As Josephus describes it, when the hope of the rebels dwindled, Eleazar Ben Yair gave two speeches in which he convinced the leaders of the 960 members of the community that it would be better to take their own lives and the lives of their families than to live in shame and humiliation as Roman slaves. In Josephus’ own words in The Jewish War 7, 395–396, 398, 402, 406): Then, having chosen by lot ten of their number to dispatch the rest, they laid themselves down each beside his prostrate wife and children, and, flinging their arms around them, offered their throats in readiness for the executants of the melancholy office. These, having unswervingly slaughtered all, ordained the same rule of the lot for one another, that he on whom it fell should slay first the nine and then himself last of all...They had died in the belief that they had left not a soul of them alive to fall into Roman hands... The Romans expecting further opposition, were by daybreak under arms...Here encountering the mass of slain, instead of exulting as over enemies, they admired the nobility of their resolve and the contempt of death display by so many in carrying it, unwavering, into execution. According to Josephus, two women and five children who had been hiding in the cisterns on the mountaintop told the Romans what had happened that night, on the 15th of Nissan, the first day of Passover. With the fall of Masada, the suppression of the revolt was completed and all of Judea returned to Roman hands. A Roman auxiliary unit apparently remained at the fortress until the beginning of the second century CE.
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