Masada
A flat-topped rock fortress above the western shore of the Dead Sea, built up by Herod the Great. Jewish rebels held it from AD 66 until the Romans took it in 73 or 74, and the Roman siege works still surround it.
Masada is an isolated rock in the Judaean desert overlooking the Dead Sea. Josephus describes it as a high rock ringed by deep ravines, reached by two paths, one from the lake on the east, called the Serpent, and an easier one on the west. He says that a high priest named Jonathan first built a fortress there and that Herod the Great walled the summit, built a palace on it, cut cisterns and laid up food and arms (Josephus, Jewish War 7.280–303). Pliny the Elder mentions it as a fortress on a rock not far from the Dead Sea (Pliny, Natural History 5.73).
Josephus says that rebels seized Masada at the start of the Jewish revolt and that it was the one stronghold still holding out when the Romans besieged it; see the fall of Masada. The remains of Herod’s palaces and of the Roman camps, fortifications and assault ramp are preserved, and the site was entered on the World Heritage List in 2001 (UNESCO World Heritage List, Masada Description).
What happened here
- 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.