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00:00Archers!
00:04An epic siege.
00:07An invincible army.
00:09I will wipe the Mount of Judea once and for all.
00:12A final stand.
00:14There will be no retreat for Masada.
00:16The Siege of Masada is the Alamo of the ancient world.
00:21900 people committed suicide here at Masada.
00:24It's a story of courageous martyrdom.
00:27And if the people here were willing to take their own lives
00:30in defense of their traditions and their identity.
00:33You have 10,000 Roman soldiers around you
00:37and they want to kill you and they will if they can.
00:40I can hardly think of any part of the human drama
00:43that's not represented here.
00:46But is it all just a legend?
00:48Or did nearly 1,000 men, women and children
00:51really commit suicide rather than be made the slaves of Rome?
00:57It's a 2,000 year old drama.
00:59And it's as compelling today as it has ever been.
01:03Freedom or death!
01:04Freedom or death!
01:06Freedom or death!
01:08Freedom or death!
01:09Freedom or death!
01:10Freedom or death!
01:24Freedom or death!
01:25Great!
01:26First told at the dawn of Christianity and at a moment of crisis for the Jews,
01:31the story of Masada has long fired the imagination of believers and non-believers alike.
01:40Yet for most of recorded history, it's been little more than a legend.
01:46Then, in the middle of the 20th century, everything changes.
01:52An overwhelming body of archaeological evidence is uncovered.
01:56A ruined mountain fortress, a siege ramp threatening its walls, a network of fortified
02:02Roman camps.
02:04Taken together, they pinpoint Masada on the map.
02:08This is the indisputable site of an epic contest between the Roman army and a besieged
02:14community of Jews.
02:25From the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, Masada is an icon for the nation.
02:32Masada is a symbol for Israelis, so they can connect to moments in history.
02:37This becomes the Alamo, you know, remember that Masada, Masada shall never fall again.
02:43But it also becomes a very human tale about conflict and freedom and determination and resolution
02:52and possibility and disappointment.
02:57An almost mythic site, it serves as a mirror to history.
03:03A place that beckons artists and ideologues as much as archaeologists and generals.
03:20Today, a new generation of storytellers has been drawn to the epic of Masada.
03:26This time though, the action is unfolding on a movie lot in Malta in the Mediterranean.
03:32Set, three, two, one, action!
03:40And go!
03:41This is the set of The Dove Keepers.
03:45It's a CBS limited event series based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Alice
03:50Hoffman.
03:51For the series producers, doing this story justice is about more than drama and ratings.
03:57It's about providing a legacy for generations to come.
04:07It's important to be authentic, you know, because you're creating a piece of art which
04:12lasts for decades and probably will be looked at not only on television but in schools.
04:19This will probably become the foremost piece of work on Masada.
04:24We have the best gathered here to create all this elements to bring this world alive.
04:34We went to visit Israel and to go to the real Masada to actually get a sense of it and
04:40get
04:41a feel of it and get an idea of what you then have to try to achieve and making it
04:45work with
04:45the script and the words that you're given.
04:52Sam Neill plays one of the male leads at the core of The Dove Keepers' story, Flavius Josephus.
04:59But there's nothing fictional about his character.
05:03A renowned historian, Josephus' writings encompass the entire history of the Jews.
05:11I did reference Josephus quite a bit and have referenced records or stories about him and
05:17why he would have dressed the way he dresses.
05:20Though born to a Jewish mother who claims royal ancestry and a Jewish father of priestly descent,
05:27Josephus is as at home in Rome as he is in Jerusalem.
05:34In fact, by his own admission, Josephus is a Roman collaborator and his opinions of his fellow Jews can be
05:41withering.
05:43Yet, he will also write the Jewish War, his history of the Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire,
05:50that culminates with the Siege of Masada.
05:54Outside of the New Testament and the Bible, it is the principal literary source for everything we know about the
06:00Holy Land during the first century of Christianity.
06:04You travel Israel with two books in your hand and one is the Bible, of course, and the other is
06:12Josephus, the Jewish War.
06:16Now, the book is absolutely invaluable.
06:22It's thanks to Josephus that one of the indelible dramas of the ancient world can still be recounted today.
06:29And three, two, one, action!
06:39Stay away from the walls. Do not let them count our numbers. Let them think we have thousands of warriors.
06:50Two thousand years ago, Rome dominates the world.
