During the first century AD, the Roman Empire controlled the province of Judea. A series of incapable and corrupt Roman governors created a significant degree of resentment and unrest that erupted in 66 AD in what is now known as the Jewish “Great Revolt.” In essence, this revolt challenged directly Roman control and hegemony in the province and in the region indirectly. The Romans reacted with an iron fist. A few Roman legions advanced from the north to the south crushing fortresses and suppressing resistance. Eventually, the Roman Imperial army placed a siege system around Jerusalem and in 70 AD conquered and destroyed the city, as well as burning to the ground the second Jewish Temple. While this was in fact the end of the revolt, three fortresses remained defiant: Herodion, Macherus, and Masada. In what can be easily described as a mopping-up operation, the Roman army set on conquering and suppressing these three fortresses. Masada was the last. Following a siege, on the 15th of Xanticus 73 AD, the Roman tenth legion (“Fretensis”) breached the walls of Masada. That was the end of Masada and of the “Great Revolt.”
There are two versions about what took place at Masada in 73 AD. The historical version is provided by first-century historian Josephus Flavius; the second version is a product of the early twentieth century and is essentially a myth. While there is some overlap between the two, and while some elements of Josephus’s original and historical version do appear in the mythical version, they differ on almost all the important points. Understanding the political, social, and scientific context of this transformation requires that we acquire a basic understanding of these two very different narratives.
The Great Revolt ended as colossal failure, and in disastrous large-scale bloodshed, the agonized death of thousands of Jews at the hands of the Imperial Roman army, and the enslavement of thousands more. The fall of Masada, probably in 73 AD, was the last chapter in that doomed revolt. The Masada mythical narrative (Ben-Yehuda 1995; Paine 1994; Shargel 1979; Zerubavel 1995) is a direct remnant of that period. No real understanding of some of the basic elements of modern Jewish Israeli culture—certainly issues of national and personal identity—can be attained without understanding this tragic and heroic period.
There is only one historical source available on Masada: the writings of Josephus Flavius. Josephus mentions that Justus from Tiberias wrote a historical narrative of the Jewish war, but no copies of this work have survived. Josephus thus becomes the exclusive “baseline” for understanding what happened.
Joseph Ben-Matityahu, later known as Josephus Flavius, was born in Jerusalem in 37 AD to a priestly family. He notes that he was not an enthusiastic supporter of the Great Revolt; however, when it actually began, at around 66 AD, he became commander of the Galilee, responsible for its defense. In 67 AD, the Galilee fortress Jotapata (Yodfat) fell. A few survivors, including Josephus, considered suicide. Josephus managed to fool the Romans and he and one other survivor remained alive. Instead of killing one another, Josephus persuaded the other person to surrender to the Romans. Clearly a skillfully persuasive man, when Josephus met Vespasian, the Roman commander of the forces that had conquered Jotapata, he managed to form an interesting relationship with him. Among other things, Josephus supposedly prophesied to Vespasian that he would become emperor of Rome; and indeed, Titus Flavius Vespasian did become emperor, ruling between 69 and 79 AD. Josephus traveled to Rome where he assumed a Roman name, and became a Roman citizen and an official historian. The question regarding Josephus’s Jewish identity in Rome (or whatever was left of it, if any) remains open.
Josephus’s history of the Jewish War was probably influenced by a complicated set of interests. Many Jews viewed him as a traitor and turncoat. As historian to the Romans, he had to write a history that would satisfy his masters. As a Jew, he had to cope with some uneasy issues of identity as well as the obvious necessity of justifying his own actions. Nothing is thus too simple when it comes to Josephus.
Josephus was not physically present during the Roman siege of Masada, and his account of the events there is probably based on the reports (commentarii) and/or diaries written by the Roman military officers who had taken part in the siege of Masada. We should use Josephus’s account cautiously, straying from his text only if there are compelling reasons to do so. For example, his citation of Ben-Yair’s last two speeches needs to be taken with caution because he was not there and the invention of the tape recorder lay more than a thousand years in the future. Still, he knew the culture intimately and could have surmised the expressions of which such speeches could consist.
