The ancient fortress of Masada is perched on top of a desert table mountain on the edge of the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea. Herod the Great had it fortified and built a shelter on it in case of attack. It was used for this purpose only in the 1st century AD during the Jewish war against Rome, when Masada was besieged by numerous Roman legions. At that time, less than a thousand Jewish rebels and their families lived inside its walls. The two-year siege was followed by a Roman attack, which was very strong and the fortress could not withstand it. However, the Romans found only the dead bodies of the locals here. They would rather commit mass suicide than fall into the hands of the Romans. Masada thus became the last place of resistance of Jewish insurgents during the First Jewish War. In 2001, the site was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The Hasmoneans (Jewish royal dynasty) were the first to build a fortress on top of a rock. According to the ancient Jewish historian Joseph Flavius ??(37 to about 100 AD), the original fortress was built by High Priest Jonathan, who is identified with King Alexander Jannai (103-76 BC), whose coins were found during excavations. However, it was the infamous Jewish King Herod (37-4 BC) who had it rebuilt in 37-31 BC: he built a watchtower and barracks, extensive warehouses and beautiful palaces.
Masada is associated with the turbulent story of Jewish rebels, the so-called Sikaris ("men with a dagger"; since the Latin term sica, "little dagger"), who occupied and persevered her in 66 AD, when the so-called First Jewish War broke out. in it until the end. It was a very radical group of Jews who called themselves zelotes ("zealots"). According to Joseph Flavius, they began working during the Roman procurator Felix (52-60 AD). They attacked their victims in the crowd with short daggers hidden under clothing.
In 70, Titus, son of the Roman emperor Vespasian (69-79 AD), launched an attack on Jerusalem. There was strong Jewish resistance for months. The temple was burned down in August and the citadel and the upper town were conquered in September. In the First Jewish War, about a quarter of the Jewish population of Palestine lost their lives - about 600,000, according to Joseph Flavius ??and Tacitus.
The last places of resistance remained the fortresses of Herodeion, Machairus and Masada. Titus left their conquest to the governor of Judah, Lucilius Bassus. Almost a thousand people, men, women and children, hid behind the walls of Masada. In 72 the fortress was besieged by the Tenth Roman Legion.
No one from the fort had a chance to escape. The defenders decided that they would rather die voluntarily than be taken prisoner. Ten men were selected to kill the others, then one in ten was to kill the remaining nine and eventually commit suicide. In 74 AD, nine hundred and sixty inhabitants of Masada, with the exception of two women and five children, took their own lives.
Masada has long been forgotten. It was not until 1838 that American researchers E. Smith and E. Robinson succeeded in identifying the ruins west of the Dead Sea as the fortress of Masad. International expeditions, the largest of which was led by Yigael Yadin in 1963-65, subsequently reconstructed the construction and function of a massive fortress, according to Josef Flavius.
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