VV#61 - The Last Stand - Masada, the Sicarii, and the Account of Josephus
The Jewish historian's polemic about the last stand on Masada
Was being conquered by the ancient Romans always entirely a bad thing? According to historian Tom Holland, however some nations and cultures may have fiercely fought and resented their Roman captors/subjugators, many would eventually feel compelled to admit that, until they had been assimilated into Roman culture, their own society had always been previously fraught with strife and division.
And after being assimilated into the vast dominion of the Roman empire, despite how terrible the process may have been, many would come to actually appreciate the order and empire of the society that they had been (however forcibly) brought into. And for many, it would eventually seep into their own identity as a individuals and as a nation; and if given the chance to go back to their previous culture and way of life, many would actually be reluctant to throw off their Roman identity.
For the Israelites though, things were different. Although they had well adapted to Roman subjugation (and, as we discussed, benefitted from the efforts of men like Herod who was a gifted diplomat who helped negotiate a long lasting peace between them), they still had an ancient sense of identity that remained completely independent of their current situation. Regardless of the benefits and way of life that they had adapted to with the Romans, they had no problem imagining a world without them. And if they had the chance to throw off that Roman rule and make a clean break—unlike other nations who had taken on Roman identity in their core—they would indeed discard the last vestige of Roman identity and return to who they were as a nation before that subjugation.
It was this sense of separateness and distinction that had been maintained even under slavery that had so longed to reassert itself, especially under an increasingly blasphemous Caesar like Nero. These deep and fierce feelings of longing for independence (regardless of how hypocritical the religious elites were in their political self-interest and accomodation of Rome) set up against the most invincible fighting force the ancient world had ever seen, was what made for such an unforgettable and horrific conflagration.
Other nations with less of a strong sense of separate identity probably would have acquiesced in the face of stern warning from their own leaders. But that strong sense of independence in the Israelites—pushed to a political extreme—couldn’t be resisted, and thus was the very thing that, as Christ had warned, brought their own Temple to the flames of annihilation.
But according to Josephus, it wasn’t just in Jerusalem that this Israelite impulse to resist their overlords came to a head, but also on a mountaintop in the desert.
The Mountain of Masada and their Palaces
In PAX, Tom Holland wrote regarding this mountaintop:
“Deep in the badlands south of Jerusalem…on the summit of a sheer mountain, there stood a fortress named Masada; and inside this fortress Herod had built two palaces. The interior decoration of these twin complexes was a pointed fusion; mosaics adorned with fruits and flower, symbols of the divine favour that had graced the Judaeans with their homeland, paired with wall paintings that would not have disgraced the Palatine. Certainly, no one would have doubted, visiting Masada, that it was possible for a Judaean ruler to serve both his god and Caesar.” (PAX, page )
As Holland explains, the fact that these mountaintop palaces existed at all and were adorned with such beauty, was due to the extremely difficult political tightrope that had been achieved by King Herod many decades prior and his ever-vigilant conciliation between Rome and the Israelites.
Yes, as had been the case with the city of Jerusalem—and particularly the Temple—these remarkable monuments and adornments were a testament to the extreme and long-suffering effort within the State to bring peace between two groups with deeply opposed value systems. And by the time of Jesus—and subsequently by the time of the last stand on Masada—the Israelites had taken too much for granted in their compromised situation, and started to assume that the extreme greatness of the Temple with all their adornments had something to do with the blessings of Yahweh (that they were favored); when in reality it was due to extreme political shrewdness.
Rebels and False Messiahs
Jesus had warned about 40 years before this confrontation on Masada about many who would arise, falsely claiming that they had the key to the lasting fulfillment of the Israelite desire to be truly independent:
“At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time. So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:23-27)
For Jesus, the true Messiah was coming with a reckoning against all of Israel, to help her see how she had turned her back on the heart of her covenant. And so anyone coming along with promises of restoring Israel to her former independent greatness (without calling her to “rend her heart”) was simply an opportunist telling people “what they wanted to hear”. These would indeed be “vultures” appealing to the worst in people, giving them false hope that would ultimately leave them devastated.
And indeed, just as predicted, many did appear “in the wilderness” and “in the inner rooms” claiming to be the long-awaited political Messiah that would liberate Israel from their political oppressors. But vultures they were, and most of them would end up crucified or otherwise killed.
