Eleazar ben Yair

Biography

Eleazar ben Yair was the commander of the Sicarii — the most radical of the rebel factions, named for the small daggers (sicae) they used in political assassinations — who seized the desert fortress of Masada early in the revolt. After Jerusalem fell, Masada held out for years as the last redoubt of the rebellion, a self-sufficient eyrie stocked with Herod's old storehouses and cisterns high above the Dead Sea. When the Tenth Legion's siege ramp finally reached the wall in 73–74 AD, Eleazar — according to Josephus's celebrated account — delivered two impassioned speeches persuading the 960 defenders that death as free men was preferable to slavery and outrage at Roman hands. The men killed their families and then themselves, casting lots so that the last would die by his own hand. The Romans entered to find the fortress silent and the defenders dead. The story, dependent entirely on Josephus and two women survivors he claims hid in a cistern, is debated by archaeologists, but it made Eleazar and Masada an enduring emblem of choosing death over subjugation.

Key Battles