Without Josephus, virtually all our knowledge of the period and the relevant events would disappear; there would “be” no Masada. Without Josephus, “the history of the last two centuries of the Second Commonwealth could be reduced to a few pages—and a good part of that would be legendary” (Aberbach 1985: 25). I thus take Josephus’s text as an historical baseline. The likelihood that Josephus lied to and cheated his Roman masters as well as those who were actually involved in the events, and fabricated a siege that never was, people who never existed, or an event that never took place, does not seem very high. Josephus’s account was written very close to the events and it is the exclusive description of those fateful events. Historically speaking, it is the only detailed “truth” we have about the Jewish Great Revolt and Masada. The accuracy or validity of Josephus’s writings is not being judged, tested or challenged here.
Masada is a mountain fortress nearly 100 kilometers southeast of Jerusalem (Livne 1986). The mountain’s name and fortress in Hebrew is METZADA, literally a fort, fortress, or stronghold. The Greek transliteration of METZADA is “Masada” (Simchoni 1923: 513). Masada is a spectacular site. The doomed fortress is located near the Dead Sea, in the middle of a harsh and desolate terrain, with difficult access. If one stands atop the big, barren and serene yellowish plateau facing the silent, harsh, moon-like landscape, the cold desert breeze of early morning conjures up a near-mystical atmosphere, evoking a very eerie feeling. There almost seems to be a sort of a metaphysical presence on the top of the mountain.
The extraordinary site and atmosphere conspire to provoke a powerfully suggestive state of mind. The narrative of the doomed Great Revolt of the Jews, and the tragic death of the rebels, seem somehow to be in full harmony with the harsh and desolate terrain in the midst of which looms the desolate mountain-top fortress. The bleak physical environment of Masada seems to echo the historical narrative about the bloody revolt that ended in so much destruction.
One may perhaps begin by dating the Great Revolt to the year 6 AD, when the Romans sought to carry out a census in the province of Judea. One of the main opponents of the census was Yehuda of Gamla (also identified as Yehuda of the Galilee) who, with Zadok Haprushi, kindled the fire of resistance. They developed and promulgated the “fourth philosophy.” The first three philosophies were those espoused by the Essenes, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees, respectively. The “fourth philosophy” emphasized the value of freedom, and its adherents felt allegiance only to God. While Yehuda was probably killed by the Romans, the “fourth philosophy” did not die. It continued to spread throughout the land, probably becoming the ideology of a group of Jewish fundamentalist rebels known as the Sicarii, identified with the aspiration to be free of, and totally opposed to, the rule of the Roman Empire (Feldman 1984: 655–67).
We first find the term “Sicarii” mentioned by Josephus in connection with events that took place between 52 and 62 AD. “Sicarii” derives from sica, referring to a small dagger which the Sicarii supposedly carried beneath their robes and which they used to attack and assassinate those whom they viewed as their opponents in Jerusalem, especially during holy days. Their tactics included intimidation and threats of violence against their political and ideological opponents and they were involved in indiscriminate terror activities, including political assassinations. Such was their killing of Yonatan Ben-Hanan, the former high priest of Jerusalem. They also kidnapped hostages whom they exchanged for their own people who had been captured by the Romans. Josephus describes that the Sicarii’s attitude to local inhabitants who were not overtly hostile to Roman rule as “if they had been their enemies … by plundering them of what they had, by driving away their cattle, and by setting fire to their houses” (Josephus 1981: 598).
Headed by Manahem, the Sicarii captured Masada and its armaments in 66 AD. They then headed to Jerusalem where they used the weapons to conquer the upper city.3 They set fire to the house of Hanania the high priest and burned the central archives where legal and commercial documents, deeds, and notes were kept. They also killed some Jews and surrendered Roman soldiers. These acts helped to mark the beginning of the Great Revolt and to further divide the Jewish population into “zealots” and “moderates.”