06:55The authority of its emperor Nero extends from northwestern Europe to Judea and the borders of modern-day Iraq.
07:03Its strategic significance, at the intersection of multiple trade routes, outweighs its distance from the seat of power.
07:12Judea was enormously wealthy and enormously important to the Romans.
07:18There we are, the corridor between Asia and Europe and Africa and Arabia, and you've got to go through us.
07:36It's that same wealth that transforms Masada from a natural redoubt into a fortress.
07:44Already an ancient settlement, its heyday arrives in the reign of King Herod the Great.
07:50The fortifications and palaces he builds at Masada are among the most ambitious in the ancient world, and the most
07:59astounding.
08:00Its eastern side is rimmed by a sheer drop to the Dead Sea Valley 1,300 feet below.
08:08Its western edge towers hundreds of feet above the surrounding terrain.
08:14And yet, in Josephus' account, access to its summit is limited to a narrow, zigzagging pathway called the snake.
08:23Remarkably, it's still visible and in use today.
08:28There's a great debate among the scholars as to whether Josephus' account of Masada is reliable or not.
08:36But if you come out here with the book open and walk around, it's very easy to see all the
08:42things that he talks about.
08:43For example, the snake path, he mentions that. He says that's the only access as it winds up, and there
08:48it is, after 2,000 years.
08:53The evidence uncovered by generations of Israeli archaeologists, beginning with the excavations of Yigael Yadin in the 1960s,
09:02strongly supports the broad outlines of Josephus' account, with one significant exception.
09:11Well, according to Josephus, 900 people committed suicide here at Masada.
09:17The only three bodies that were found in the initial excavations were found here,
09:22right under where I'm standing, in the lower level of Herod's enormous and beautiful northern palace.
09:29We don't really know how these bodies got here, or what happened to them.
09:32They were the bodies of a young man, a girl in her late teens, and a child.
09:38Despite more than 50 years of archaeological excavations,
09:42only three sets of human remains have ever been recovered from inside Masada's walls.
09:48The silence of the other victims only adds to the power of Josephus' account.
09:55We should care about Masada, because it's one of the most important battles in Western civilization.
10:01It might seem like this is just a battle about 900 people versus the Romans,
10:06but it's actually a story that becomes particularly important for Jewish courage and identity.
10:14In order to understand the mystery and majesty of Masada, we must first travel north,
10:20two days' march to Jerusalem, where Josephus' story begins.
10:28Action!
10:29It is the year 66, and the Roman province of Judea and its capital city are about to go up
10:36in flames.
10:43Jerusalem, the epicenter of the Jewish world.
10:48The place where, according to religious Jews, Abraham sought to sacrifice Isaac until God stayed his hand.
10:57But even as Jews of different creeds stand before their God,
11:02it's a place of underlying tensions.
11:08Today, they're between Jews and Arabs.
11:122,000 years ago, they were between Jerusalem and Rome.
11:22First-century Palestine was just a hotbed of simmering political tension
11:27and religious fervor and hope.
11:29The Jews were oppressed.
11:31They had been oppressed by a succession of empires.
11:34They were very hungry.
11:35They had been taxed very harshly.
11:38And they were hoping that they were going to have a Messiah that was going to lead them to freedom.
11:42But according to the historian Josephus, and the archaeological evidence,
11:47the Jews harbored just as much resentment for each other as they do for Rome.
11:52Well, what we're looking at here are the remains of a series of urban villas, mansions, from the first century
12:00AD.
12:01And it's clear that these mansions belonged to Jerusalem's wealthiest residents, to the Jerusalem elite.
12:07And what you see in Josephus' descriptions of, you know, the first century is a description of a society that
12:14is really riven by these socioeconomic and religious divisions into various factions and groups.
12:20And so it's kind of a situation where everything is beginning to bubble over.
12:26Built on the site of Solomon's Temple, different sects of Jews are fighting each other for this.
12:34The second temple.
12:36It's a bitter, bloody contest.
12:39So it's almost a battle of messiahs, I would call it.
12:42Because each of them has a leader.
12:44And these are not just military leaders.
12:47They're in each case someone who thinks that they should be the one to lead the nation.
12:55The fiercest of the factions is a group Josephus calls the Sicarii.
12:59They play a major role in the CBS miniseries, The Dovekeepers.
