada that aired in 1981. Yadin and the other archaeologists uncovered other objects during their excavations in the 1960s that can also still be seen at the site, including what look like catapult balls that were flung up by the Romans, and possibly slingstones that were thrown back down by the Jewish defenders. After the Roman siege engines were set up, the real siege began. Josephus wrote that General Silva ordered the battering ram to be dragged up the ramp and set against the wall. Several men grabbed the rope that was tied to the great piece of pointed wood that formed the battering ram and pulled it back, back, back. When they let go, the ram smashed against the fortification wall with a huge crash. It wasn’t going to be long before they had breached the wall. The Jewish defenders, however, had created their own wall just inside, which was made of wood and earth, so that it would be soft and yielding, as Josephus wrote. He said that they laid down great beams of wood lengthwise right next to the inside of the wall, then did the same about 10 feet or so away, so that they had two large stacks of wooden beams. In between the two stacks, they poured earth, so that in the end, they had an extremely thick wall with wood on both sides and an earthen core. This second wall, set up against the stone fortification wall, helped to absorb the blows of the battering ram, spreading the impact. Thus, it took the Romans far longer than they expected to knock a hole in the wall. And even when they did punch a hole in the outer wall, they were still faced with this thick wood-and-earth wall. ‘It is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom, which has not been the case of others, who were conquered unexpectedly’ In the end, they simply set fire to it, Josephus wrote, and then made preparations to enter the city. By the time the flames had died down, night had fallen, and Josephus said that the Romans returned to their camps for the night and prepared to overrun the defenders the next morning. This brief respite from the Roman attack provided the Jewish defenders the time and opportunity to decide to kill themselves rather than be killed or taken prisoner and enslaved by the Romans. Josephus wrote that Eleazar asked each family man to kill his own wife and children, declaring: ‘[I]t is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom, which has not been the case of others, who were conquered unexpectedly.’ The men then drew lots, choosing 10 of their number to kill all the others. The 10 then drew lots and selected one to kill the other nine. He then killed himself, thereby becoming the only person to commit suicide, technically speaking, which is against Jewish law. In effect, though, it was a mass suicide and when the Romans entered the next morning, they were greeted by a vast silence. Only when two women and five children emerged from their hiding place in a cistern did the Romans learn the truth of what had happened, for the women told them of Eleazar’s speech, repeating it word for word. According to Josephus, 960 people died that night. The dramatic story has reverberated through the ages until the present day. In fact, after Yadin’s excavations at the site, the Israeli army used to hold its induction ceremonies for new recruits up on top of Masada, making them swear at a dramatic nighttime ritual in front of a blazing bonfire that ‘never again; never again’ would they allow such a thing to happen. Problems with Josephus’s story remain, not least of which is the fact that, if the two women and five children really had been hiding in the cistern, there is no way that they would have been able to hear Eleazar’s speech, and hear it so clearly that they were able to repeat it and Josephus could quote it word for word. The Romans poured in and massacred the Jewish defenders. It was not a mass suicide, but a mass slaughter A larger problem is the fact that, if the Romans had punched a hole in the wall even as night was falling, they would never have returned to their camps for the evening. Roman military tactics at the time called for them to press the advantage whenever and wherever they had it, regardless of the time of day or night. Thus, they would have gone straight through the breached and burning wall, leaving no time for a discussion of the plan and a vote on it, for Eleazar to make his speech, for successive lots to be drawn, no time for the husbands to kill their wives and families, no time for the 10 men to kill the others, and no time for the last man to kill the other nine. In short, it couldn’t have happened as Josephus has described it. More likely what happened was exactly what we might have expected. When the Romans breached the wall, they poured in and massacred the Jewish defenders. It was not a mass suicide, but a mass slaughter. Josephus, writing later back in Rome and using notes and daybooks from the commanding officers who were present, was probably asked to whitewash the whole thing. In fact, Josephus took the story that he tells about the men killing their families, 10 men killing the others, and then one man killing the rest, from his own experience. Several years earlier, in 67 CE, during the initial rebellion against