Eleazar ben Yair
Commander of the rebels who held Masada during the Jewish revolt. Josephus makes him a kinsman of Menahem and a descendant of Judas the Galilean, and gives him the speeches that persuade the defenders to die by their own hands.
Eleazar is known from Josephus. He was a kinsman of Menahem, a rebel leader in Jerusalem. When Menahem’s party was attacked in the temple and Menahem was killed, Eleazar was among the few who escaped to Masada, where, in Josephus’s words, he “acted the part of a tyrant” afterwards (Josephus, Jewish War 2.442–448). Josephus calls him the commander of the Sicarii who held the fortress and a descendant of the Judas who had urged the Jews not to submit to the Roman census (Josephus, Jewish War 7.252–253).
When the Romans under Flavius Silva had burned the defenders’ last wall, Josephus says, Eleazar would neither flee nor let others flee, and in two speeches persuaded his men to kill their families and themselves (Josephus, Jewish War 7.320–388). Whether the speeches or the manner of the end can be taken as history is disputed; see the dating note on the fall of Masada.
In the timeline
- AD 73 or 74, estimated dateThe Fall of Masada
Three or four years after Jerusalem fell, the Roman governor Flavius Silva besieges Masada, a rock fortress by the Dead Sea still held by rebels. Josephus says that the defenders killed their families and themselves, 960 dead in all, the night before the Romans entered.
Primary sources
The Jewish War
- Josephus, Jewish War 2.442–448lexundria.com
- Josephus, Jewish War 7.252–253lexundria.com
- Josephus, Jewish War 7.320–388lexundria.com