A panoramic view of what's left of the fortress on Masada. Masada means fortress in Hebrew. The fortress was built during the 1st century BC by King Herod. After his death, a Roman garrison occupied the fortress until 66 AD. Jewish Zealots captured the fortress during the first Jewish Revolt. In 70 AD the Roman general Flavius Silvas laid seige to the mountaintop fortress with 10,000 soldiers of the Roman Tenth Legion. The Romans built eight base camps for their army in addition to a siege wall that surrounded the mountain to prevent escape. They then built a large assault ramp on the western face to attack the Zealots using seige towers, a battering ram and a type of catapult called a ballistae. The siege lasted until 73 AD when the leades of the Zealots decided that since they could not escape, then they would commit suicide. Ten men were selected by lots to kill the others and then one of the ten would in turn kill the other nine. Once this was done, he set fire to all the buildings except for the food stores, to show the Romans they did not starve. He then turned his sword upon himself. Almost 1,000 people died rather than become Roman prisoners.
