had united around the Hasmoneans, disunity between the sects and among the
Zealots had weakened the revolt against Rome. Ultimately, the disparate out-
comes of the two revolt reflected the strength of the opponent. The Seleucid
Empire was on the wane during the Maccabean Revolt. By contrast, Rome was
unbeatable in 70 C.E. It is remarkable that the Jews lasted as long as they did.
Yet Judaism survived the destruction of the Temple and the conquest of
Jerusalem by the Romans, owing to a combination of preexisting develop-
ments in Judaism and Roman policy, and subsequent tactics by Jewish
leaders. Jews had already experienced the destruction of the Temple, and thus
already had a theological framework with which to explain it. Unlike in 586
B.C.E., they did not have to reinvent Judaism in order to come to terms with
this calamity. In addition, by 70 C.E., Jews had centuries of experience living
under foreign rule, both in the Land of Israel and in the diaspora. Also, the
development of a personal religion by the Pharisees would prove crucial in
allowing Jews to function without the Temple or the sacrificial cult.
Roman policies complemented these developments. The Roman campaign
in Judea was a political campaign with few or no religious overtones; thus,
the Romans left the Jews physically intact, with no reprisals or mass killings.
Moreover, the Romans left the status of Judaism intact. Judaism remained a
legal religion after the revolt, and Jews elsewhere in the empire were largely
unaffected. The Sanhedrin was allowed to reassemble in the southern Judean
town of Javneh.
For the Zealots, the end of the revolt did not signal the end of the cam-
paign against Roman rule. Many of the surviving Zealots and their families
fled to Masada, where for the next three years they conducted a campaign of
guerrilla warfare against Roman soldiers, pagans, and Jews who were sus-
pected of being overly Hellenized or too accommodating of Roman rule.
In 73, the emperor sent in Silva and the Roman Tenth Legion to deal with
the Zealots at Masada. Fresh from its previous mission – the conquest of most
of Africa – the Tenth Legion laid siege to Masada. After several months, the
Romans mounted an assault on the seemingly impregnable mountain
fortress. According to Josephus Flavius’s problematic account, the Zealots,
facing certain defeat and enslavement, chose mass suicide over surrender. The
account is problematic because this story was never mentioned in any Roman
source (by contrast, the Romans minted coins to commemorate the conquest
of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple). Archeological remains
unearthed at Masada indicate that the Zealots were prepared for battle. Yet
the only piece of evidence that attests to the suicide, a shard etched with the
name of the Zealots’ leader, Eleazar ben Yair – who, according to Josephus,
had used such shards to draw lots to determine who would be the last to die –
lends a measure of credibility to this account. On the other hand, the fact that
Josephus had been in a similar situation two years earlier in Jotapata and had
opted for surrender over a heroic death suggests that he might have fabricated
all or part of the story to compensate for his own lack of heroism.
40 The challenge of Hellenism