Conflict between imperial Rome and Palestine was probably inevitable, given the Jewish belief in a single God versus the polytheism of Rome. Although Roman practice was to allow fairly wide autonomy in conquered provinces, the rise of the emperor cults flew in the face of Jewish beliefs. Disbelieving in Juno, Hera, Apollo, and the rest could be allowed, but not rejection of the divinity of the emperors such as Caligula and Vespasian. The placing of idols in sacred areas of Jerusalem, along with the appointment of less-than-tolerant procurators, provoked a rebellion among the Jewish population of Palestine. This grew stronger when an ambush of Roman legions in the Beth Horon Pass northwest of Jerusalem gave the Jews an overly optimistic view of their chances against Rome's might. The only thing that may have prevailed against the Roman army was a strongly unified Jewish leadership, but such did not exist. Only in the direst straits did any of the factions cooperate, and that led almost directly to the Roman capture of Jerusalem after an extended siege. One faction that was not present in Jerusalem was the Sicarii, an offshoot of the Zealots. The Sicarii, or "knife men," practiced assassination of anyone they deemed dangerous: Romans, Jews who aided Romans, or even Jews who did not actively fight the Romans. Soon after the conflict began in a.d. 66, the Sicarii seized the fortress atop the hill of Masada, a palace and defensive complex built a century earlier by Herod the Great. Little is known of their activities there while the rest of Palestine was being conquered. They certainly did nothing to aid their fellows during the siege of Jerusalem, like sending in extra manpower, harassing Roman lines of supply, and the like. Chief among their activities was raiding the countryside for supplies and punishing those they considered collaborators. At the village of En Geddi, over 700 women and children were killed for not living up to the Sicarii standards.

After Jerusalem fell, however, the Romans could focus all their attention on Masada, for the rest of the country was in their control. Still, it was almost a year before Flavius Silva marched his X Legion to Masada and initiated the final conquest in Palestine.

Herod had chosen well when he selected Masada as an emergency retreat. Masada, translating as "mountain stronghold," is a mesa measuring 600 by 1,900 feet, with an area of some 23 acres on its top. The sheer sides rise 600 feet on the western face and 820 feet on the eastern face; the Dead Sea lies 1,300 feet below. The only approach to the top is up a "snake path," a narrow trail of switchbacks along the face on the Dead Sea side. A 20-foot-high wall was built around the perimeter bearing 38 towers, each 80 feet high. Two sumptuous living areas were constructed for the king, as well as barracks, storehouses, and large cisterns that allowed the garrison inside to hold out almost indefinitely.

Flavius Silva saw the impossibility of assaulting the fortress up the snake path, so began work on two projects. The first was to construct a 6-foot thick wall of contravallation that finally reached some 3 miles in length. Observation towers were built every 60 to 80 yards. Silva established his headquarters to the northwest, with camp followers settling themselves nearby. A subsidiary camp was established to the east and a smaller bivouac between Silva's camp and Masada, with others placed due east, north, and southwest of the hill. Observation posts to the east and south kept an eye out for attempted escapes from the fortress. The second major project was to begin building a ramp up the northwestern face. This was built up rather quickly, as the Sicarii had no real defensive weapons and could do little to slow the Roman progress. Although the Roman soldier was famous for his ability to handle earthmoving projects, the ramp was built by Jewish prisoners. A visitor to Masada today can still see the ramp and imagine the amount of labor involved in its construction. When the ramp was finally complete and the Romans were able to bring up their battering rams, the defenders' time was almost up.

What happened from the time of the initial assault until the final conquest of the fortress is a matter of intense speculation. The reason for this is that but one contemporary account exists, and its author is suspect. Josephus was a former general in the Jewish resistance to Rome, but after being captured at the siege of Jotapata he endeared himself to Vespasian, the Roman commander, by predicting his imminent rise to the position of Caesar. He traveled with the Roman army, advising them at the siege of Jerusalem. His account of the action, The Jewish War, was written over the space of some years in Rome, with the Masada tale being written perhaps seven years after the fact.

His ability to both survive and advance himself by playing to Roman vanity means that his account of the actions at Masada is more than a little suspect.

Josephus writes that when the ramp was finally complete, the Romans assaulted the fortress with rams, having previously bombarded the walls with their ballistae. The Sicarii could do little to stop the assault, but as the walls began to crumble they hastily built a wooden wall behind the breach and filled the intervening space with dirt and rubble. That delaying tactic lasted until the Romans set the back wall afire. None of this seems to be in dispute, but Josephus' account of the next several hours certainly is. With the breach virtually complete, the Romans stopped their assault, left their siege engines in place, and retreated down the ramp to spend the night; the final assault was to take place the following morning. During the night, the Sicarii leader Eleazar gave two stirring speeches to his people, announcing that the outcome of the battle was God's will, for the sinful Jews had lost His favor. Rather than be taken captive, paraded through Rome as objects of scorn, and have their women abused and their children enslaved, it would be best to rob the Romans of their victory by killing themselves. After burning their possessions, each man was to kill his own wife and children. Then, ten men chosen by lot would kill the men and one of the ten would kill the other nine. The lone survivor would then kill himself, being the only one who would suffer a horrific afterlife for committing the sin of suicide. All of this was done and when the Romans attacked the next morning they found a dead garrison.

In the 1960s, Professor Yigael Yadin undertook the first serious excavations at Masada and discovered evidence that some of Josephus' story was accurate. The ramp, of course, remained, and many of the physical features Josephus described were accurate. He even found a shard with the name Eleazar on it, possibly one of the lots cast before the mass killing. The Roman attack and Sicarii defense certainly occurred, but the details are questionable and many questions have no answer.

Why did the Romans stop their assault on the verge of victory? The breach apparently occurred late in the day, but they had experience in night fighting; the final assault at Jotapata in which Josephus was captured was conducted at night. How did Josephus know what was contained in Eleazar's oratory? He said that the Romans captured a handful of women after the battle who claimed to have listened in on the secret meeting attended only by the fighting men. How did the Roman sentries, placed on the ramp to guard against any escape or assault from the fortress, fail to see fires built for the destruction of the defenders' possessions or hear anything unusual that might have indicated a mass killing was taking place inside? Why destroy their possessions, but leave untouched Herod's armory with weaponry for 10,000 soldiers? These questions have no answers.

It is possible that the delay in the attack did not take place, that some of the Sicarii did indeed kill themselves and their families, and that some fires were deliberately set by the Jews in a last attempt to deny any loot to the Romans. Certainly parts of Josephus' story can be accepted, but on the whole there are too many gaps and inconsistencies to accept the entire tale.

The fall of Masada signaled the last gasp of Jewish resistance to the Roman occupation of Palestine. Some of the Sicarii and other Zealots apparently escaped Jerusalem and Masada before the Roman capture of those two cities, for rumors of guerrilla activities in Egypt and Cyrenaica pop up shortly after the conquest, and no reports of any such action had been noted there beforehand. Those, however, were not the only Jews to leave Palestine, for the great Diaspora began in the wake of the Roman occupation and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

Just as Jews around the world for centuries dreamed of "next year in Jerusalem," so did Masada take on special meaning once the State of Israel was created in 1948. It came to represent to Israelis not a symbol of suicide and futility, but of resistance at all costs to anyone who would again occupy their land. In impressive ceremonies on the mountain stronghold, members of the Israeli Defense Forces today swear to defend their homeland, to experience death before dishonor.