Rome, Josephus had been a Jewish general fighting the Romans at a site called Jotapata. They managed to hold off the Romans for 47 days, but then he and 40 others took refuge in a cave, where they decided to commit suicide, with each man killing another, rather than surrender. In the end, only Josephus was left alive with one other man, whom he persuaded to surrender with him. The story Josephus told of what happened at Masada seems to be the story of what happened to him at Jotapata. It was with some of these Josephus-related problems in mind, including the story of the women and children hiding in the cistern while the rest of the people committed suicide, that Yadin decided to go to Masada. His excavation was solid, but his interpretation remains a matter of great debate. For instance, among the objects that Yadin found were belt buckles, door keys, arrowheads, spoons, rings and other items made of iron, in addition to much pottery and numerous coins. He interpreted these as belonging to the Jewish defenders of Masada, as indeed they might have, but some could have belonged to the Roman besiegers or even to later inhabitants or squatters at the site. He also found fragments of scrolls, including scraps from the Book of Psalms, one containing portions of Psalms 81 to 85 and another from the last chapter in the book, Psalm 150, which reads ‘Praise ye the Lord … Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet.’ Other very important but fragmentary nonbiblical texts were also in place, including a fragment from a scroll whose lines of text are identical to one found in the Dead Sea caves at Qumran, which led Yadin, and many other scholars since then, to wonder whether there was any connection between the defenders of Masada and the inhabitants of Qumran. ‘Even the veterans and the more cynical among us stood frozen, gazing in awe at what had been uncovered’ Perhaps most important, Yadin also found bodies at the site, though fewer than 30 in all (and certainly not anywhere near the 960 that Josephus reported), some with hair still intact and leather sandals nearby. It is these that have generated the most debate in recent years. Twenty-five of them were in a cave near the top of the southern cliff face; they were given a state funeral in 1969, though over Yadin’s objections, since he said they couldn’t be sure whether they were the Jewish defenders of Masada, the Roman attackers or some other group of people, perhaps from a different period altogether. Three other bodies were found near a small bathhouse on the lower terrace of the northern palace. Professor Ben-Tor, the current director of the excavations at Hazor, says that he was the one who excavated these three skeletons and that it was the most thrilling day in his professional life. In his book, Yadin made the most of these three bodies, stating that when they first came across the remains: ‘Even the veterans and the more cynical among us stood frozen, gazing in awe at what had been uncovered.’ One of the bodies, Yadin said, was ‘that of a man of about 20 – perhaps one of the commanders of Masada’. Next to him were armour scales, dozens of arrows, an inscribed potsherd, and fragments of a prayer shawl. Nearby, on a plaster floor stained with what looked like blood, was the skeleton of a young woman. Her hair was still preserved, ‘beautifully plaited … as if it had been just been freshly coiffured’. Her sandals also were preserved, next to her body. The third body, Yadin said, ‘was that of a child’. Yadin believed that they formed a family group who died in close proximity to each other. This has been the focus of much debate over the years, as have the pottery sherds with names written on them in ink that he found, including one that says ‘ben Ya’ir’. To Yadin, these bodies and the sherds confirmed Josephus’s story and the existence of Eleazar ben Ya’ir. Unfortunately for Yadin, more recent forensic analysis indicates that the members of the so-called family group were only a few years apart in age and couldn’t possibly have been a ‘family’. The man was more likely about 22 years old, the woman was 18, and the child was a boy about 11 years old. There are other problems as well, including the fact that there were 11 inscribed sherds found instead of 10; pig bones, indicating that non-Jews resided there, were mixed in with some of the burials; and so on. These were duly listed in the books written by Ben-Yehuda and then dismissed in turn by Ben-Tor. Regardless of whether one follows Ben-Yehuda or Ben-Tor in reviling or revering Yadin, Ben-Tor’s concluding remarks in his book in defence of Yadin still ring true. As he said: ‘Placing Masada on the scientific agenda … on the one hand, and in the public consciousness as a tourist site on the other, are both the proper expression and a true monument to the two aspects of Yadin’s personality: the scholar and the public figure.’ Overall, Yadin’s excavations at Masada served as a milestone for archaeology in Israel, especially for use of multinational volunteers and numerous other aspects of the logistics of the operation. They remain significant today for tourism, of course, but also because they are at the heart of recent discussions on the nature of interpretations made by archaeologists, especially those who might or might not have a nationalist agenda beyond a simple reading of the data that they have uncovered. The link between archaeology and nationalism is not unique to Yadin or Israel; a recent edited book on nationalism and archaeology in Europe points out that it was actually the appearance of nationalism in Germany, Italy, Denmark, and elsewhere that created and institutionalised archaeology as a science, complete with museums in which to store the retrieved artefacts, academic societies for the professionals, journals in which to publish the results of excavations, and university professorships to help teach students about their own recovered history. While there is a concerted effort among archaeologists today to avoid being unduly influenced by nationalism or other similar sentiments, that may not always be possible. The Credibility of Josephus: Did hundreds of Jews really commit suicide at Masada?The following is from Shaye Cohen's article "Masada: Literary Tradition, Archaeological Remains, and the Credibility of Josephus." Journal of Jewish Studies: Essays in honour of Yigael Yadin, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 385-405 Spring-Autumn 1982. [The image below is of the ruins of the fortress of Masada.] According to Josephus the death of the 960 inhabitants of Masada and the destruction of the palace and the possessions were the premeditated acts of all the people acting in unison. But the archaeological remains cannot be reconciled with this view. Josephus says that all the possessions were gathered together in one large pile and set on fire but archaeology shows many piles and many fires (in various rooms of the casemate wall in some of the storerooms in the western palace etc.). Josephus says that Eleazar ordered his men to destroy everything except the foodstuffs but archaeology shows that many storerooms which contained provisions were burnt. (In addition Josephus reports that the Romans found arms sufficient for ten thousand men as well as iron brass and lead -- why weren't these valuable commodities destroyed?) Josephus says that the last surviving Jew set fire to the palace but archaeology shows that all the public buildings had been set ablaze. Josephus implies that all the murders took place in the palace (unless the women and children after being killed obliged their menfolk and the narrator by marching to the palace) but the northern palace is too small for an assembly of almost a thousand people. Professor Yadin discovered three skeletons in the lower terrace of the northern palace and twenty-five in a cave on the southern slope of the cliff. He suggests that the twenty-five skeletons were tossed there "irreverently" by the Romans but this suggestion will not do. If as Josephus says the Romans found 960 corpses in the palace they would not have dragged twenty-five of them across the plateau in order to lower them carefully into a cave located on a slope where one false step meant death. This is not irreverence this is foolishness. The obvious and simple procedure for the Romans was to take the corpses out of the palace and toss them over the nearest cliff. No, the twenty-five skeletons in the cave must be the remains of Jews who attempted to hide from the Romans hut were discovered and killed. (Or did they commit suicide?) At the very least, then, archaeology reveals that Josephus' narrative is incomplete and inaccurate. The skeletons in the cave and the numerous separate fires cast doubt on Josephus' theory of unanimity of purpose and unity of action among the Sicarii [a subset of the Zealots] in their final hours. Perhaps archaeology confirms other aspects of Josephus' narrative especially his description of the site but on these important points it contradicts him. But even without the benefit of the archaeological discoveries we would know that something is wrong with Josephus' story. According to the historian, when the Jews saw that the Roman ram was about to breach the wall, they hurriedly built an inner wall out of wood and earth which could absorb the force of the ram. When they broke through the outer wall, the Romans tried the ram on the inner wall but without success. Therefore they set it on fire. So far the narrative is plausible and probably true. The use of soft pliable material to blunt the effects of a ram and the construction of an inner wall to replace an outer one which is about to be destroyed were standard techniques in ancient siege warfare. The fact that the combination of these two techniques (the construction of an inner wall out of pliable material) is not readily paralleled elsewhere is double testimony to its veracity. Josephus cannot be accused of enriching his narrative with a tactic cribbed from a poliorketic manual and the Sicarii are credited with a maneuver which befits their inexperience in siege warfare--who builds a wall out of wood? Further confirmation may come from archaeology. Some large wooden beams were stripped from the Herodian palace before its destruction by fire perhaps to be used in the construction of this futile gesture. Confirmed or not the story is at least credible. But the story