The Siege Of Masada And The Judaean Desert

Siege of Masada

Masada is located atop of an western isolated rock cliff at the end of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea. The Judaean Desert is in Isreal and the West Bank which is east of Jerusalem and descends to the Dead Sea. It is so large that is stretches from the northeastern Negev to the east of Beit El. The Judaean Desert is being crossed by numerous wadis, a valley, ravine, or channel that is dry except in the rainy season, from northeast to southeast. The lowest place in the world is the Dead Sea, which is roughly 1,300 feet below sea level. The Dead Sea is actually shrinking.

The First Jewish-Roman War is sometimes referred to The Great Revolt. It was the first of three major rebellions against the Roman Empire. The Great Revolt began in the year 66 CE, originally coming from Roman and Jewish ethnic tensions. Gessius Florus, the Roman Governor, responded by plundering the Jewish Temple, taking the money for the emperor, and the next day launch a raid on the city.

The Siege of Masada occurred from 73 to 74 CE on a large hilltop in the current-day Isreal. Flavius Josephus, a Jewish rebel leader captured by the Romans, chronicles the siege. Sicarii rebels had a mass suicide because of the Roman Empire troops and resident Jewish families of the Masada fortress. Masada had became a controversial event in Jewish history. Masada, the name evokes the image of a cliff rising dramatically above an austere desert landscape. There was a final stand between the Jewish rebels and the relentless Roman army at the end of the First Jewish Revolt in 73/74