As Manahem was killed by those opposing the Sicarii, he was replaced by Eleazar Ben-Yair, a relative of Manahem, and a “descendant from … Judas who had persuaded … Jews … not to submit to the taxation” (ibid.: 598), who headed the Sicarii’s escape to Masada. Josephus states that Ben-Yair “acted the part of a tyrant at Masada” taking the role of “commander” of the “Sicarii” (ibid.: 9, 492).
After the fall of Jerusalem, Lucilius Bassus was sent to Judea as legate and continued to suppress the remnants of the Jewish Great Revolt, taking the fortress of Herodion and later laying siege to Macherus, where fierce battles raged until that fortress surrendered. Following these successes, Bassus marched to the forest of Jarden where refugees from Jerusalem and Macherus were hiding. In the ensuing battle, all the Jews in the Jarden forest were killed (ibid.: 595–7). When Lucilius Bassus died,4 Flavius Silva succeeded him as procurator of Judea (ibid.: 598). Realizing that “all the rest of the country was subdued in this war, and that there was but one only stronghold that was still in rebellion, he got all his army5 together that lay in different places, and made an expedition against it. This fortress was called Masada” (ibid.: 598). The siege of Masada was thus not laid immediately after the fall of Jerusalem in the summer of 70 AD.
While Josephus is at times vague in his identification of people in particular places, when he describes the siege on Masada his use of the word “Sicarii” is very consistent, perhaps the most consistent in his book (see Dvir 1966). For example: “There was a fortress of very great strength not far from Jerusalem … It is called Masada. Those that were called Sicarii had taken possession of it formerly” (Josephus 1981: 537).
The Roman army constructed a circumvallation wall around Masada to prevent the besieged from escaping. A siege ramp leading up to Masada on the eastern side of the mountain was erected as well. The Roman soldiers used their battering ram/s on the ramp to pound at the wall around Masada, breaching and destroying part of it. The Sicarii in the stronghold hastily built another wall, this time a soft one made of wood and earth filling, which could absorb the ramming energy of the war machines without yielding. The Roman soldiers set fire to the second wall and destroyed it as well, undoubtedly signaling the end for the Sicarii in Masada (Netzer 1991). Their choices were clear. They could (a) try to escape, (b) fight to the inevitable end, (c) surrender, or (d) commit collective suicide. The first choice may have been seen by them as hopeless. Alternative (c) meant slavery for the women and children and painful and humiliating deaths for the men. Of the 967 people on Masada only a few hundred were probably capable of fighting, most of the rest being women and children; this may have reduced the appeal of option (b). Eleazar Ben-Yair opted for option (d). He addressed the besieged population in two speeches convincing them to accept this option. The Sicarii killed one another and themselves.
The account provided by Josephus does not mention the role of the women and children in the decision. Because the hesitations following Ben-Yair’s first speech are attributed to the “soldiers,” it seems safe to assume that the decisions were probably made by men from the dominant social category on Masada (Sicarii), and that the men killed everyone. The Sicarii left no choice for any would-be defaulters and the seven survivors—two women and five children—had to save themselves by hiding: “Yet, was there an ancient woman, and another who was of kin to Eleazar … with five children, who had concealed themselves in caverns under ground … and were hidden there when the rest were intent upon the slaughter of one another. These others were nine hundred and sixty in number ….” Josephus’s description of the hidden survivors obviously hints at an element of coercion. When the Romans entered Masada, “the women heard this noise and came out of their underground cavern, and informed the Romans what had been done, as it was done; and … described … what was said and what was done, and the manner of it..” (Josephus 1981: 603).
The Roman breach of the wall and the collective suicide took place on the evening and night of the 15th of Nisan 73 AD.6 When the Romans entered Masada the next day, they were met with utter silence.
