Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

and ignored by the crowd, Agrippa and Bernice hadno choice but to flee the city. Still, up to this point, war with Rome could have
     been avoided if it had not been for the actions of a young man named Eleazar, who,
     as the Temple captain, was the priestly official with powers to police disturbances
     in the Temple vicinity. Backed by a group of lower-class priests, Eleazar seized control
     of the Temple and put an end to the daily sacrifices on behalf of the emperor. The
     signal sent to Rome was clear: Jerusalem had declared its independence. In a short
     time, the rest of Judea and Galilee, Idumea and Peraea, Samaria and all the villages
     scattered across the Dead Sea valley would follow.
    Menahem and the Sicarii rallied to the Temple captain’s side. Together, they expelled
     all the non-Jews from Jerusalem, just as the scriptures demanded. They tracked down
     and killed the high priest, who had gone into hiding as soon as the fighting began.
     Then, in an act of profound symbolism, they set fire to the public archives. The ledgers
     of the debt collectors and moneylenders, the property deeds and public records—all
     of it went up in flames. There would be no more record of who was rich and who was
     poor. Everyone in this new and divinely inspired world order would begin anew.
    With the lower city under their control, the rebels began fortifying themselves for
     the inevitable Roman assault. Yet rather than sending a massive army to retake Jerusalem,
     Rome inexplicably dispatched a small force to the city, which the rebels easily repelled
     before turning their attention to the upper city, where the few remaining soldiers
     left in Jerusalem were holed up in a Roman garrison. The Roman soldiers agreed to
     surrender in exchange for safe passage out of the city. But when they laid down their
     arms and came out of their stronghold, the rebels turned on them, slaughtering every
     last soldier, removing utterly the scourge of Roman occupation from the city of God.
    After that, there was no turning back. The Jews had just declared war on the greatest
     empire the world had ever known.

Chapter Six
Year One
    In the end, it came down to just a thousand men, women, and children—the last of the
     rebels to survive the Roman onslaught. The year was 73 C.E . Fitting that what had begun with the Sicarii should end with the Sicarii. The city
     of Jerusalem had already been burned to the ground, its walls toppled, its population
     slaughtered. The whole of Palestine was once more under Roman control. All that remained
     of the rebellion were these last few Sicarii who had fled Jerusalem with their wives
     and children to hole themselves up inside the fortress of Masada, on the western shore
     of the Dead Sea. Now here they were, stuck on top of an isolated rock cliff in the
     middle of a barren desert, watching helplessly as a phalanx of Roman soldiers gradually
     made its way up the face of the cliff—shields up, swords drawn—ready to put a definitive
     end to the rebellion that had begun seven years earlier.
    The Sicarii originally came to Masada in the first few days after the launch of the
     war with Rome. As a naturally fortified and virtually impregnable fortress situated
     more than a thousand feet above the Dead Sea, Masada had long served as a refuge for
     the Jews. David came here to hide from King Saul when he sent his men to hunt down
     the shepherd boy who would one day take thecrown from him. The Maccabees used Masada as a military base during their revolt against
     the Seleucid Dynasty. A century later, Herod the Great transformed Masada into a veritable
     fortress city, flattening the boat-shaped summit and enclosing it with a massive wall
     made of white Jerusalem stone. Herod added storerooms and grain houses, rainwater
     cisterns, even a swimming pool. He also placed in Masada a huge cache of weapons sufficient,
     it was said, to arm a thousand men. For himself and his family, Herod constructed
     a monumental three-tiered palace that hung from the northern prow of the cliff face,
     just below the lip of the summit, complete with baths, glittering colonnades, multihued
     mosaics, and a dazzling 180-degree view of the briny-white Dead Sea valley.
    After Herod’s death, the fortress and palaces at Masada, and the cache of weapons
     stored therein, fell into Roman hands. When the Jewish rebellion began in 66 C.E ., the Sicarii, under the leadership of Menahem, seized Masada from Roman control
     and