soon loses its plausibility. After being blown about by the wind, the fire takes hold of the inner wall. At this point the Roman assault should have begun. The wall was breached, the inner wall was rapidly being consumed, the army was ready. Instead, the Romans withdraw, postponing the assault until the following morning. Their only activity that night was to maintain a careful watch lest any of the Jews escape. This is incredible. Why withdraw when victory was so close? Even if it was late afternoon or evening when the fire finally took to the wall, a point which Josephus does not make clear, Silva could have stormed the fortress by night, just as Vespasian did at Jotapata. Why wait? Furthermore, since the wall was breached, the Romans will have had to maintain a careful guard not only in their camps but especially on the ramp, in order to prevent the Jews from attacking the tower and the other siege machines. And yet, according to Josephus, the Roman soldiers positioned both on the ramp and on the tower, the former only a few feet from the inside of the fortress, the latter able to survey all of Masada, were oblivious to the activities of that eventful night. They did not notice that 960 men, women, and children were slain, and that at least two large fires were set, one destroying the accumulated possessions of the Sicarii, the other destroying the palace and cremating the corpses. They did not hear the shrieks of the women and children or see that the plateau was ablaze or sense that anything unusual was afoot. When the Romans stormed the fortress the next morning, they suspected nothing. They expected a battle but found silence. Very dramatic but utterly incredible. Drama was not the only reason for Josephus' invention of a premature Roman withdrawal and a careful Roman watch which saw and heard nothing. Josephus wanted Eleazar, the leader of the Sicarii, to make a speech in which he would publicly confess that he and his followers, those who had fomented the war, had erred and were now receiving condign punishment from God for their sins. Josephus even has Eleazar declare that God has condemned the "tribe of the Jews" to destruction because he wanted the Jewish readers of the Jewish War to realize that the way of the Sicarii is the way of death and that the theology of the Sicarii leads to renunciation of one of the core doctrines of Judaism, the eternal election of Israel. In order to allow Eleazar to confess his guilt and to display his rhetorical skills, and in order to allow the Sicarii to follow Eleazar's instructions and to destroy themselves in an orderly fashion, Josephus inserted a crucial but inexplicable pause in the Roman assault. Eleazar made a second speech too. Entitled "On the Immortality of the Soul", it had for its major themes not Israel, God, and sin, but soul, death, and suicide. Its purpose was purely literary, to correspond to the speech which Josephus himself allegedly delivered at Jotapata under similar circumstances. Josephus gives us a logos and an antilogos, a speech in book III condemning suicide and a speech in book VII lauding it. The parallel between the incidents at Jotapata and Masada was developed further by the transference of the lottery motif from the former to the latter. If, as I have attempted to show, the occasion, content, and impact of Eleazar's speeches are fictitious, then the use of lots as described by Josephus must be fictitious too. Perhaps some of the Sicarii slew themselves in accordance with a lottery (see below), but it is most unlikely that all of them did so. They had neither the opportunity nor the unanimity required for such an action. The idea that all of them did so was derived by the historian from his (very suspect) account of the episode at Jotapata. Josephus needs no apology for these inventions and embellishments since practically all the historians of antiquity did such things. But if an apology were demanded, Josephus could respond that his narrative required inventiveness. If, upon storming the fortress, the Romans had discovered that the Sicarii had slain themselves, neither Josephus nor Flavius Silva nor anyone else could have known exactly what had transpired, since all the participants in the event were dead. Even the seven survivors, who are said to have reported to the Romans "everything that was said and done", could have known little. They were not present (though some might have been eavesdropping) when Eleazar exhibited his oratory--only the "manliest of his comrades" were invited. Before or during the actual killing they hid. Who could have told the Romans about the ten men drawn by lot and about the actions of the last man who set fire to the palace? Certainly not the women, safely ensconced in their cistern. If the Sicarii committed suicide according to Josephus' description, then that description must be a combination of fiction (inspired by literary and polemical motives) and conjecture. Surveying the corpses on the plateau, the Romans deduced that the Sicarii had killed themselves. Josephus, or his Roman informant, advanced more adventurous conjectures too. These conjectures may be true or false--ancient conjectures have no greater likelihood of being true than