Josephus’s account contains the following components:
1. Masada was part of a failed revolt against the Roman conquerors. The fall of Masada was only the death blow in the much larger suppression of that revolt. Josephus implies that only a few minority groups of fanatics drew the Jews into the hopeless rebellion. Some researchers (for example, Menachem Stern’s works) tend to reject this implication, asserting that the revolt was both popular and widespread. Unfortunately for the Jews at the time, the military picture was bleak. The Roman Empire of the first century AD was at the peak of its power, extending from Britain to Mesopotamia and controlling nearly thirty well-armed, amply provisioned and battle-ready legions: awesome military might for those days. At the time of the Great Revolt, the Roman Consular Legate in Syria was considered most important because of the threat of military challenge from the southeastern flank of the Roman Empire. He had four legions at his disposal, as well as the three legions stationed in Egypt and others that could be—and were—brought from elsewhere. The logic and justification of attempting to challenge that kind of military might are not easily discernible, especially without the benefit of having at least some political and military alliances.
2. During this period, the local Jewish population was divided among several different ideological groups. In his discussion of Masada, Josephus consistently and repeatedly uses the term “Sicarii” to describe the Jewish rebels there (Feldman 1984: 655–67; Horsley and Hanson 1985; Stern 1973).
3. Sicarii forces took control of Masada by force in 66 AD, before the beginning of the Great Revolt (Josephus 1981: 491).
4. The Sicarii in Jerusalem were involved in so much violence against Jews and others that they were forced to leave the city for Masada long before the Roman siege began. While one cannot rule out the remote possibility that non-Sicarii were amongst those trapped on top of Masada, Josephus’s account does not support this interpretation. Moreover, the Sicarii were clearly the hegemonic and dominant group there.
5. Josephus mentions that when Simon the son of Giora wanted to join the Sicarii on top of Masada, they: “came to those robbers who had seized upon Masada … only permitted him to come with the women he brought with him into the lower part of the fortress, while they dwelt in the upper part” (ibid.: 541). Evidently, the Sicarii were not too hospitable to non-Sicarii.
6. The Sicarii in Masada raided nearby villages. One brutal raid took place when:
They came down by night, without being discovered … overran a small city called Engaddi … they prevented … citizens that could have stopped them … arm themselves and fight them. They… dispersed… and cast them out of the city. As for such that could not run away, being women and children, they slew of them above seven hundred. (ibid.: 537).
Afterwards, the Sicarii raiders carried the food supplies from Ein Gedi to Masada.
7. Josephus does not state the length of the siege on Masada; hence different time frames have been suggested. Evidently, the siege did not begin immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. First, Herodion and Macherus were conquered, then Bassus died and was replaced by Flavius Silva, who had to gather his forces and only then launched the final attack on Masada. Researchers concur that the siege and fall of Masada only took a few months, probably from the winter of 72–73 AD until the following spring, a matter of a few months or weeks (Feldman 1984: 789–90). In fact, Roth’s most impressive, meticulous and credible study states:
All in all, a nine week siege is the likely maximum, a four week siege the likely minimum, and a siege of seven weeks the most probable length for the siege of Masada. Postulating a siege of some seven weeks fits in well with the date given by Josephus for the fall of the fortress, whatever calendar is being used. (1995: 109)
This conclusion is supported by Gill’s (1993) work, which suggests that the massive siege ramp on the western slope is based on a huge natural spur. If this is so, then the Roman army did not construct the ramp from the bottom of the mountain, but only added the actual ramp on top of that natural spur—a significantly less strenuous effort than previously assumed.
8. Josephus’s accounts of the sieges of Jerusalem and Macherus include courageous and fierce fights and raids by the defenders against the Romans. His account of Masada includes no mention of defensive forays at all. No serious anti-Roman military challenges seem to have occurred in Masada. Josephus had an obvious interest to note Jewish heroism because it meant the even greater heroism of the Roman army that conquered them. His failure to mention any impressive resistance by the Sicarii in Masada is not insignificant. True, the topography of Masada would have made such assaults difficult, but not impossible. Thus, while there were battles around Jerusalem (and Yodfat, and Macherus), consisting of skirmishes, raids, and forays, no such activities are projected about the Roman siege of Masada. In other words, there really was no “battle” over Masada; the Roman military effort was less pronounced than the engineering effort, but even that was not extraordinary by Roman standards.
The puzzling omission of any mention of battles around Masada should be considered in conjunction with three additional pieces of information.
