Talk:Siege of Masada

Merge proposal
Turns out there's an article by the name Battle of Masada. Both cover the exact same subject and should be merged. Poliocretes (talk) 16:11, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree - I couldn't find any distinction. ~Eric F 74.60.29.141 (talk) 20:19, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree - Clearly an accidental duplication. Zerotalk 04:46, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Done, I've merged the two articles, rewriting several sections of this one and dropping WP:OR from the other. Poliocretes (talk) 13:05, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Opening sentence
"The siege of Masada was among the final accords of the Great Jewish Revolt, "  Accords?? Midgley (talk) 17:11, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

REPLY: Accords as in a music piece. Seems rather obvious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.173.217.52 (talk) 07:00, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Siege in current day Israel
Baatarsaikan reverted an edit - and insists that the sige is in current day Israel. I may be missing something in the meaning there, but the geological feature, the hill/mesa/top is where it used to be now, but what occurred on it is very past. The comment "this is correct" is not as enlightening as some comments, particularly when it is applied to something which manifestly is not correct. Except perhaps metaphysically. Further and better detail about why the introduction should say the sige occured in the present day and present state, please. My first language is English. Midgley (talk) 16:24, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

You might also ask why "a large hilltop" needs to occur twice in the introduction. Careful reading before reverting is desirable, don't you think? Midgley (talk) 16:29, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The meaning seems perfectly clear to me: the siege occurred on a hill which is in modern day Israel. IdreamofJeanie (talk) 17:40, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Where was it previously? The hill doesn't move.  The location is specified as that of the siege, or not separated from it.  The user was a sock-puppet, and has been blocked.  Midgley (talk) 20:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * What exactly is the problem? The siege occurred on a hill. If one of our readers feels inclined to visit the location of the siege they will have to go to modern day Israel. The meaning of the first sentence is quite clear. What are you suggesting needs changing? and as for your sarky comment "Careful reading before reverting is desirable", please note that it was you who duplicated the phrase with your first edit of dec 14th. Thanks for pointing out the error, I will remove one instance. IdreamofJeanie (talk) 20:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

famous rock in a wasteland by a poisoned sea quote
The Roman General, Lucius Flavius Silva, was supposed to have sent back the message to Rome, ""The victory? We have won a rock in the middle of a wasteland on the shore of a poison sea."  This is a very famous, oft-repeated quote.  If it is made up, or comes from the Masada TV series, or really is historical, it would be a great service to readers to give the correct attribution.  All I could find is "quotes" in articles related to the TV series, which are not very reliable. Thanks, -BTP 71.198.184.44 (talk) 03:14, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Grand rolling prose but it sounds far more like Peter O'Toole than the real Flavius Silva. Roman generals just didn't express themselves in such terms if they wanted a Triumph back home. Josephus composed similar stirring sentiments for Eleazar, which covers several pages of The Jewish War but doesn't quote Silva at all. Buistr (talk) 06:07, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

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The usual anti-Israel bias on the hard left shown again in Wikipedia
The entire article is obviously biased. It stresses only one side of a disputed subject, and conveys very strongly the usual anti-Zionist, anti-Israel leftist agenda to de-legitimise Jewish solidarity and Jewish claims to Judea/Israel. It presents the critical findings or rather claims of a few scholars as the evident truth behind the whole story, which is that the defenders of Masada were simply cruel extremist fanatics whose illegitimate and immoral resistance can only be justified by falsehoods, ignoring the extreme cruelty of the Romans themselves both at the time and before it, actually causing the conflict to begin with. No mention is made of that aspect of the Masada resistance, nor even of what fate awaited any left alive when the Romans overran the citadel. Mockery runs through the article, as in the supposedly erroneous admiring as Jewish victims the allegedly Roman soldiers who might have been captured and cruelly killed by the defenders. This hard leftist and strongly anti-Israel bent is shown in almost all articles on Israel topics in Wikipedia, just bearing out once again the result at that website of systematically hounding out of its editing all non-leftist editors on any current relevant topic. This is just one instance of a much more pervasive syndrome at Wikipedia, and makes it a highly dubious source for any contemporary topic with political relevance. Wikipedia cannot be trusted. 175.39.122.144 (talk) 09:25, 5 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree. Scientific investigation must be banned and all articles must be purely based on nationalist myths. Zerotalk 10:53, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You must remember that the sources disputing Josephus are pure speculation - they are just alternate theories. HammerFilmFan (talk) 05:22, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Proposed dates
The infobox contains a set of "proposed dates" but there's no real explanation for them. Despite this, the introduction uses the proposed dates (73–74) but the article body still states that the fortress fell in 73, so this needs to be expanded/clarified. Thanks. — howcheng  {chat} 16:12, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Reference does not support statement for the year of the siege
A 2010 article by Campbell is cited in reference [17] to support a claim that the Romans breached the wall of Masada in April 73 CE, with the body of the reference stating: "Campbell, Duncan B. (2010). 'Capturing a desert fortress: Flavius Silva and the siege of Masada'. Ancient Warfare. 4 (2): 28–35. The dating is explained on pp. 29 and 32." (emphasis mine).

However, pp. 29 and 32 of that article refer to the adlection of Silva as a patrician in early 73 and to his assumption of a new command that summer to "tie up the loose ends" of the Jewish-Roman war. Campbell writes on p. 32 that Silva would have wanted to delay the siege until after the heat of summer and begin toward the end of 73. Campbell then explicitly criticizes the rationale underlying the traditional siege dates of 72-73 CE on p. 35.

This is consistent with his 1988 proposal that the siege occurred in 73-74 CE which is currently cited as a source of the proposed date in the InfoBox as reference [1]. Campbell 2010 then shouldn't be used to support a Roman breach of the fortress in April 73 but rather the proposed date of 73-74 CE. Mercaedion (talk) 18:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)