The Siege of Masada (73 AD) - Last Stand of the Great Jewish Revolt

in 73 ad Masada the impregnable mountain fortress in the Judean Desert stood as the final hold out against the onslaught of Rome's legions the siege that followed would mark the final bloody suppression of the Jewish revolt with an encounter whose aw inspiring remains can still be seen in the desert today [Music] prior to the Jewish revolt Judea was a minor Roman province under the administration of a procurator and under the overall control of the governor of Syria the region had long been divided along ethnic religious and class divisions and was made even more unstable by a Roman Authority which lacked the competency or military power to impose proper order simply put the region was a highly combustible powder keg waiting to go on in 66 AD a local riot in Caesarea morphed into an anti-tax protest which challenged Roman rule in response the procurator gaseous Flores responded with heavy-handed retribution plundering Southwest Jerusalem and killing 3,600 people the revolutionary spark was lit and the situation quickly spiraled out of control a wave of communal violence surged through the entire region with the population of Judea splintering along its divisions amidst the chaos the Jewish rebels drove the Romans from Jerusalem and eliminated Garrison's throughout the province this included the capture of the fortress at Masada by radical Sakaki rebels the great Jewish revolt would last eight years and involve the personal command of to future emperors this Bayesian and his son Titus incredible amounts of blood would be spilled in a campaign that revolved primarily around sieges this was epitomized by the epic siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD which Josephus claims killed 1.1 million people with another ninety seven thousand captured and enslaved while these numbers are dismissed by historians they do a test to the intense levels of violence accompanying the fall of the city and the revolt as a whole while the destruction of Jerusalem ended the organized resistance of Jewish forces the fires of revolution still burned in the fringes of Judea where the die-hard rebels holed up in fortresses refused to surrender when Titus set sail for Rome in 71 ad he left the new military governor Lucilius fascist to conduct mopping up operations passes to command of the tenth pratensis Legion and marched first on the garrison followed swiftly by Hebron he then swung the legions around the east side of the Dead Sea to take the hill fortress of Mackerras before returning West to destroy 3000 rebels hiding in the forest of Gerardus in the Jordan Valley now only the stronghold of Masada remained however basa soon died of natural causes and the legion returned to its new base at Jerusalem before setting out with a new commander Flavius Silva in 73 ad this force now marched south intent on terminating the last of the Jewish resistance Masada lies 2.4 kilometers from the Dead Sea on a barren flat top limestone mountain amidst a desolate landscape on its eastern side the summit rises a hundred and forty metres above the desert floor roughly half the height of the Eiffel Tower here a torturous zigzagging trail known as the serpent path makes its way to the top by comparison the Western approach is more salable and yet even this side towers 80 metres above the surrounding landscape the approximate height of the Statue of Liberty as if natural defenses weren't enough the cleared plateau at the top was ringed with a 1,400 meter long case-mate wall standing six metres tall the wall design was such that it was actually made of two parallel layers with a central gap that could be filled with stones or dirt during a siege such walls were common in antiquity as they were cheaper and faster to construct while also doubling a storage space in the case of Masada the outer wall was 1.4 metres thick and the inner was one metre making for a combined width of four meters the walls were reinforced by 30 towers spaced out for topographic and strategic reasons these were generally 6 metres wide and 20 metres tall with stairs leading to the top the entire defensive structure could only be crossed at four points the snake path gate the water gate the western gate and the cistern gate as with all impregnable fortress 'as the Achilles heel of any defense would be access to food and water for the defenders however Masada was well-prepared in this respect cut into the rock were numerous cisterns and reservoirs twelve were constructed in two rows along the north western slopes with the total capacity of 40 thousand cubic meters or 16 Olympic pools buildings also dotted the top of the plateau with a series of long store houses built into the northern complex these could hold large quantities of corn oil wine dates and food supplies that would be preserved for long periods of time do that a naturally dry climate even if stockpiles began to run low the open plateau area might be used to grow additional food it's safe to say then a defensive force could expect to hold out indefinitely against just about any attacker unfortunately for the Jews the Roman army wasn't your average foe in fact the Roman force bearing down on Masada had at its core the 10th for tensest legion this unit of 4,800 men was a descendant of Julius Caesar's famed 10th Legion and was adorned with numerous battle honours recently it had been blooded by campaigns in Armenia and was battle hardened by the siege of Jerusalem this grizzled legion was joined by six auxilary cohorts and thousands of jewish prisoners of war in total silver arrived at Masada with a force of nearly 10,000 bunkered atop the fortress looking down on the incoming troops would be a defensive garrison of less than 1,000 even this number is inflated since a large part of Masada's occupants were actually refugees these women and children were certainly not deadweight and could have helped with the defensive operations under the guidance of the jewish commander eliazar Ben Yair eliazar was an important figure in the Jewish revolt and was one of the principal leaders of the Sicari who now made up the main fighting force at Masada these troops were a splinter group of the Hebrew zealots and whose name means literally dagger men they were fierce resistance forces made famous for being one of the earliest organized assassination units that would strike their targets and public gatherings before disappearing into the crowd such zealots had successfully held the Romans at bay and even defeated them in the past despite being poorly equipped and were not to be underestimated when the Romans arrived in the autumn of 73 AD they had no illusions that the siege would be over quickly with this understanding they set up camp on the western approach and went about securing their own position whilst undermining the defenders first the Romans targeted the aqueduct serving the fortress and diverted them for their own use next they set to work constructing a wall of circumvallate this was a textbook Roman operation meant to encircle enemy positions the fortification would ensure that defenders were cut off from the outside world and helped thwart attempts at a breakout during the siege of Jerusalem Titus had failed to construct such a wall from the get-go and was harassed mercilessly by Jewish sorties Silva was determined not to make the