How the Siege of Masada demonstrates how War only Leads to Death.
By: Matthew Miller
Tags: Sorrow, Masada, Death, Israel, War

After careful preparation and months of siege, the Roman governor finally gave the order to take Masada. The legionnaires crossed the threshold of the rebels’ palace walls that was home to one of the Jewish rebel leaders. Instead of the intense resistance that they had come to expect of their foe, what greeted them was a deathly silence, which left the company of invaders with mutual feelings of trepidation and anxiety. It was almost as if the absence of soldiers welcoming them was far more intimidating than the contrary. With this ill omen overhead, they carefully continued further into the depths of the Masada.

When the Romans conquered Judea in 6 CE, and ruled it in the usual brutish manner, the region became a sociopolitical and religious tinderbox waiting for a single spark to ignite the blaze. Not dissimilarly to how the American revolution began, it all started with protests against the unjust taxes imposed by a distant empire with a shoddy human rights track record. To this, Gessius Florus, the governor of the region, responded to the protests by looting and destroying the second temple.

The first Jewish-Roman war began in 66 CE in response.

Immediately the rebels seized Jerusalem forcing the King, Agrippa II, and other Roman officials to flee. At that time, It became clear to Rome that the situation was escalating quickly, so the legate of Syria, Cestius Gallus, was brought in to reign the rebels in. Despite his early success, the army was soon ambushed and defeated.

Due to the fact that the rebellion was composed of several different groups, it had its fair share of flaws. One of the groups, an extremist splinter cell called the Sicarii, led by the commander Menahem Ben Yahuda attempted to seize power by taking control of Jerusalem, which failed and the commander was executed.

In 67 CE, a veteran general by the name of Vespian was assigned the task of ending the rebellion, to which he managed to do so in Galilee. Tactics such as razing fortresses and brutalizing insubordinate populaces were applied to this end. As Rome fell into a civil war in 69 CE, Vespian was recalled to Rome in order to serve as the emperor himself. His second in command, Titus, assumed the responsibilities of his predecessor.

Titus took Jerusalem in 70 CE after months of siege and a belligerent and defiant populace. Titus left the region in 71 CE, leaving the responsibility of stamping out the few remaining rebels to the legion X Fretensis. The rebellion ended in C. 73–74 CE with the fall of Masada, the last rebel foothold.

As is true in any war no matter the justification, death occurred en masse. According to the records of Josephus, over 1.1 non combatants died in Jerusalem and 97,000 non-combatants died in Galilee. Rome lost at least 10,000 soldiers, while the various rebel groups lost a combined minimum of 35,000 soldiers not including the Sicarii as their numbers have no exact record.

“But when they went in numbers into the lanes of the city [Jerusalem], with their swords drawn, they slew those whom they overtook, without mercy, and set fire to the houses wither the Jews were fled, and burnt every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the rest; and when they were come to the houses to plunder them, they found in them entire families of dead men, and the upper rooms full of dead corpses, that is of such as died by the famine; they then stood in a horror at this sight, and went out without touching anything. But although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in that manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still alive, but they ran every one through whom they met with, and obstructed the very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run down with blood, to such a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with these men’s blood” (Josephus).

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Out of all the battles, massacres, and tragedies, the siege of Masada stands out to a disproportionate degree. The palace was built by Herod the Great around C. 31–37 BCE. Historically the palace was only approachable through one path that was not wide enough for soldiers to walk abreast to each other. Earlier in the rebellion the Sicarii had taken the palace from the Romans.

There is only one account of what exactly happened at Masada, which is derived and translated from the Hebrew scholar Flavius Josephus.

After being expelled from Jerusalem the new rebel commander of the Sicarii and successor to the previously deposed leader, Eleazar ben Ya’ir, had fled to Masada to escape the Romans wrath.

It should be noted that during the travels to Masada they sacked the Jewish settlement, Ein Gedi, and killed 700 of its members.

Naturally not wanting to leave loose ends and allow perpetrators to continue their struggle, the Romans sought out the Sicarii at Masada a few years later. Lucius Flavius Silva, a Roman governor in charge of the quest to recapture Masada, and his soldiers had underestimated the resolve which drove the Sicarii taking refuge.

“Since we long ago resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God Himself, Who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice … We were the very first that revolted, and we are the last to fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God has granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom.” (Eleazar ben Ya’ir).

The siege began in 72 CE when 15,000 people who were a combination of Roman soldiers and Jewish prisoners of war encircled the palace with its 967 inhabitants.

The palace of Masada was well defended and the Romans reasoned the best way to gain entrance would be found by constructing ramps large enough to allow soldiers over the walls. Between two or three months were dedicated to this all the while the inhabitants actively loosed arrows and slung stones.

Days before when the incursion into the palace was set to take place, the palace itself became silent. As if it had somehow been vacated.

Despite that irregularity, the ramps were moved to allow the legionaries to launch a volley of flaming torches into a wall made of timber, which burned allowing the Romans to cross through.

After crossing through the haze they were greeted by death not of their own making. The bodies of 960 individuals littered the palace grounds.

“It [was] by the will of God, and by necessity, that [they] are to die” (Josephus Flavius).

Instead of allowing themselves to be captured, they chose to commit suicide. Yet Judaism expressly forbids suicide, so indivduals would draw one of ten lots and kill each other accordingly. This way only one person commited suicide out of the 960 who died.

“Finally, then, the nine bared their throats, and the last solitary survivor, after surveying the prostrate multitude, to see whether haply amid the shambles there were yet one left who needed his hand, and finding that all were slain, set the palace ablaze, and then collecting his strength drove his sword clean through his body and fell beside his family“ (War 7.397–398; Loeb translation).

Aside from the food stores, all the defenders set all buildings ablaze. This was to demonstrate to the Romans that they had what was necessary to survive, but their choice was based on the principle of not becoming a slave, rather than necessity.

“Nor could they do other than wonder at the courage of their resolution and the immovable contempt of death, which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through with such an action as that was” (Josephus Flavius).

To many, especially those unfamiliar with the exact details of the event, the 960 Jews at Masada who died as martyrs and heroes. As they were standing up to a brutal and oppressive empire. But, should it be overlooked that they betrayed their allies in order to attain power, or the fact that they attacked a non-violent settlement with a blatant disregard for human life?

Whether or not they should be seen as heroes or the contrary, the causative factor behind their actions were not fictitious. The oppression of Jews by the Romans was in fact happening. But it was this conflict which gave birth to the Sicarii. Knowing the horrors it creates, can war ever be justified?

“What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine. They are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior… jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior” (Florence Nightingale).

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