Masada

Masada: A large mountain fortress near the Dead Sea that was built by King Herodon top of a large plateau. To escape persecution from the Romans, 960 jews encamped on this mountaintop named "Masada". In about 72 A.D. the Roman army laid siege to these Jewish people in Masada. The Roman legion surrounded the fortress and built a circumvallation wall, before commencing construction of a siege ramp against the western face of the plateau, moving thousands of tons of stones and beaten earth to do so.

The ramp was completed in the spring of 73, after probably two to three months of siege. A giant tower with a battering ram was constructed and moved laboriously up the completed ramp, while the Romans assaulted the wall, discharging "a volley of blazing torches against … a wall of timber" allowing the Romans to finally breach the wall of the fortress on April 16, 73 A.D. When the Romans entered the fortress, however, they found it to be "a worthless piece of rock in the middle of the desert on the edge of a poisoned sea". " A Citadel of Death". The Jewish rebels had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and had killed each other, declaring "a glorious death .. preferable to a life of slavery"