same mistake and put his men to work immediately using pickaxes and entrenching tools the Romans quarried local stones and erected a three metre wall which ran 3.2 kilometers this was reinforced by eight camps and numerous guard posts in addition a string of towers help shore up defenses on the more exposed eastern Valley this impressive network was built in a matter of days and can be clearly seen in the desert today silva established his headquarters on the higher ground to the west along with legionary cohorts one through five while corps had six through ten took residence on the low ground to the east the remainder of the auxilary forces were then stationed in the surrounding minor camps thus ensuring that troops completely surrounded the fortress now that the attackers had their prey cornered it was time to close in for the kill the Romans decided that taking the fortress by force would be necessary since their own supplies would run out long before those of the defenders but the question still remained of how best to assault a mountain top a quick storming of the walls with ladders was out of the question since any attack would be forced to advance at a dangerously slow pace and would be funneled through narrow killing fields in this scenario the defenders would be at a huge advantage and any outcome would be Pyrrhic at best typically Roman forces would overcome such adversity by using siege equipment to offer protection from projectiles whilst artillery suppressed the defenders however the terrain at Masada was far too steep for siege equipment and too high for artillery it would therefore be necessary to not only overcome the defenders but nature itself ultimately the Romans decided to turn the rocky cliff side into a gradual highway for an assault to do this the engineers would build an enormous siege ramp by taking advantage of a natural spur called the White Rock on the western side of the mountain the plan was to bridge the existing gulf up to the walls with the man-made 20 degree incline to support a ramp of this scale the base had to be huge so as not to collapse under its own weight and was started roughly 200 meters out from the cliff here the 10th for tensest took the lead in construction while Jewish prisoners were used to bring a continual stream of water and supplies to the camps day in and day out they slowly added more and more material to the foundation at first the volume being added would do little to increase the height of the ramp but the days weeks and months rolled by it only grew faster and faster the sheer audacity of the construction project must have awed the defenders who woke up every morning to a mountain slowly rising towards their walls however as the ramp got closer and closer and meant that workers were more and more vulnerable to projectiles launched from the walls and towers above in response the Romans surely would have begun to erect temporary walls and sheds to cover their progress additional archers and artillery he also been called up to provide covering fire for the work crews and said dissuade counter-attacks within two months the ramp up the fortress was complete it measured 220 metres wide and its face rose 90 metres and was topped with a 20 meter stone pier nearest the wall according to archaeologists this obscenely large amount of earthwork weighed the equivalent of one and a half times the Empire State Building it is stunning to imagine that this was accomplished without the use of modern equipment now a 25-meter siege tower was constructed and slowly rolled up the ramp it was specifically designed to handle the angled slope and included a battering ram at the front the tower likely also carried small artillery pieces which could be used to shoot down at the enemy walls which it now overlooked it is important to note that this was often the primary purpose of siege towers rather than being glorified elevators for infantry assaults they were actually meant to provide elevated positions for sniping at defenders and forcing them away from the walls while a larger breach was formed in the case of Masada the siege tower guarded the battering ram which started to break down the walls in response the defender said about reinforcing their defenses when the Roman Ram broke through the main wall the attackers were faced with a second hastily erected wall made of alternating layers of wood and earth this wall proved far more resilient to the battering ram seemingly absorbing every blow it was however flammable and so the Romans set fire to the Timbers the flames caught on the wind changed direction and blew the flames back onto the siege tower setting and alight the attackers now face the devastating prospect of having their equipment destroyed without having set foot within the fortress fortunes once again shifted however and the wind reversed direction concentrating the fire back onto the inner wall by nightfall the defenses were sufficiently weakened and the Legionaries made preparations for a full force assault the next day as the Sun rose over Masada on the 3rd of May the 10th pratensis legions stormed through the wall and burst out onto the plateau rather than being met by screams and shouts however they faced a deafening silence the complex was filled with bodies of dead Jews according to the historian josephus the defenders had accepted the inevitability of their fate and chosen death rather than capture the grisly details of this mass suicide were apparently recounted by the handful of women and children who evaded the slaughter more recent historical findings however have found discrepancies with Josephus's story and cast doubt on the final fate of the defenders nonetheless the symbolism of a heroic Jewish last stand against oppressors lives on to this day and is a point of pride for the Israeli Defense Force recruits particular never to let Masada fall again the fall of Masada in 73 ad brought an end to the great Jewish revolt which had raged on for eight years the land of Judea now became an independent Roman province under the administration of its own governor however the overwhelming use of force did little to quell the tensions which permeated the region in the following years the Jews would rise up twice more only to be beaten mercilessly into submission with immense casualties according to Casias do 50 of the most important jewish strongholds and 985 of the better-known villages were razed to the ground teaching the Torah was forbidden and the province was renamed Syria Palestrina this effectively marked the beginning of the Diaspora and extinguished the idea of a Jewish state for the next eighteen hundred years throughout the struggle and especially at Masada we were confronted with feelings of both great awe and sadness the feats of Engineering displayed by the Romans undeniably capture our imagination and yet at the same time ring hollow in our hearts give the ultimately destructive purpose of these engines for me the siege of Masada and its two thousand-year-old remains are a striking testament to the lengths our species will go to kill one another as an admirer of the Roman war machine this is a particularly important reminder of the field of corpses it left behind personal human tragedies rarely shined through the fog of history and we would do well not to forget them after all one day we will find ourselves in such books [Music]