(a) Josephus states that the forces headed by Simon the son of Giora joined the “robbers who had seized upon Masada” and that both forces “ravaged and destroyed the country … about Masada” (Josephus 1981: 541; Horsley and Hanson 1985: 214). The “robbers” on Masada, however, would not join Simon’s forces for “greater things,” because they were used to living in Masada and “were afraid of going far from that which was their hiding place.” Simon and his men did not share this fear and continued their battles, eventually ending their careers in the besieged city of Jerusalem, where they fought the Romans (as well as rival Jewish factions, including the Zealots). Simon was captured by the Romans, brought to Rome and killed there.
This piece of information strengthens the impression of the lack of a “fighting spirit” among the rebels on Masada, reinforced by what did not happen: the fighting forces on Masada could have killed the non-fighting personnel and then gone out to do battle against the Romans to the bitter end. But rather than choose this alternative, they killed one another. Interestingly enough, hundreds of years later, Joseippon (1981) changed the Masada narrative to precisely this scenario. Indeed, Zeitlin (1967: 262) and Hoenig (1970: 14; 1972: 112) point out that the Sicarii did not fight.
History provides many instances of heroic fights “to the last” (Philip 1994, Perrett 1991, Perrett 1995). One example is the last stand of Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans at the pass of Thermopylae in 480 BC. Even using a strictly Jewish analogy, when the Sicarii were faced with the choice, they selected suicide rather than follow the example of Biblical Samson, who took his enemies with him into death. The attribution of a “last stand” status to Masada’s Sicarii assumes a particular type of heroism, in which one fights to the end or, if death is inevitable, one tries to inflict as much damage on the enemy as possible: “The concept of men selling their lives as dearly as possible forms an honorable part of most national histories and also the basis of much military tradition” (Perrett 1991: 7). Josephus’s Masada most certainly does not qualify as a “last stand,” and indeed cannot be one.
(b) Josephus notes that after the Romans entered Masada and discovered the dead bodies, they “could [do no other] than wonder at the courage of their [the Sicarii’s] resolution, and at the immovable contempt of death which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through with such an action …” (Josephus 1981: 603). The resolve and courage of the Sicarii in committing collective suicide apparently elicited Roman respect and wonder. But, the analytic leap from “respect” to “heroism” is not made by Josephus, but rather socially constructed. Indeed, Josephus describes the suicidal Sicarii as “Miserable men indeed they were!” (ibid.).
(c) Magness’s work implies that if “battles” were waged around Masada, they may have been confined to the last stage of the siege only. Magness refers to “the mystery of the absence of projectile points at Masada remains” (Magness 1992: 66). Describing the possible late phase of the siege, she states:
Under covering artillery fire, the Roman forces dragged the battering ram up the ramp and broke through the wall … The Roman auxiliary archers added covering fire to that of the machines as the forces ascended the ramp. The Zealots certainly returned the fire with everything at their command, including bows and arrows manufactured during the last days of the siege of Masada …. (Magness 1992: 67)
The major weight of the siege and battle for Masada may have been carried out not by the more prestigious units of the Roman Tenth Legion, but by the much less prestigious auxiliari troops:
The soft arrowheads from Masada indicate that there was a major contingent of auxiliari troops at Masada and/or that the Zealots had armed themselves in the manner of auxiliaries, with bows and arrows … Strangely, the excavators seem to have found no projectile points of the kind that would have been shot by legionaries from torsion bows … [i]n contrast to the situation in Gamla …where numerous projectile points were uncovered. (ibid.: 64).
One is thus left with the unavoidable conclusion that there simply is no evidence for significant resistance of the “last-stand” type around Masada.
The overall impression, then, is that the Sicarii on Masada, so adept at raiding nearby villages, were not particularly talented fighters and, in fact, avoided battle. Perhaps they never believed that the Roman army could reach them and thus did not think that they had to fight. As it became clear that the end was approaching, they may have hastily put together some sort of defense, but if so, it was too little and too late. Eventually they did not “fight to the end,” preferring suicide instead. If this deduction is valid, then the resulting conclusion is inevitable: the history of the Roman siege on Masada does not convey a particularly heroic picture.
