“I’ve never heard it put in quite those terms. Go on.”

“About sixty-sixA.D. , sorry,C.E. , yet another Jewish revolt steam-rol ed across the region. This one scared the sandals off the Romans, and the emperor deployed troops to suppress the insurgents.”

I tunneled deep for dates.

“About five years into the revolt the Roman general Vespasian conquered Jerusalem, sacked the temple, and routed the survivors.”

“And Masada?”

“Masada’s a giant rock in the Judean desert. At the start of the war a group of Jewish zealots hiked it to the top and hunkered in. The Roman general

—I’m blanking on the name.”

“Flavius Silva.”

“That’s the guy. Silva was not amused. Masada was a pocket of defiance he would not tolerate. Silva set up perimeter camps, constructed an encircling wal , then an enormous ramp up the side of Masada. When his troops final y rol ed a battering ram up the incline and breached the fortress, they found everyone dead.”

I didn’t mention my source, but I remembered al this from an early-eighties miniseries on Masada. Peter O’Toole as Silva?

“Excel ent. Though your tel ing lacks a certain sense of scale. Silva didn’t just march a few platoons to Masada. His operation was massive, including his entire Tenth Legion, its auxiliary troops, and thousands of Jewish prisoners of war. Silva didn’t intend to leave until the rebels were subjugated.”

“Who was in charge up top?”

“Eleazar ben Ya’ir. The Jews had been up there seven years, and were as committed to staying as Silva was to ousting them.” More miniseries memory bytes. Decades earlier, Herod had been into major development at Masada, ordering a casement wal around the top, defense towers, storehouses, barracks, arsenals, and a cistern system for catching and storing rainwater. Seventy years after the old king’s death, the warehouses were stil stocked, and the zealots had everything they needed.

“The main source on Masada is Flavius Josephus,” Jake went on. “Joseph ben Matatyahu, in Hebrew. At the beginning of the sixty-six revolt, Josephus was serving as a Jewish commander in Galilee. Later he went over to the Romans. Regardless of his loyalties or disloyalties, the guy was a bril iant historian.”

“And the only reporter in town at the time.”

“There is that. But Josephus’ descriptions are amazingly detailed. According to his account, the night the fortress was breached, Eleazar ben Ya’ir gathered his fol owers.”

Jake leaned forward and set the scene.

“Picture this. The wal was burning. The Romans would pour in at dawn. There was no hope of escape. Ben Ya’ir argued that a death of glory was preferable to a life of slavery. Lots were cast, and ten men were elected to kil al the others. Another set of lots determined who among the ten would kil his fel ow assassins, and, final y, himself.”

“There were no dissenters?”

“If so, those opinions were overruled. Two women and several children did hide out and survive. Most of Josephus’ information came from them.”