13:04And they're as willing to take up arms against Roman soldiers as they are against their fellow Jews.
13:10And the name Sicarii comes from the shape of the curved knife that they were supposed to have used in
13:16warfare.
13:17Josephus basically calls them terrorists and murderers.
13:21They're slitting people's throats.
13:24They're the dagger people.
13:26But they would probably say, look, we're under Roman oppression.
13:30And when you're oppressed and you fight against that oppression, you have every right to use violence and to do
13:39whatever you can.
13:58It's only a wall.
13:59According to Josephus, this man, Eleazar Ben Yair, will ultimately rally the Sicarii against the all-powerful Roman Empire.
14:10Played by Mito Hamada and the Dovekeepers, it's Ben Yair who will convince his followers to lay down their own
14:16lives rather than surrender.
14:21There will be no retreat from Masada.
14:23But in the year 66, such events are far in the future.
14:31Far more pressing is Rome's failure to quell a mounting insurgency in Judea.
14:37There was a riot, a simple, simple riot, between Jews and pagans.
14:47The riot got out of control.
14:49This just ignited tensions and hostility in Jerusalem.
14:54This group of radicals, the Zealots, started cleansing Jerusalem of any kind of Roman emblems and architecture.
15:03They attacked Roman citizens and they drove out of Jerusalem those that they saw as collaborating with the Romans.
15:10Now, once there's a fight between the Roman legions and the Jews of Judea, then it's not a riot anymore.
15:20Then it's revolution.
15:25There's no turning back.
15:27I mean, you've basically hit Rome in the chin and there's gonna be a reaction.
15:34And in the year 67, Rome does react with overwhelming force.
15:40When word reaches the Emperor Nero, then in Greece, he dispatches General Vespasian to Syria.
15:47His son, Titus, sails to Alexandria in Egypt, musters the 5th and 10th legions,
15:53and then brings them alongside his father's forces in Syria.
15:57Their goal, the total subjugation of the Jewish state.
16:01Vespasian arrives in 67, and he's quickly joined by his son, Titus, who had been in Alexandria in Egypt.
16:09They bring with them the 10th legion and a number of other important Roman armies.
16:14They have about 60,000 troops.
16:17Vespasian and his legions ran through Judea like a steamroller gone berserk.
16:23And by the end of the first year, he had already captured most of the Galilee.
16:29Vespasian's armies lay waste to Judea. Only then does his attention turn to Jerusalem.
16:35Vespasian is actually called away to become emperor.
16:38And Titus is left to sort of marshal forces.
16:42Finally, in a three-pronged attack, Titus' forces bear down on Jerusalem.
16:47He'd been avoiding it because it's this huge, defended stronghold.
16:51And they knew there was going to be a very long siege there.
16:58Archaeologist Shimon Gibson has dug at the very site where Titus' forces laid siege to the city.
17:05What you see behind me are the medieval city walls of Jerusalem, built by Suleiman and Magnificent in the mid
17:11-16th century.
17:11But the original walls that stood here at the time of Titus were very impressive.
17:17Twice as high, very, very thick, massive towers and bastions on all sides.
17:26This is the weak and vulnerable place in the fortification system.
17:31You have this gate.
17:32And it's through here, probably with battering rams.
17:35They remove the gate and they break through.
17:38And you've got this wave of soldiers entering and climbing up these steps and then entering into the upper city.
17:44And finally, they're able to conquer the city.
17:49But Titus' objective isn't merely the surrender of Jerusalem.
17:55Luke!
17:56His goal is its utter destruction.
18:03Anyone who tried to escape was crucified.
18:06Perhaps as many as 500 were dying a day.
18:10Thousands of Jews perish.
18:12Some trying to hide in the sewers are slaughtered underground.
18:16The temple is in flames.
18:18The Romans have destroyed the city.
18:212,000 Jews came fleeing down here, hoping to escape.
18:26Don't look back!
18:27They thought they could get through the sewer, but they couldn't in the end.
18:32And they died in here.
18:34And the destruction of Jerusalem came to a horrible end.
18:39For many Jews, it's as if the end of days has come.
18:48Still, one last bastion of Jewish resistance remains.
18:55Its name is Masada.
19:06In the year 70, the worst fears of the Jewish people are realized.
19:12Jerusalem has fallen.
19:15Their temple has been destroyed.