9. Josephus “quotes” at length the two speeches made by Eleazar Ben-Yair that were required to persuade 960 people on Masada to commit suicide. The implication is that the Jewish Sicarii on Masada were at first reluctant to take their own lives.
10. Seven people survived the collective suicide. This is an important point, because the details of that last night on Masada were provided by one of the women survivors.
Thus, when we look at the main components of Josephus Flavius’s narrative of the Great Revolt and of Masada, no portrait of heroism on Masada emerges. On the contrary, the narrative relates the story of a hopeless (and questionable) rebellion, of its majestic failure and the destruction of the Second Temple and of Jerusalem, of large-scale massacres of the Jews, of different factions of Jews fighting one another, of an act of collective suicide (hardly a positive act in Judaism) by a group of terrorists and assassins whose “fighting spirit” was suspect.
From the Roman military perspective, the Masada campaign against the Sicarii must have been an insignificant action after a major war in Judea; a sort of “mopping-up” operation, something which had to be done, but which did not involve anything special in terms of military strategy or effort. Another item of information may add credibility to the above conjecture. Two almost identical ancient Roman inscriptions from 81 AD were found in Urbs Salvia (in northern Italy, south of Ancona) in the late 1950s. The inscriptions describe the career of L. Flavius Silva Nonius Bassus. No mention of Masada can be found in the inscriptions (perhaps none should be expected).7 It is stated that Flavius Silva was in charge of the “provinciae Iudaeae,” and that during his career he commanded two Roman legions.
The question that cannot be evaded is how could the unsavory story that emerges from Josephus’s narrative become such a positive symbol of heroism? Obviously, the mythical narrative which projects tremendous heroism had to be socially constructed and diffused, because it is totally absent from the original historical narrative.
The Masada mythical narrative began to develop among the Jewish population of British-mandate Palestine in the early decades of the twentieth century, but accumulated momentum in the 1920s and had crystallized by the early 1940s. Although the entire Masada mythical narrative comprises a narrative with a trip to and climb up Masada—that is, a cognitive, physical, and emotional experience—we may easily delineate the cognitive aspect.
The Masada mythical narrative can be found in many school textbooks, history books, guidebooks, and pamphlets, and a large variety of other publications in Israel. Consciousness-raising trips to Masada involved schools and youth movements, and thousands of new recruits to the Israeli military were marched to Masada to swearing-in ceremonies. The myth may be said to have evolved from a critical stance towards Josephus Flavius as historian. This critical view typically remolds such problematic issues as the identity of the Masada rebels, the massacre at Ein Gedi, the “battle” at Masada, the duration of the Roman siege, the suicide, and the survivors.
If we take the many different sources of where the Masada myth appears (Ben-Yehuda 1995) and summarize them, then the essence of the Masada mythical narrative may be sketched briefly as follows:
The leaders of the popular Great Revolt were Zealots, adherents of one of the Jewish ideological trends of the period. The imperial Roman army crushed the revolt, conquered and destroyed Jerusalem together with the Second Temple of the Jews. The Zealots who survived the siege and destruction of the city escaped to the fortress of Masada, a stronghold difficult to reach atop a mountain near the Dead Sea. From there, the Zealots harassed the Romans and created such a threat that the Romans decided to make the tremendous military effort required to destroy Masada. Consequently, the Romans gathered their army, made the long and arduous march through the Judean desert and reached Masada. There, they surrounded the fortress and put it under siege. After three years of heroic battle by the few Zealots against the huge Roman army, the Zealots on Masada realized that their situation was hopeless. They faced a grim future: either be killed by the Romans, or become slaves. Eleazar Ben-Yair, the commander, addressed his followers and persuaded them all that they had to die as free men. They thus decided to kill themselves, a heroic and liberating death, rather than become wretched slaves. When the Roman soldiers entered Masada, they found only silence and dead bodies.
Masada has thus become a symbol for a heroic “last stand.” In the words of the famous Israeli chief-of-staff and politician Moshe Dayan (1983: 21): “Today, we can point only to the fact that Masada has become a symbol of heroism and of liberty for the Jewish people to whom it says: Fight to death rather than surrender; Prefer death to bondage and loss of freedom.”
