Masada (Hebrew for fortress), is situated atop an isolated rock cliff at the western end of the Judean Desert, overlooking the Dead Sea. On the east the rock falls in a sheer drop of about 450 meters to the Dead Sea (the lowest point on earth, some 400 m. below sea level), and in the west it stands about 100 meters above the surrounding terrain. The natural approaches to the cliff top are very difficult.
According to Josephus Flavius, Herod the Great built the fortress of Masada between 37 and 31 BCE. Herod, an Idumean, had been made King of Judea by his Roman overlords and was hated by his Jewish subjects. Herod, the master builder, furnished this fortress as a refuge for himself. Some 75 years after Herods death, at the beginning of the Revolt of the Jews against the Romans in 66 CE, a group of Jewish rebels overcame the Roman garrison of Masada. After the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple (70 CE) they were joined by zealots and their families who had fled from Jerusalem. With Masada as their base, they raided and harassed the Romans for two years. Then, in 73 CE, the Roman governor Flavius Silva marched against Masada with the Tenth Legion, auxiliary units
and thousands of Jewish prisoners-of-war. The Romans established camps at the base of Masada and laid siege to it. They then constructed a rampart of thousands of tons of stones and beaten earth against the western approaches of the fortress and in the spring of the year 74 CE
moved a battering ram up the ramp and breached the wall of the fortress.
Josephus Flavius dramatically recounts the story told him by two surviving women. The defenders almost one thousand men, women and children led by Elazar ben Yair, decided to burn the fortress and end their own lives, rather than be taken alive. Infolive.tv brings footage of Masada and the surrounding panoramic view. 09/16/08
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