"In Masada shall not arguing for life, but for the right to decide our end."
1. Who was Eleazar ben Yair
- Character jew siglo I d.C., active during the Primera Guerra Judeo-Romana (66-73 d.C.).
- Was head of the assassins (Sicarii), the faction most radical of the movement zelota, and commander of the fortress of Masada since the start of the war (66) until its fall (traditionally 73 d.C.).
- It is remembered as the leader who, according to Josephus, he led the defenders to choose the death before slavery when Rome ended the siege.
In historical terms, Eleazar ben Yair is a figure liminal: very influential in the collective memory of jewish modernbut at the same time very elusive in the sourcesbecause virtually all that we know of him comes from a single author: Flavius Josephus.
2. Sources: what we really have on him
2.1. Flavius Josephus and The war of the jews
- The only literary source that describes Eleazar ben Yair and the facts of Masada is The war of the jews (books II and VII) of Flavius Josephus.
- Josephus was a commander jewish captured by the romans who then wrote, under sponsorship roman, the story of the war. This will involve:
- Privileged access to information, the roman military.
- But also political biases- to justify the Empire and, in part, to discredit the groups to more radical jews (among them the assassins).
2.2. Archaeological evidence
The excavations at Masada (Yigael Yadin, 60 years) found:
- Remnants of the fortress herodiana, homes, warehouses, synagogue and mikva'ot.
- Evidence of fire generalized at the end of the siege.
- A set of óstraca (tiles with inscriptions), including one with the inscription “ben Ya go”identified as a very likely with Eleazar ben Yair and related by some archaeologists with the draw of the last men who were supposed to kill each other according to the account of Josephus.
Archaeology confirms the presence of a community army at Masada and a violent end, but not, in itself, to reconstruct in detail the episode of the collective suicide.
3. Origin, family, and ideology
3.1. Descendant of Judas the Galilean
Josephus says that Eleazar ben Yair was descendant of Judas the Galilean, the famous agitator who led resistance to the census of Quirinio and inspired by the so-called “fourth philosophy”, a current ultrarradical opposed to the roman dominion.
- This “dynasty of rebels” would include:
- Judas the Galilean (grandfather or ancestor of Eleazar).
- Menahem ben Judasleading messianic and early boss of the assassins in 66 d.C.
- Finally, Eleazar ben Yairthat assumes the leadership of the assassins refugees at Masada after the murder of Menahem.
The central idea of this current: God is the only king, to pay tribute to Rome it is a betrayal of God, and the armed resistance, it is a religious obligation.
3.2. The hitmen
Eleazar was chief of the Sicarii:
- Subgroup extremist zealots.
- Famous for using little daggers (sicaehidden among the clothes to kill:
- Romans,
- and also jews considered collaborators.
- Practiced terror internal: also attacked jewish populations, moderate (such as the massacre in Ein Guedí mentioned by Josephus).
From this point of view, Eleazar, was not only a “patriot antiromano”, but the leader of a faction violent and fanatical in the eyes of many jews of his own time.
"Rome was able to take the rock, but could not take our will."
4. From revolt to Masada: how to reach Eleazar to leadership
4.1. Jack Masada (66 d.C.)
At the outbreak of the revolt in 66:
- A group of assassins led initially by Menahem ben Judas taking the fortress of Masada, kills the roman garrison and seized their weapons.
- Menahem low then to Jerusalem, it behaves as supreme head, and ends up murdered by rivals jews.
After this death, the followers of Menahem fleeing again to Masada under the leadership of Eleazar ben Yairwhich happens to be commander of the plaza and the leader of the group thug until the end.
4.2. Masada as a base of operations
Under Eleazar:
- Masada becomes:
- Shelter hit expelled from Jerusalem.
- Sanctuary ideological of the “fourth philosophy”.
- Base for incursions against populations and caravans in the desert of Judea.
According to Josephus, the sicarii of Masada massacre, for example, hundreds of jews in Ein Guedí, which shows the profound breakdown between Eleazar and a large part of the judaism of his time.
5. The community of Masada under Eleazar
5.1. Social composition
The defenders of Masada, according to Josephus, there were around 967 people (combatants and non-combatants).
- It was not just militia:
- Families with women and children.
- Other jews who fled after the fall of Jerusalem (70 ce.C.).
- The archaeology shows:
- Adapted housing, food warehouses, still abundant at the end of the siege.
- A synagogue early and ritual baths, which indicates concern for the religious practice even in a situation of site.
5.2. Organization and leadership
The leadership structure is not explained in depth in the sources, but all the evidence suggests that:
- Eleazar ben Yair was the supreme command, both military and political-religious.
- Below it, there would have been heads of the group and responsible for logistics, but the names have not come down to us.
- His authority was based on:
- Your lineage rebel (descendant of Judas the Galilean).
- Your role as a head of the faction sicaria.
- And the logic of holy war against Rome.
"We are few, but we are owners of the unique power that Rome did not understand: the absolute determination."
6. The roman siege and the outcome
6.1. The siege of Masada (72-73 d.C.)
The roman governor of Judea, Lucio Flavio Silvagoverns the Legio X Fretensis, servants and slaves (about 8,000–9,000 combatants, up to 15,000 people in total) to besiege, to less than a thousand defenders of Masada.
The romans:
- Build a wall ring around the mount to prevent leaks.
- Raise a huge ramp siege on the western side, moving hundreds of thousands of tons of earth and stone.