their modern counterparts--and we have seen already that some of them, at least, are false. The food supplies laid up by Herod the Great were discovered intact. Somebody, perhaps Josephus, believing that the food was still edible, conjectured that the Sicarii had intentionally spared their food from the destruction. Noticing a large pile of destroyed possessions and remembering some of the cases discussed above, someone conjectured that the Sicarii had gathered all their belongings in one place, oblivious to the fact that the fires and the smoke hid the remains of many such piles. The other conjectures can be neither verified nor refuted. Perhaps the Romans, like Professor Yadin, saw lots scattered about and deduced that a sortition [choosing by lots – like drawing straws] played a role in the process of death. In addition to these motivated fictions and historical conjectures, Josephus' account also contains simple mistakes. Is there any truth at all in this Josephan farrago of fiction, conjecture, and error? Did the Sicarii commit suicide? Did the Romans discover corpses when they arrived at the summit? The twenty-five skeletons in the cave show that Josephus' account is incomplete at best, but our question is whether any of the Sicarii preferred a self- inflicted death to flight, battle, or surrender. We might suggest that the Sicarii were captured by the Romans and massacred, or that they fought the Romans and were killed, and that Josephus, whose fondness for literary commonplaces and types is well known, substituted a collective suicide story for the truth. Perhaps. These conjectures, like those of Josephus himself, can be neither verified nor refuted, but we may readily believe that the Josephan story has a basis in fact. First, it is plausible. Many Jews committed suicide during the crucial moments of the war of 66-70, and, as we have seen above, many non-Jews also committed suicide rather than face their enemies. Second, the Masada story is too complex to be dismissed as a literary topos. It combines motifs from the two major patterns of collective suicide stories with motifs from the Jotapata episode. The whole is enriched with Josephus' own inventions. Finally, why should Josephus have invented such a story? He wished to show that the way of the Sicarii is the way of death, but death comes in many forms, and the Sicarii did not have to commit suicide to make this point clear. Death in battle would have served just as well. Had the Romans massacred the Sicarii, Josephus would have had no reason to disguise this fact. From the Roman point of view, the Sicarii deserved death, since they had participated in the siege of the royal palace in Jerusalem in 66 CE, killing some Roman soldiers. And if Silva refused to take any prisoners, no one could have argued with his wisdom, for who would want a slave who could not be trusted with the kitchen cutlery? From the Jewish point of view, the Sicarii deserved death since they had raided the towns near Masada and had killed 700 women and children in the Jewish town of En Geddi. From Josephus' point of view, the Sicarii were guilty of all sorts of nefarious crimes, not the least of which was the launching of the war against Rome. If the Romans had massacred the Sicarii, Josephus would have been pleased. The essential historicity of the narrative is confirmed not only by its plausibility but also by its setting. Contrary to the accepted view, it is likely that BJ 1-6 was completed in the reign of Titus (79-81 CE), not Vespasian, and that BJ 7 was completed early in the reign of Domitian (81-96 CE). One of the two first consuls (consules ordinarii) in 81 CE was none other than Flavius Silva, thus putting him in Rome at the very time Josephus was there writing the final books of the Jewish War. Silva, no doubt, could appreciate rhetorical historiography as much as any educated Roman, but his presence in Rome must have been an incentive for Josephus to restrain his imagination and tell the truth. Of course, it was also an incentive to tilt the narrative in the Romans' favour, but Josephus did not have to tilt it very far to make the Romans look good since, as archaeology demonstrates, Silva did his work efficiently and expertly. In fact, Silva's consulship was his reward for a job well done in Judaea. Since the Temple had already been destroyed and the Roman triumph had already been celebrated, Silva did not have to become another Titus pleading with the Jews to surrender and commiserating with them on their misfortunes. Josephus did, however, restrain his imagination when writing the Masada narrative. In stark contrast to his descriptions of the falls of Jotapata, Jerusalem, Machaerus, and Jardes forest and in stark contrast to the historiographical tradition concerning collective suicides, Josephus' description of the fall of Masada does not refer to the bravery or military prowess of the defenders. Not a single Roman or Jewish casualty is mentioned. In only one passage does Josephus imply that the Sicarii actually fought against the Romans," and he does not have them employ any of the standard tricks for prolonging a siege, tricks recounted with inflated detail at the siege of Jotapata. The one tactic