19:19Writing just a few years later, the historian Josephus tells us his people had fallen under the spell of apocalyptic
19:26prophecy.
19:31But the Jewish Messiah didn't come.
19:35This seemed like the end of the world.
19:38The temple's destroyed.
19:39The last holdouts have been destroyed.
19:42All that is, except Masada.
19:46Once a luxury fortress for King Herod.
19:49Then a Roman garrison.
19:50Now it's in the hands of one of the most notorious rebel groups in recorded history.
19:58Long before Titus had laid siege to Jerusalem, a particularly virulent group of Zealots, known as the Saqqari, who had
20:06been warring with other Zealot groups in Jerusalem, had fled to Masada.
20:11This is just such a prize, as they looked up and realized that from this spot we will have weapons,
20:19we'll have food, we'll be safe.
20:23When the Zealots came here, they used some kind of a ruse to get in.
20:27Perhaps they pretended to be Roman sympathizers or something.
20:30They take over Masada, they find an amazing situation there.
20:35They have this wonderful mountain fortress with stall rooms full, to the ceilings almost, with all sorts of foodstuffs, an
20:46armory, which make it an ideal place for a group of military extremists.
20:56And Masada is more than just a well-stocked desert mountain hideaway.
21:02King Herod also endowed his refuge with the greatest resource of all, water.
21:09You know, when you come down in this massive cistern that was built by Herod the Great to store water,
21:16and this is the most monumental on Masada, naturally you think of water of survival in the desert.
21:23So it's ingenious, it's beautiful, it's impressive.
21:29One of more than a dozen discovered at Masada, this cistern alone can hold over a million gallons of water.
21:37That's enough to meet the needs of a modern American family for 10 years.
21:43Equally impressive is the ingenious system of dams and water channels that kept the cisterns full.
21:49All this, plus a fortified wall encircling the plateau, dozens of storehouses, barracks, palaces, and an armory, was now in
21:59the hands of the Sikari.
22:02And yet, according to Josephus, one of the first targets of these Jewish rebels would be a desert oasis called
22:09En Gedi.
22:12In a community of their fellow Jews, just 10 miles from Masada.
22:17Two thousand years ago, En Gedi was known for its production of balsam, which was used in the perfume industry.
22:23It may seem just like a small, idyllic coastal town, but it was wealthy, and as a result, that made
22:29it a target.
22:32A raiding party left Masada and swept down here to En Gedi, where they slaughtered more than 700 people.
22:43Where some see senseless slaughter, others see strategy.
22:49I do not sympathize with the motivation, but I can understand the motivation of the Sikari as a dominant group.
22:56We know from Pliny the Elder that five years following the destruction of Judea, Rome enjoyed the income of hundreds
23:03of millions of dollars from En Gedi.
23:06By destroying En Gedi, they will harm Rome.
23:13But Rome is over 1400 miles away, and preoccupied with its own internal politics.
23:19Once Jerusalem is destroyed, the great temple of Herod is burnt to the ground.
23:26The Roman emperor Vespasian and his son Titus have their triumph toward the winter of 70.
23:32There's a kind of a breather, I think.
23:36And it's not only Rome that takes a breather.
23:40As the Jewish occupation of Masada endures, its own extremism is tempered by the realities of everyday life.
23:50We think of Masada as occupied by robbers and brigands.
23:54We think of it as sort of a manly man's world.
23:56But in actual fact, and this is really surprising to people, there are a lot of women and children here.
24:02And women were an integral part of this community.
24:07Of course they had wives and children.
24:09And you can see that in terms of their archaeological finds from Masada.
24:14There's spindle walls which indicate that they were making cloth and tapestries and weaving carpets and things like that.
24:22And then you have all sorts of other things, combs and things like that, which indicate that this was a
24:27very sort of varied sort of lifestyle that was undertaken by the people living at Masada.
24:35More than a historian, Candida Moss has been a long-time consultant to the producers of the CBS limited event
24:42series, The Dovekeepers.
24:45Its exploration of the role of women at Masada revolves around a singular structure at the site.
24:52It's called a columbarium.
24:55So, we're here at the columbarium, which is just a fancy word for a dovecote.
25:00Women were responsible for tending the birds that were kept here.
25:04And we may not think that this is very important, but these birds were important not just because they were
25:09a source of food in their own right and they produced eggs,
25:11but because bird droppings were one of the principal sources of high nitrogen fertilizer, which they needed to grow all
25:20kinds of things up here.
