"The Romans and the Jews is living side by side in Jerusalem under Herod the Great. He is the one who is doing all the building, but when he dies in 4 B.C.E., Herod Antipas, his son, is taking over the kingdom."
"So it was Herod Antipas, not Herod the Great, who gave Salome the head of John the Baptist? He's the one who crucified Jesus?" Elizabeth has left her guide-book in the van, and she seems lost without it.
"Of course it is Herod Antipas." His eyebrows furrow. "But he is not powerful like his father, and before he is dying in the year 40, things is falling apart. Nobody is happy, nobody lives side by side any more. In 66, when the Romans is putting the statue of Jupiter in the Temple, the Temple Mount is defiled, and the Zealot Jews revolt.. The Romans put down the revolt, destroy the Temple, all but the piece of the Western Wall, and this is when the Zealots escape here to Masada."
He leads us to a crumbled rampart and points to the plain below, where three remarkably well-preserved-or perhaps reconstructed-squares are visible. "The Zealots don't harm nobody. But the Romans don't let well enough alone. They can't let Jews get away with rebelling, so they surround Masada in a siege that is lasting three years. This is when they build these camps around the mountain."
A troop of young Israeli soldiers, boys and girls in uniforms and army boots, trudge by. They're chattering and elbowing each other like school children on an outing, but each carries a machine gun slung carelessly over a shoulder. Ammunition clips are strapped to their gunstocks.
Sol watches them peer into the valley and then tramp away again. "After three years, the Roman generals get smart. They know it is against Jewish law to kill Jews, so they use the Jewish slaves to build a ramp up to the fort. The Zealots don't want to shoot their own people, so they watch the ramp get bigger and bigger. They know the Romans is coming, and they have the debate what to do. Killing and suicide is forbidden, and so the question is difficult in the religious war."
The sun beats down on us beside the wall and the ramp built with hand-carried baskets of dirt.
"The leaders cast the lots, choose ten men to kill the 960 people in Masada, then cast the lots again to see who kills the last nine and himself. When the Roman soldiers march up, they don't fmd nobody alive."
A burst of laughter comes from the toppled tower where the child soldiers are milling, and Sol grimaces. "The young Israeli soldiers is receiving the machine guns after they take the oath not to kill."