they adopt was rather ineffective. Josephus certainly did not want the Sicarii to seem as heroic as he claimed to have been at Jotapata, but his silence is remarkable nonetheless. The Romans had no reason to suppress references to the military actions of the Jews--a desperate defense by the Sicarii would have made the Roman victory all the more impressive. The most likely explanation is that the Sicarii did not put up a great resistance to the Romans. They had no catapults or other torsion weaponry. They had little experience in siege warfare, most of them not having participated in the defense of Jerusalem, or in fighting the Romans--they had concentrated their murderous attacks on their fellow-Jews. The only defenses available to them were stones and arrows, but the Romans knew how to protect themselves from such projectiles. The failure of the Sicarii to mount an effective defense is not as amazing as Josephus' failure to invent one for them. I conclude, then, that Josephus attempted to be reasonably accurate in matters which were verifiable by Silva and the Romans. He refrained from inventing glorious military actions for the Sicarii, and, we may assume, had some basis in fact for the ascription of murder-suicide to them. At least some of the Sicarii killed themselves rather than face the Romans. This fact was exaggerated and embellished. Silva could not object--Livy had done worse. We do not know what happened on the summit of Masada on the fifteenth of Xanthicus in 74 CE. The archaeological discoveries of Professor Yadin show that Masada was besieged by the Romans in the fashion described by Josephus, but they do not tell us how the defenders of Masada were killed. For this and for all the other details of Masada's history, we are dependent upon Josephus alone. Masada was captured by the Sicarii at the outbreak of the war in 66 CE. Taking arms from Herod's storehouse, Menahem, the leader of the Sicarii, marched on Jerusalem. There he attempted to gain control of the revolt by directing the siege of the royal palace. After his followers had assassinated the high priest Ananias and his brother Ezechias, Menahem himself was killed by Eleazar and the priestly revolutionary party. Some of the Sicarii, including Eleazar ben Yair, fled to Masada. Between the events of 66 CE and 74 CE, Josephus has little to narrate about Masada and its inhabitants. It served as a refuge for Simon bar Giora, fleeing from the priestly party in control of Jerusalem. From their haven at Masada the Sicarii raided the surrounding countryside, once venturing as far north as En Geddi. The objective of these raids was to obtain supplies --who wanted to eat the one-hundred-year-old Herodian food which filled Masada's storerooms?-- and the victims were the Judeans of En Geddi and the Idumeans of the countryside, all of them Jews. The Sicarii could attack these people (over seven hundred women and children were killed at En Geddi, their greatest success) because in their eyes they were wicked and doomed to perdition. Not being members of the sectarian elect, they could be robbed and killed with impunity. This attitude explains the silence of the Sicarii during the siege of Jerusalem. No raids on the Romans from the rear, no feints to distract the Romans and to alleviate the pressure of the siege, no attempt to aid the city in its time of crisis. For the Sicarii, the Jews of Jerusalem (who had killed Mernahem) and the Romans besieging it were different categories of wicked people who would be destroyed when God would inaugurate the End and bring glory to his chosen. True, the Sicarii did accept converts," but their overall attitude is clear. Finally, in late 73 CE Flavius Silva approached Masada. The Sicarii were still awaiting the End, which they thought would be presaged by heavenly chariots, not Roman legions. It is likely that some Sicarii fled from Masada and the countryside to Egypt when Silva approached, for it is remarkable that immediately after the fall of Masada Josephus tells of Sicarii in Egypt and Cyrene, although he had given no hint of any such agitation there previously. In any case, Flavius Silva arrived and set to work. His siege works, the circumvallation, the camps, and the ramp, remain in a remarkable state of preservation. His troops, mainly the tenth legion, were experienced in this sort of activity, having had plenty of practice during the protracted siege of Jerusalem, and the work seems to have progressed quickly. The Sicarii were unable to mount any serious resistance, having neither the equipment nor the experience required for a defense against seasoned veterans. Finally, all was ready. A tower and a ram were hauled up the ramp. Some of the stones hurled by the ballistae from the tower and the ground below were discovered by Professor Yadin in the western casemate wall. The ram brought down a portion of the wall. The Roman assault was hindered briefly by a second inner wall which had been hastily constructed by the Sicarii, but its wooden framework was easily destroyed by fire. At this point we know what did not happen. We know that Josephus' account is false. Silva did not order a premature withdrawal, Eleazar did not have an opportunity for two