Clearly, the popular, widespread Masada mythical narrative has some elements of truth in it, but in the main, it is significantly different from what Josephus tells us. It takes a long, complex, and at some points unclear, historical sequence and reduces it to a simple and straightforward heroic narrative, characterized by a few clear themes. It emphasizes that a small group of heroes who had survived the battle of Jerusalem chose to continue the fight against the Romans to the bitter end rather than surrender.
The Masada mythical narrative is thus constructed by transforming a tragic historical event into a heroic fable. The hapless revolt is transformed into a heroic war. The questionable collective suicide on Masada is transformed into a brave last stand of the few against the many. The myth is thus based on the following points:
1. The rebels/Zealots/freedom fighters on Masada were few.
2. They were soldiers who engaged in a “battle.”
3. The Sicarii are seldom mentioned. “Zealots” may sound better than the negative connotation of “Sicarii.” Although Josephus does not refer to the “Zealots” in positive terms, the myth-makers managed to associate “Zealots” with such feelings as “Zeal for freedom” and thus to paint the “Zealots” in positive terms. No such exercise was (or could be) performed for the “Sicarii.” The mythologizers ignored Josephus, who in at least one place (pp. 598–9) included the “Zealots” among the brutal “villains” whose zeal for virtue was a sham.
4. The massacres in Ein Gedi (and elsewhere) disappear.
5. The people on Masada had come from Jerusalem, the last defenders of the city.
6. The siege of Masada was a protracted one (three years).
7. The suicide is “undone,” that is, repressed or explained away as a “no-choice” situation.
8. Masada is frequently portrayed as a rebel base for “operations” against the Romans.
9. Eleazar Ben-Yair’s two speeches are telescoped into one, eliminating the hesitancy of the Sicarii to take one another’s lives. Heroes do not hesitate.
10. The seven hiding survivors of Masada typically disappear.
The result is the construction of a powerful, persuasive and consistently heroic tale. When it is told within a walking trip to Masada a cognitive and physical effect is achieved.
The Masada mythical narrative played a crucial role in the crystallization of a new individual and collective identity for Israeli Jews between the early 1940s and the late 1960s. The return of Jews to Palestine, with the explicit political goal of creating a Jewish homeland, is typically dated to the 1880s. Secular Zionist Jews, both before and after the proclamation of statehood in 1948, doubtless craved tales of Jewish heroism, and creating the Masada mythical narrative most certainly served some very important functions for them.
Why was there such a need? During the British Mandate period, the Zionist movement pushed hard for the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland. In British-controlled Palestine itself, it was clear that the Arabs did not welcome the returning Jews and that an Arab nationalist movement was developing. The local Yishuv (Jewish community in pre-state Palestine) and its leaders not only had to contend with this, but also with anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews as non-combatants, passive, money-changers, and so on. During those fateful years, there was clearly an urgent need for new, nationalistic Jewish symbols of heroism, and the Masada mythical narrative came into being almost naturally.
The need for heroic Jewish symbols was magnified tremendously in the 1930s and 1940s, as the dangerous specter of fascism loomed over Europe and the Nazi threat became increasingly manifest. Between 1940 and 1942, the “Plan for the North” (popularly known as “The Masada Plan”) crystallized among the Jewish leadership. It was a direct result of the fear instilled in the Hagana (the biggest and most significant pre-state Jewish underground organization in Palestine) by the successes of Rommel’s Afrika Korps in North Africa in 1941. In early 1942, the danger of a Nazi German invasion of Palestine seemed a very real threat. The basic idea of the plan was to concentrate the Yishuv into a huge fortified locality around Mount Carmel and Haifa (the evacuation of women and children—perhaps to Cyprus—was considered). The plan assumed a perimeter covering an area of about 200 square kilometers from where it was believed the fight against the Germans could be continued for as long as possible (see Ben-Yehuda 1995: 131–8).