Channel: Invicta

Views: 2,126,901

Rating: 4.8543558 out of 5

Keywords: documentary, Attila, massive, siege, Total War: Rome II (Video Game), Creative Assembly, Rally Point, Total War, DLC, New, Campaign, Release, Battle, Huge, Heir of Carthage, Documentary, Warhammer, Rome, Trailer, Total War (Video Game Series), music, intro, multiplayer, review, Warhammer Fantasy (Interest), total war: warhammer, Warhammer Fantasy Battle (Game), gameplay, dwarf, empire, greenskins, orcs, vampire counts, masada, jewish revolt, jerusalem, middle east, history, historia civilis, epic

Id: 11iPrDv8aBE

Length: 16min 40sec (1000 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 02 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Oakley_HiDef]

In 73 AD Masada, the impregnable mountain fortress in the Judaean desert, stood as the final holdout against the onslaught of Rome’s legions. The siege that followed would mark the final, bloody suppression of the Jewish revolt with an encounter whose awe inspiring remains can still be seen in the desert today!

HD Drone Footage provided by JPWorthington Media https://www.pond5.com/artist/jpworthingtonmedia

Literary Sources:
"The Jewish Revolt" by Si Sheppard
"The Forts of Judaea" by Samuel Rocca
"Legions of Rome" by Stephen Dando-Collins
"Uniforms of the Roman World" by Kevin Kiley

[u/[deleted]]

You should have do more of this. Those documentaries are the best part of this channel.

[u/yuval065]

Loved the video keep it up maybe do more history about judea and syria

[u/sek911]

The named and numbered cohorts look sick. Is the Legions of Rome still compatible with the latest divide et impera ?

[u/Tutmanbolt]

Wow this looks amazing. I'm going to visit in about a week and knowing the history behind it is gonna make it all the more amazing.

Thanks a lot Oakley, your videos are awesome.

[u/rzeznicc]

Great deal of work was put into this, I greatly appreciate it!

[u/The_Cooler_King]

I don't know how the hell you make these, but they are coming out fantastic!

[u/TnKing2]

That was really good thanks for making it! I had no idea about this place before the video

[u/APolemicist]

Your videos are great, dude. You have the most thorough lecture on the first Punic war anywhere on the internet, that I've found. Pretty cool.

Keep up the good work, man.