25:22So, I think we can take dovekeepers as a symbol and a sign of the unseen roles that women played
25:27in the ancient world.
25:28This is like a little city. It's like a little colony that they're able to have in the midst of
25:34this turmoil that's throughout the land.
25:37But there are changes underway.
25:39And this time, thanks to a remarkable archaeological discovery, we can rely on the rebels' own words to fill in
25:47the blanks.
25:48Archaeologists call these pottery fragments ostraca.
25:52They are the simple but functional post-it notes of antiquity.
25:56Masada's communal bakery even used them to ration out loaves of bread.
26:02They're rationing chips for groups of people and they found ten of these and it actually names the leader of
26:10the group and how much bread that group is going to get on a daily and weekly basis.
26:16And one of those group leaders' names? It's Eleazar Ben-Yair, the commander of the Sikari.
26:24You can see today in the museum this beautiful ostraca with explicit name of Ben-Yair, a rare name that
26:31appears only in the accounts of Josephus and in their archaeological record.
26:37So for me, this is amazing. But there were not only Sikari at the site.
26:44Two years have passed since the destruction of Jerusalem. Masada is undergoing a transformation. Now it's home to Jews from
26:53different traditions.
26:54That's why I think we get in the archaeological record this idea of maybe as many as ten diverse groups
27:02that all have different customs about diet and religious ritual and observance.
27:08The Sikari, once the scourge of their fellow Jews, may not be rolling out the welcome mat, but Masada is
27:15no longer an exclusive community.
27:17Some religious texts from Masada are comparable to the famous Dead Sea Scrolls found in the nearby Jewish community of
27:24Qumran.
27:25It's evidence that a Jewish sect, the Essenes, were also living here.
27:30The Essenes had a sort of secluded area for themselves. It was necessary for them to keep on their belief
27:39and practice.
27:43There's also evidence of Samaritans and other Jewish groups coming to Masada, as if for a final stand.
27:52So where did that come from? I think it came from the sinking ship, basically.
27:57Many, many people from all over are thinking, where do we go now?
28:02We go to Masada. And at that point, I think those original rebels, they're willing to let their fellow countrymen
28:11join them.
28:12We're now, let's say, two to three years after the fall of Jerusalem.
28:16Every other fortress and holdout in the country has been subdued by the Romans.
28:21They had their victory parade in Rome. And really, so what did they care if a small band of Jewish
28:26crazies held out on this remote mountain in the middle of the wilderness on the fringes of the Roman world?
28:31What did they care?
28:33In fact, the passage of time does nothing to diminish the threat from Rome.
28:41In the year 73, General Flavius Silva is made governor of Judea.
28:48His mandate, eliminate all Jewish resistance.
28:55Looking out at that huge Roman camp, I don't think I've ever seen anything more chilling.
29:01Imagine coming here to provide food for your family.
29:04Well, just outside the walls, there's this mass of Roman soldiers, thousands of them, armed to the hilt.
29:11And they have one single objective.
29:13That's to annihilate you and your family off the face of the planet.
29:30That's to annihilate you.
29:37In the year 70, the Roman army crushes the Jewish revolt in Jerusalem.
29:44Two years later, a single rebel force remains.
29:52According to the Jewish historian Josephus, it numbers less than a thousand.
29:58Its leader is Eleazar Ben Yair.
30:01Its stronghold, the Fortress of Masada.
30:17Two years after the fall of Jerusalem, the Romans arrive at the bottom of Masada.
30:22In the CBS limited events series, The Dovekeepers, the Roman general Flavius Silva, the newly appointed governor of Judea, is
30:32the face of Rome's military might.
30:36So the Roman troops presumably would have come from the west, which even today is the easiest way to approach
30:43Masada.
30:44Presumably the people on top of the mountain would have begun to see them from a distance because they're elevated
30:49above the rest of the area.
30:59For Roman military historian Jody Magnus, these rocks reveal secrets of the impending siege.
31:07When the Romans arrived at the foot of Masada, they set up a siege, which means they built a wall
31:12completely encircling the base of the mountain to cut it off, what's called a circumvallation wall.
31:18The siege wall is still visible today.
31:21Its contours, just as they were 2,000 years ago.
31:28It's about 4,000 yards long.