magnificent orations, the Jews did not have a long evening for the leisurely slaughter of their wives and children, the deliberate collection of all their possessions in one pile and the methodical murder of all the remaining men. This scenario is implausible, contradicted by the archaeological discoveries, and motivated in part by Josephus' polemical and literary concerns. What did happen, then? Rather than simply admit ignorance, I offer the following conjectures. As the Romans were storming through the wall, some of the Jews slew their families, burnt their possessions, and set the public buildings on fire. All(?) the granaries were burnt, except those containing the stale food stored by Herod. In the confusion, the Sicarii either forgot, or were unable, to destroy Herod's armory, thus granting the Romans a modest reward for their labours. Having destroyed what they could, some Jews killed themselves, some fought to the death, and some attempted to hide and escape. The Romans were in no mood to take prisoners and massacred all whom they found. After the smoke had cleared, the Romans inspected the fortress and discovered the corpses of those who had committed suicide. They also found two women and five children in one of the cisterns and twenty-five people in a cave on the southern slope. The former were spared (?), the latter killed (or did they commit suicide when discovered?). The corpses on the plateau were probably tossed over the cliff and the site was garrisoned. The battle and the war were over. The evidence for this reconstruction is uneven. We have no reason to doubt that at least some of the Sicarii killed themselves and their families, even if they did not perform the deed with the deliberation and concord alleged by Josephus. Archaeology shows that portions of all the public buildings on Masada were set ablaze, and since it is unlikely that the Romans would destroy their own loot, we may assume that this was the spontaneous act of the Jews. That some of the Sicarii sought death through battle with the Romans is a suggestion based merely on plausibility. That some of the Sicarii tried to escape is confirmed by the twenty-five skeletons in the cave. Sitting in his study in Rome, Josephus improved on this story. He wanted Eleazar, the leader of the Sicarii, to take full responsibility for the war, to admit that his policies were wrong, to confess that he and his followers had sinned, and to utter the blasphemous notion that God had not only punished but also had rejected his people. Condemned by his own words, Eleazar and all his followers killed themselves, symbolizing the fate of all those who would follow in their footsteps and resist Rome. This was the work of Josephus the apologist for the Jewish people and the polemicist against Jewish revolutionaries. Josephus the rhetorical historian realized that the murder-suicide of some of the Sicarii at Masada would be far more dramatic and compelling if it became the murder-suicide of all the Sicarii. (Many historians before Josephus had similarly exaggerated collective suicides.) Josephus modeled the Masada narrative in part on his own description of the Jotapata episode, in part on the Greco-Roman historiographical tradition. Inspired by the former, he gave Eleazar a second speech, an antilogos to the speech which he claimed to have himself delivered at Jotapata, and invented (or exaggerated) the use of lots in the suicide process. Inspired by the latter, he had each Jew kill his wife and children (a motif derived from Greco-Roman stories of one pattern) and contribute his possessions to one large pile which was then set ablaze (a motif derived from stories of another pattern). Most important, Josephus learned from the (Greco-Roman tradition that collective suicide was to be an object of amazement, almost admiration, an attitude he failed to reconcile with his condemnation of the Sicarii. Out of these strantis-historical truth, a fertile imagination, a flair for drama and exaggeration, polemic against the Sicarii, and iliterary borrowings from other instances of collective suicide-Josephus created his Masada story. We do not know whether Flavius Silva, who was in Rome while Josephus was writing the final books of the Jewish War, read or heard this narrative, but we may he sure that he enjoyed it if he did. After all, some of the Sicarii had committed suicide, and Silva must have known that an historian was entitled to exaggeration and simplification. .Josephus shows clearly that Silva himself and the Roman soldiers performed their task with professionalism and dispatch. Furthermore, the story is wonderfully told. As we read it, we almost forget that these Sicarii had failed to aid their brethren in Jerusalem during the long siege. We almost forget that they had massacred seven hundred Jewish women and children at En Geddi. Even Josephus forgot that he wished to heap opprobrium, not approbation, on them One does not have to be a Jew, a Zionist, or a citizen of the state of Israel to be swept away by the rhetoric which Josephus derived from the classical tradition: "Live free or die!"' The Masada myth does not begin in the twentieth century.
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