- Finally pushing a siege tower and battering rams against the wall.
According to Josephus, the defenders of Eleazar, do not make major offensive sorties during the construction of the ramp, unlike other sites of the war. This has been interpreted as a sign of outnumbered and material absolute.
6.2. The speech of Eleazar and the collective suicide (version of Josephus)
Josephus recounts that when the romans had already opened gap:
- Eleazar brings together the community and pronounced two long speeches defending the idea of:
- Not to fall alive into the hands of rome.
- Choose a “death is free” prior to that slavery, abuse, rape and humiliation.
- The community accepts your proposal:
- Kill first to wives and children.
- After that, selected by lot by ten men that kill the rest.
- Then, of those ten, one kills the other nine and eventually commits suicide.
- When the romans come the following day are corpses and burnt-down buildingsexcept food stores, left intact to show that died not by hunger but by decision.
Only seven people (two women and five children) would have survived by hiding in a cave, and are, says Josephus, the source of the detailed account of the speeches of Eleazar.
In this version, Eleazar appears as:
- Charismatic leader.
- Speaker able to convince almost a thousand people to accept death.
- Symbol resistance absolute and of the idea of “freedom or death”.
7. Discussion modern: how reliable is this account?
Here comes the key part for a serious analysis: what to accept and what to question the historians current.
7.1. Questions about the mass suicide and speeches
Many researchers believe that the account of Josephus:
- Reflects a real fact of violent end-induced (suicide of some, death, mutual, fires caused by the rebels).
- But they contend that the extensive discourses of Eleazar, and the exact choreography of the sweepstakes and suicide they are, in great measure, literary reconstruction the style of the historiography greco-roman, rather than literal transcription.
Archaeologists as Shaye J. D. Cohen and Eric H. Cline point:
- Inconsistencies between the account of Josephus and the findings (multiple foci of fire, distribution of skeletal remains, etc).
- The possibility that:
- Some suicidaran,
- others were massacred by the romans,
- and others try to hide or flee.
Conclusion: something very brutal occurred, headed by Eleazar, but the model of “collective suicide perfect” can be, at least in part, the development of literature.
7.2. The óstraca and the famous “ben Ya go”
The óstracon with the name “ben Ya go” was played by Yigael Yadin as part of the final draw described by Josephus. However:
- Other epigraphers point out that:
- There are more óstraca with names,
- and might be simply tags logistical (for example, for distribution of rations).
- The identification of the óstracon as a “lot of death of Eleazar” remains a hypothesis, not a closed testing.
"The last fortress is not Masada; it is the spirit of the free man."
8. Of “tyrant hitman” to national hero: Eleazar in modern memory
8.1. The vision of Josephus
In The war of the jewsJosephus tends to:
- Describe the gunmen as fanatics and criminals.
- Call Eleazar almost a “tyrant” you drag his people to a death in the extreme.
In its frame narrative, Eleazar is an example of extremism destructive which of heroism.
8.2. The “myth of Masada” in zionism
In the TWENTIETH century, especially in the first decades of the State of Israel:
- Take the story of Masada —in the version of Josephus— as symbol of heroism and strength.
- Eleazar ben Yair and his companions go from being “hit men extremists” to be presented as:
- National heroes,
- prototype of the “last jewish resistance to the death”.
Historians such as Nachman Ben-Yehuda have shown how they built this “myth of Masada”:
- Selecting partially the account of Josephus.
- Exalting the dimension of heroic sacrifice and ignoring the violence of the assassins against other jews.
Over the decades:
- Israeli soldiers carried out ceremonies and oaths at Masada with phrases such as “Masada shall not fall again”using the figure of Eleazar as a benchmark of national determination.
In the historiography of the current tends to a more nuanced view:
- Recognises the symbolic force of the episode.
- But it also underlines the moral complexity and policy of Eleazar, and of the gunmen: not only fought against Rome, but who engaged in terrorist violence against other jews.
9. What we can say with different levels of certainty
9.1. Highly likely / well-informed
- Eleazar ben Yair was the commander of the fortress of Masada and the leader of the assassins there between 66 and 73 d.C.
- Was descendant of Judas the Galilean and a part of a family line of rebels antirromanos.
- Masada was taken by jewish rebels, used as a base of operations, and finally conquered by the roman army of Lucius Flavius Silva.
- There was a final violent self-inducing: fires caused by the defenders, death bulk of the population, very few survivors.
9.2. Likely, but in literary terms produced
- That Eleazar would give speeches exhorting them to prefer death to slavery is plausible within the ideological context of the assassins.
- There were internal orders to kill their own families, and then to the companions is consistent with the logic of a radical faction, but the details narrative are probably retouched by Josephus.
9.3. Much-discussed / impossible to verify
- The exact model of “collective suicide organised by drawing”.
- The exact number of dead (960) and survivors (7).
- The precise role of Eleazar in each final phase (what I ordered literally, how you reacted, people, etc).
10. Synthesis
In summary, Eleazar ben Yair was:
- Leader of the faction sicaria in Masadaheir of a family of rebels antirromanos.
- Military commander and authority ideological the last organized resistance jewish War First Jewish-Roman.
- Inspirational (according to the only existing source) of a collective decision-making radical: to choose death rather than slavery romana.
- Figure whose memory has varied historically, between:
- “tyrant fanatic” (in the eyes of Josephus, and some modernist critics),
- and “national hero and symbol of resistance” (in the story zionist of the early TWENTIETH century).