31:30Originally it was about 10 to 12 feet high, built of stone, with watchtowers along the way.
31:35And the idea was to seal off the mountain to make sure that nobody inside the mountain could escape, nobody
31:41could get in to help them,
31:43and posted guards along the length of the wall to make sure that nobody was trying to climb over.
31:48And the siege wall the rebels stare down on is only the beginning.
31:54They built eight camps to house their soldiers.
31:57And we're located in one of the two legionary camps, what's called Camp F.
32:04Each camp is strategically located so as to fully encircle the mountain.
32:12There will be no escape from Masada.
32:18What you see around you look like piles of rubble, but these were actually the walls of the camp.
32:24So we have a fortification wall that encircled the camp that was originally 10 to 12 feet high.
32:30And within the area of the fortification wall, we have low stone walls that were originally about 4 feet high,
32:36that were the basis of leather tents.
32:39Because when the Romans conducted a campaign in the field, they pitched tents.
32:43So what we're looking at here is rubble that belongs to the walls of this siege camp.
32:52And in the meantime, the people who are living here are watching this unfold in front of them.
32:56They can see their fate approaching them.
32:59Flavia Silva and his troops could actually see the Jewish rebels on top of the mountain,
33:03and they could even talk to them.
33:05So you have to imagine the Jews and the Romans shouting insults back and forth at each other.
33:12Though the Roman forces likely outnumber the Jews 10 to 1,
33:16the fortress seems impregnable.
33:19There's just one narrow pathway up the mountain.
33:23And his enemies have the advantage of higher ground.
33:27But Flavia Silva is undaunted.
33:30He calls for his engineers to design and build a massive ramp.
33:34Wide enough to support a siege tower and a battering ramp.
33:37If it's to reach the top of the mountain, the ramp will need to be 375 feet tall.
33:45Its remains are still visible today.
33:51When the Romans built the siege ramp at Masada, they did it in a very sophisticated sort of way that
33:57used the principles of structural engineering.
33:59They didn't just pile up masses of dirt and stones, but they built a wooden framework with wooden timbers that
34:06were laid horizontally and then wooden timbers that were stuck in vertically to create giant boxes.
34:12And these boxes were then filled up with stones.
34:152,000 years later, we can still see pieces of the original wood framework sticking out of the sides of
34:21the ramp.
34:25It takes a huge amount of manpower to build the siege works.
34:30Unskilled labor as well as skilled.
34:35One of the myths that you hear repeated often about Masada is that it was Jewish slaves who built the
34:41siege works in the ramp.
34:42And that is actually not true.
34:44Josephus does say, and I'm sure that this is correct, that Jewish slaves worked as sort of those who were
34:50carrying stuff.
34:51So they were kind of the schleppers, if you want.
34:53But the people who actually built the siege works were the Roman soldiers because they knew how to build the
34:59siege works.
34:59They knew what needed to be done.
35:01So this was their job.
35:02This is what you were trained to do.
35:05Eleazar and his followers can only watch and wait.
35:10There's no real resistance.
35:12The Jews can only stand on top of the mountain and look down and see what the Romans are doing.
35:18For the Romans, speed is of the essence.
35:21So the Romans obviously would have wanted to have kept the siege as short as possible.
35:26They had to bring water, supplies, food in for their soldiers, for all of the servants and slaves,
35:32for the pack animals every day.
35:35And they had supply lines going for miles and miles in every direction.
35:45Estimates for the siege works' build time vary wildly.
35:49So if we want to take a range of estimates, it would have been, let's say, somewhere from a minimum
35:53of seven weeks
35:54up to maybe a maximum of a half a year, six months.
35:57I personally think that the lower end, that is the more minimal end, is more correct.
36:03Seven weeks or six months.
36:05It takes the ceaseless energy of thousands to fulfill General Silva's audacious plan.
36:11Only then can the fighting begin.
36:14Destroy it!
36:15Well, Josephus actually says that they used catapults and ballistas.
36:18These sorts of things would have been used at about the time that the ramp was being completed.
36:25And the battering ramp was being set up on top of the ramp.
36:35So the Romans, while they're getting these last pieces of the siege machinery into place,
36:40would have had to have provided cover fire for their men to keep the heads of the Jews down
36:44so that they can get their siege machinery up and into place.
