Masada: The Untold Story

About this event

Masada is a steep, diamond-shaped plateau that rises high above the Judean Desert beside the Dead Sea. In the year 74, Masada was the site of the last stand of Jewish rebels against Rome. They famously chose mass death rather than surrendering to the hated Romans. At least that is how the single historical source, the Jewish rebel-turned-Roman-collaborator Josephus, tells the story. But what really happened? Historian Barry Strauss highlights how decades of research by archaeologists and historians, including exciting recent work, has unraveled the mystery. Scholars can now reconstruct the lives of the two commanders who couldn't have been more different: the Roman Flavius Silva and the Jewish Eleazar, son of Yair. Their stories, as well as those of the thousands of men and women who took part in the drama, are worth retelling, says Strauss, as today's historians come closer to knowing what happened on that fateful plateau. General Information View Common FAQs and Policies about our Online Programs on Zoom .