But out of all of these rebels and zealouts and false Messiahs, there was one group that had managed to take things to an extreme degree. If there was anyone that did NOT at all heed the appeals of both Jesus’s or of others, it would be the Sicarii. Essentially an assasination unit of rebel Israelites (one of the first to ever exist), these men were skilled in the use of psychological terror to get whatever they wanted. If sneaky tactics of subterfuge characterized any group, it would be these. Known for using daggers to kill people in large groups while also feigning surprise at those they murdered, they were very effective at controlling people through chaos and fear.
And according to historian Josephus—unlike other places where likely it was just refugees and women who had fled—it would be these rebels/assassins who would become famous for their last stand against Rome on this mountain after they retreated from the conflagration in Jerusalem.
Holland describes Josephus’s account:
“In Josephus’s version of the siege of Masada, the summit had been occupied not by refugees, but by the same breed of armed rebel as had already brought Jerusalem to ruin. Hours before the final assault on the summit, all of them—men, women, and children—had perished in the equivalent of a suicide pact. ‘Never will be slaves—and so we choose death.’ These words, ascribed by Josephus to the rebel commander at Masada, articulated a course of action that Josephus himself had very notably not taken.” (PAX, page 293)
After modern-day excavations on the mountain-top have been completed by archaeologists in mordern-day Israel, most scholars and historians agree that Josephus’s account of Masada was, at the very least, embellished.
Holland explains:
“Whatever might have happened at Masada, however, the gist of the governor’s dispatches provided Josephus with the perfect opportunity to fashion a narrative of stirring drama. And so that, in the climactic section of his great history of the Judaean revolt, was precisely what he did.” (PAX, page 292)
Yes, it was an opportunity to at least highlight something about the Judaeans/Israelites that would have been considered—however lunatic and hopeless by Rome and by Josephus himself—still yet heroic:
“A course of action that had proven ruinous, lunatic, suicidal indeed; and yet which Josephus, despite his contempt for it, could not help but endow with a certain patina of glory. The ambivalence was one that others, too, might have recognised in themselves…deep within the hearts of those who…scorned defiance of Rome as the policy of madmen, there lay a shadow of awareness that the sanest policy was not always the most heroic one.” (PAX, page 293)
Yes, however brutal and misguided these Jewish warlods might have been—and however much those like Josephus had pleaded with the zealouts and the rebels to not resist Rome—it could not be denied that there was at least something remarkable about the heroic battle that occured in Jerusalem, and so, whether or not the same heroic battle occured on the top of Masada, it would be used by the historian Josephus as proof to Rome that the Judaeans were indeed a noble people:
“…he was resolved to explain to his Roman audience that the Judaeans, far from ranking as a contempible, were, in their piety, and their courage, and their martial prowess, a people not dissimilar to the Romans themselves. A people who fully merited respect.” (PAX, page 291)
And this indeed, despite the folly of discarding the warnings of Jesus of Nazareth about how resistance to Rome would mean losing the Temple itself, did, in a sense, help the Romans to respect the Israelites even more as a warrior people. Yes, despite the unmitigated disaster of all these things that had been clearly warned about ahead of time, there were still some silver linings through it all.
And even to this very day, the modern State of Israel has marked this mountain as an important tourist spot that highlights the warrior spirit of ancient Israel, with the effect of bolstering a sense of pride amongst modern Israelis:
“Masada…has become an emblem for Israelis of the courage and resolve that they, too, as a people surrounded by enemies, feel summoned to show.” (PAX, page 12)
Yes, although historically quite disasturous, this whole conflagration had a silver lining for modern Jewish people themselves (whether identifying with the modern State of Israel or not): These villainous Sicarii rebels, whatever their other many shortcomings, at least, as had been shown in Jerusalem also, helped once again prove Israel to be a warrior nation; and thus, ironically, helped bolster Rome’s respect for this ancient people as an enemy.
As Shaye Cohen once explained:
“One does not have to be a Jew, a Zionist, or a citizen of the state of Israel to be swept away by the rhetoric which Josephus derived from the classical tradition: ‘Live free or die!’ The Masada myth does not begin in the twentieth century.” (Masada: “Literary Tradition, Archaeological Remains, and the Credibility of Josephus”, Journal of Jewish Studies, Essays in Honour of Yigael Yadin, VOL XXXIII, page 405, Spring-Autumn 1982)