36:51For Flavius Silva, the conquested Masada is at hand.
36:57So according to Josephus, the Romans batter through Herod's fortification wall.
37:13There was a fire that was burning and the wind shifted and so forth.
37:21Eleazar and the rebels seem out of options.
37:24They're going to reach the wall!
37:28But there is one left that no one has foreseen.
37:34Gather the people!
37:38For some reason the Romans retreated.
37:40It's unclear whether or not we can believe Josephus on this.
37:44But Josephus tells us that Eleazar, the leader of the group here,
37:48gathered everyone together and made an impassioned speech
37:51in which he told them that the end was near.
37:58Our enemy is upon us!
38:00And we can hold him back no longer!
38:02And they made the decision, rather than surrender the Romans
38:08and the women being raped and sent away as slaves
38:12and the men being crucified and the children sold away into the copper mines,
38:18wouldn't it be more noble to choose death?
38:21Let us go out of this world with the wives and children free!
38:27And that rather than allowing things to be drawn out and to be slaughtered by the Romans,
38:31they should instead commit suicide, leaving the food supplies untouched
38:36so the Romans would know that it wasn't that they starved to death.
38:40According to Josephus, they then drew lots.
38:43Some people were reluctant to kill their wives and children.
38:47And ten men were chosen to kill the other men.
38:51And a final man killed the rest.
38:55And each family will lie down together.
38:59It even says they hugged each other and kissed each other.
39:03And these ten went around with swords and stabbed them through.
39:09For the founders of the modern Israeli state,
39:12this was a canonical event.
39:16Masada became the symbol of national unity.
39:20Today, its mythic power is unquestionable.
39:24But haunting questions linger.
39:27Where are the undiscovered remains of those other hundreds of men, women, and children who died?
39:35It's a search that's far from over.
39:42Quiet, please!
39:46The Siege of Masada, the story of a band of rebels and a final stand against the might of Rome.
39:53Freedom or death! Freedom or death!
39:58The words of the Jewish historian Josephus, written 2,000 years ago,
40:03represent the only contemporary account.
40:06It's an epic tale repeated down the centuries,
40:10and now retold in a major CBS television series.
40:18as the story reaches its climax the Roman army batters down the walls of a fortress built by
40:24Herod the Great this is the point when Josephus says it's getting dark the Romans plan then is
40:34to you know make the final entry into the mountain in the morning when it becomes light
40:41according to Josephus the next day dawns to an eerie silence not the sounds of war when the Roman
40:49general Flavia Silva enters the fortress he finds a handful of survivors and the remaining 960 rebels
40:56dead victims of mass murder and suicide there are two sources of information for for what happened
41:05here at Masada one is Josephus's account and then we have the archaeology and they're not necessarily
41:12incompatible with each other but the problem is is that archaeology and literary sources provide
41:17different kinds of information so it's a matter of how do you reconcile those two things do they
41:22contradict each other do they complement each other what do they tell us also like the victims
41:28Josephus is himself a Jew did this story move him did he thus embellish his account
41:35is he reliable well we're worried about his numbers he likes to exaggerate all the numbers
41:42that he gives you know 10,000 this and this battle is 20,000 and this was 30,000 here
41:48he says 960 so it
41:51makes you wonder whether he had more of a count here and then he talks about the survivors five children
41:59and two women came up out of a cistern maybe this cistern and he actually gives the numbers
42:07much of Josephus's account is backed up by physical evidence the Roman camps the siege ramp the artifact
42:17bearing the name of Ben Yair but other elements run counter to the siege tactics typically deployed by Rome
42:26the problem with Josephus's story is it doesn't really make a lot of sense for example he says
42:31that the Romans retreated after they had breached the walls why would they do that when they could just
42:36push forward and conquer then and there it seems very unlikely that the Romans would have behaved like
42:42this then there's the impassioned speech of Eliezer Ben Yair convincing his followers to choose death
42:50over slavery they had this meeting a council of men and the commander according to Josephus gives this
43:00long speech it's very sounds like Plato you know don't weep for me my soul can escape all of this
43:09and
43:09the body will be left and so forth it makes for a powerful story but there do seem to be
43:14holes in
43:15the account the problem is we don't really have the bodies to back up a mass suicide pact nor do
43:22we
43:22have any kind of corroborating evidence about sort of everyone being in one place it doesn't seem like
43:28they would fit in one place and it doesn't seem like there would have been time for a very organized
43:33speech a gathering of everyone together and a very sort of comprehensive suicide pact the most