During those early years, a few influential moral entrepreneurs and memory agents made it their goal to create and disseminate the Masada mythical narrative, especially Joseph Klosner, and, perhaps the most dynamic of them all, Shmaria Guttman. Differences existed among them. For example, while Klosner referred to the “Sicarii” in heroic terms, Guttman hid the “Sicarii.” By structuring the basic theme of the Masada mythical narrative, they provided an important building block of a new identity for secular Jews in Palestine. Since Simchoni’s excellent 1923 translation of Josephus was available, the myth-makers could utilize this new translation for their purposes by playing with the text (Ben-Yehuda 1995).
The story of Masada was embraced by youth movements, the pre-State Jewish underground organizations, and later the Israeli Army, and the Israeli educational system as the symbol of Jewish heroism. The Masada mythical narrative was constructed, delivered, and accepted as an authentic story of supreme heroism in the service of a genuine and justified cause. The narrative emphasized the pride and courage of the Jews, fighting for their liberty and their land. This heroic narrative not only created a 2,000-year-old link, but also kept it alive. The physical symbol of this connection was located in a harsh environment, which had changed only slightly since 73 AD, and which provided the narrative with a very powerful element of credibility. In a period in which the new Jewish settlers in Palestine (and later Israel) were encouraged to tour the country, Masada became a preferred site.
Yigael Yadin’s excavations of Masada in 1963–65 were actually the last chapter in the crystallization of the Masada mythical narrative. These excavations provided a scientific buttress for a national and popular myth, and it is for this reason that the excavations created so much political and social interest in Israel.
The Masada mythical narrative was disseminated by almost all available cultural means of expression imaginable. First, Masada was a major ingredient in the socialization processes of all five major secular Jewish youth movements in Palestine and Israel, but to a much lesser degree for the two religious movements. Secondly, the three major pre-State Jewish underground groups used Masada explicitly in their symbols and socialization processes. Likewise, the Israeli Army used Masada as both a symbol and a site at which new soldiers were sworn in after (or during) boot camp. Fourth, elementary and high school texts, as well as general history texts and encyclopedias, propounded the myth. Fifth, the Masada mythical narrative appeared in travel guides and became part of the standard repertoire of local tour guides, eventually also encompassing the physical location as the site for ceremonies and cultural events. Sixth, both inside and outside Israel, the myth figured in poetry and prose, plays and films, music, and the plastic arts. Finally, the printed and electronic media devoted space and time to transmit the myth.
The transformation of the doomed revolt and mass suicide on top of Masada to a modern national myth of heroism was complete by the 1960s. This myth served as a cultural code that amplified patriotic values, helped to define the symbolic-moral boundaries of the new Israeli-ness, and was a building block in the emerging new personal and collective identity of many Israelis.
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1 This chapter is based on Ben-Yehuda (1995; 2002; and 2009).
2 References to Josephus Flavius are to The Complete Works of Josephus, by Josephus Flavius, translated into English by William Whiston (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1981).
3 Josephus does not provide a clear or consistent account of the events leading to this capture (1981: 491). For example, it is unclear whether Manahem’s men left a garrison there, and whether upon their return to Masada, Eleazar Ben-Yair and his men had to recapture it. Josephus states that “he [Eleazar Ben-Yair] and his Sicarii got possession of the fortress [Masada] by treachery” (ibid.: 599). See also Horsley and Hanson (1985: 212), Cotton and Geiger (1989: 1–24) and Cotton and Preiss (1990).
4 Possibly at the end of 72 AD (Simchoni 1923: 512).
5 Josephus probably meant the Tenth Legion (“Fretensis”).
6 Josephus does not state in which year Masada fell. Most researchers assume it was 73 AD (Jones 1974; Stern 1989: 370, n. 17; Cotton and Geiger 1989: 21–4; Cotton 1989).
7 See Annee Epigraphique (1969–70), section 183; Pauly-Wissowa, Paulys Realincyclopdie Der Classischen Altertums-Wissenschaft, Supplementband 14 (Munchen 1974), 121–2, entry 181. I am very grateful to Shmuel Sermoneta-Gertel from the Department of Classical Studies at the Hebrew University who helped me with this issue.