Masada (məsāˈdə) [key], ancient mountaintop fortress in Israel,
the final outpost of the Zealot Jews in their rebellion against
Roman authority (A.D. 66–73). Located in the Judaean Desert, the
fortress sits atop a mesa-shaped rock that towers some 1,300 ft
(400 m) above the western shore of the Dead Sea. According to
the ancient historian Josephus, Masada was first fortified
sometime during the 1st or 2d cent. B.C. Between 37 and 31 B.C.
Herod the Great, king of Judaea, further strengthened Masada,
building two ornate palaces, a bathhouse, aqueducts, and
surrounding siege walls. In A.D. 66, with the outbreak of the
Jewish war against Rome, the Zealots, an extremist Jewish sect,
seized the fortress in a surprise attack and massacred its Roman
garrison. Masada remained under Zealot control until A.D. 73,
when, after a siege, the 15,000 soldiers of Rome's tenth legion
finally subdued the 1,000 men, women, and children holding the
fortress. In a final act of defiance, however, almost all of the
Jewish defenders h