43:40compelling aspect of the story is also the one that's hardest to believe for devout Jews of all
43:46traditions suicide is considered a crime against God in Judaism suicide is not regarded as a viable
43:53option if these are God-fearing people as we understand from the evidence from the synagogue with the
44:01scrolls and so forth yes taking into account that they're not just the sicarii but zealots and
44:07other refugees all grouped together in Masada there would have been a discussion there and I'm sure some
44:13of them would have disagreed with the notion of a suicide pact
44:20what probably happened is that some people did commit suicide if no one committed suicide then the Roman leader
44:28Flavius would have noticed that when he read Josephus a story in Rome so it seems likely that some fires
44:35were started some people committed suicide and everyone else was just slaughtered by the Romans
44:44whether by their own hand or by Roman swords 960 people cannot die without a trace yet despite years of
44:53the initial excavations at Masada by the renowned Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin few human remains have
45:00ever been recovered in the initial excavations Yadin found here in the lower part of Herod's Palace three
45:10skeletons of a young man a girl in her late teens and a child we don't really know what happened
45:16to
45:16them they died in and were discovered in the rubble of the palace
45:21Yadin believed these remains corroborated Josephus's account but such claims are met with skepticism today
45:28the remains of three skeletons were found
45:33Yadin interpreted it as an evidence for the accuracy of Josephus we now know that we should be cautious about
45:43that
45:45we know that they died here but we don't really know how did they commit suicide were they murdered
45:50by the Romans did the palace just collapse on them and they were trapped but Yadin did discover one other
45:57cache of human remains and tellingly they weren't found inside the garrison's walls
46:08today James Tabor is preparing to rappel off the southern rim of Masada it's a vertical drop of 1300 feet
46:16to the valley below
46:18his goal to locate the cave where those other bodies were found it clings to the very edge of the
46:26fortress
46:34it's a hideout that's just outside Masada's walls as many as 24 people may have huddled in this cave
46:43praying to escape detection by the Roman soldiers this is very emotional to me to try to imagine in April
46:54of 73
46:56the year 73 there were 24 people living in this cave there were cooking utensils foodstuffs mats they can see
47:07the Roman camp
47:09and they were found by the excavators there were two piles of bones one was right here in front of
47:17me the other
47:17was just at the other end of the cave it turns out there were 14 males eight females and the
47:24females
47:24were from like 14 to 16 years old and one of them was pregnant actually they found the fetus and
47:31four
47:32children so 24 individuals were living here the discovery of these remains far from where the
47:39Romans entered the fortress suggests these victims were not part of any murder-suicide pact my guess
47:47would be that the Romans checked all the caves so you picture these people hovering here maybe
47:54they put up a fight weapons weren't found though and essentially they were hacked to death right here
48:07but there are no questions we can pose to the bones
48:11in Israel the rabbinical authorities require that any jewish remains found during archaeological excavations
48:18are immediately reburied but there are those including the site's chief archaeologist who believe
48:26the rest of the bodies may one day be found the fact that the Roman army stayed on top of
48:32the mountain
48:33for three or two to three months thereafter just from normal behavior for human being being surrounded by 960
48:43corps you would like to get rid of them whether you respect them or not there are two options one
48:50mass grave
48:52but I think another possibility should be take into consideration is the fact that the Roman
48:59use cremation and I think that within the next few years that we'll be able to find the remains
49:07they should be somewhere out there a last intimate testament does remain displayed at the Masada museum
49:17it's a lock of human hair from one of the three victims found inside Masada this hair which is not
49:25really considered part of the body and yet it is in such a personal way representing a human being
49:33who did die here and it's just to contemplate it and look at it is really really moving to me
49:40what it
49:41symbolizes really is is the whole story of Masada right here in front of our eyes
49:50when you're on Masada it's really easy to see the emotion of it
50:01I mean you may not like Josephus but he writes brilliantly and that's a heartbreaking story
50:10you can understand what these guys were going through
50:18you can hardly think of a story from the ancient world that has this kind of human touch to it
50:27where you begin to identify and try to imagine what was it like and was that the right choice
50:36that actually raises the question it's a perennial question for human beings uh when do you choose
50:43to live and when do you choose to die
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