Masada Will Never Fall Again!

An important piece of Jewish military history

We authorized you to dwell in this land and we set up kings from your own people. We endorsed your ancestral laws and we allowed you to live among yourselves and to conduct dealings with others as you wished. Most important, we permitted you to exact tribute and gather offerings for your god, and we neither warned nor stood in the way of those bearing them--so that you could grow richer and use our money to prepare yourselves against us! You have enjoyed the prosperity that we made possible and the privileges that we granted only to mount an assault upon those who granted them. Like unruly reptiles you spat your venom on the very ones who catered to you. —War 6.333–6, Titus Flavius Josephus

In A.D. 66, the several Jewish factions in Roman-controlled Judaea attempted to expel the Romans completely like the Maccabees had with the Seleucids. At first the Romans were caught off guard. As the war pressed on, the Romans began to coerce the Jewish population into submission. By the time the Romans had completely suppressed the Jewish revolt in much of Judaea, Jerusalem was sacked and the Second Temple was destroyed. The city holy to the Jews was pillaged of its wealth. With Jerusalem lost, the Great Revolt was officially over. However, in southern Judea, a group of zealots, known as the Sicarii, made their last stand against the Romans. The Sicarii held out in a fortress built by Herod the Great called Masada. When the Romans finally made it to the summit of Masada, the Sicarii had already taken their lives to prevent themselves from becoming slaves.

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