Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/304

 288 JIASADA. collected the property into one heap, and destroyed it all by fire, they cast lots for ten men, who should act as executioners of the others, while they lay in the embrace of their slaughtered families. One was then selected by lot to slay the other nine sur- vivors : and he at last, having set fire to the palace, with a desperate effort drove his sword completely through liis own body, and so perished. The total number, including women and children, was 960. An old woman, with a female relative of Eleazarand five children, who had contrived to conceal them- selves in the reservoirs while the massacre was being perpetrated, survived, and narrated these facts to the astonished Romans when they entered the fortress on the following morning and had ocular demonstration of the frightful tragedy. The scene of this catastrophe has been lately re- covered, and tlie delineations of the artist and the description of tlie traveller have proved in this, as in so many other instances, the injustice of the charge of exaggeration and extravagance so often preferred against the Jewish historian. Mr. Eli Smith was the first in modern times to suggest the identity of the modern Sebheh with the Blasada of Josephus. He had only viewed it at a distance, from the cliffs above Engeddi, in company with Dr. Ro- binson {Biblical Researches, vol. iii. p. 242, n. 1); but it was visited and fully explored, in 1842, by Jlessrs. Woolcot and Tipping, from whose descrip- tions the following notices are extracted. The first view of it from the west strikingly illustrates the accuracy of Strabo's description of its site. " Rocky precipices of a rich reddish-brown colour sur- rounded us ; and before us, across a scorched and desolate tract, were the cliff of Sebbeh, with its ruins, the adjacent height with rugged defiles be- tween, and the Dead Sea lying motionless in its bed beneath. The aspect of the whole was that of lonely and stem grandeur." So on quitting the spot they found the groimd " sprinkled with volcanic stones." The base of the cliff is separated from the water by a shoal or sand -bank; and the rock projects beyond the mountain range, and is com- pletely isolated by a valley, even on the west side, where alone ''the rock can now be climbed: the pass on the east described by Josephus seems to have been swept away. The language of that historian respecting the loftiness of the site, is not very ex- travagant. It requires firm nerves to stand over its steepest sides and look directly down. The depth at these points cannot be less than 1000 feet The whole area we estimated at three-quarters of a mile in length from N. to S., and a third of a mile in breadth. On approaching the rock from the west, the ' white promontory,' as Josephus appro- priately calls it, is seen on this side near thenor^iern end. This is the point where the siege was pressed and carried. Of ' the wall built round about the en- tire top of the hill by King Herod,' all the lower part remains. Its colour is of the same dark red as the rock, though it is said to have been ' composed of while stone ;' but on breaking the stone, it appeared that it was naturally whitish, and had been burnt brown by the sun." The ground-plan of the store- houses and barracks can still be traced in the found- ations of the buildings on the summit, and the cisterns excavated in the natural rock are of enor- mous dimensions : one is mentioned as nearly 50 foct deep, 100 long, and 45 broad; its wall still covered with a white cement. The foundations of a round tower, 40 or 50 feet below the northern summit, JIASDORANI. may have been connected with the palace, and the windows cut in the rock near by, which Mr. Woolcot conjectures to have belonged to some large cistern, now covered up, may possibly have lighted the rock- hewn gallery by which the palace communicated with the fortress. From the summit of the rock every part of the wall of circumvallation could be traced, — carried along the low ground, and, wherever it met a precipice, commencing again on the high summit above, thus making the entire circuit of the place. Connected with it, at intervals, were the walls of the Roman camps, opposite the NW. aud SE. corners, the former being the spot where Jo- sephus places that of the Roman general. A third may be traced on the level near the shore. The outline of the works, as seen from the heights above, is as complete as if they had been but recently abandoned. The Roman wall is 6 feet broad, built, like the fortress walls and buildings above, with rough stones laid loosely together, and the interstices filled in with small pieces of stone. The wall is half a mile or more distant from the rock, so as to be without range of the stones discharged by the garrison. No water was to be found in the neigh- bourhood but such as the recent rains had left in the hollows of the rocks; confirming the remark of Josephus, that water as well as food was brought thither to the Roman army from a distance. Its position is exactly opposite to the peninsula that runs into the Dead Sea from its eastern shore, to- wards its southern extremity. (^Bibliotheca Sacra, 1843, pp. 62 — 67; Traill's Josephus, vol. ii. pp. 109 — 115: the plates are given in vol. i. p. 126, vol. ii. pp. 87, 238.) It must be admitted that the identification of Sebbeh with Masada is most com- plete, and the vindication of the accm-acy of the Jewish historian, marvellous as his narrative appears without confirmation, so entire as to leave no doubt that he was himself familiarly acquainted with the fortress. [G. W.] MASAITICA (MaffaiViKTj), a river the " em- bouchure " of which is placed by Arrian (Peripl. p. 18) on the S. coast of the Euxine, 90 stadia from the Nesis. Rennell {Comp. Geog. vol. ii. p. 325) has identified it with the Kamuslar. [E. B. J.] MASANI (JAaffavoi), a people of Arabia Deserta, mentioned only by Ptolemy (v. 19. § 2), situated above the RhaabenL (Forster, Geog. of Arabia, vol. i. pp. 284, 285.) [G. W.] MASCAS (Ma(7/cas, Xenoph. Anab. i. 5. § 4;, a small river of Mesopotamia, mentioned by Xe- nophon in the march of Cyrus the Younger through that country. It flowed round a town which he calls Corsote, and was probably a tributary of the Euphrates. Forbiger imagines that it is the same as the Saocoras of Ptolemy (v. 18. § 3), which had its rise in the neighbourhood of Nisibis. [V.] MASCIACUM, a place in Rhaetia, on the road leading from Veldidena to Pons Aeni (/^ Ant. p. 259), identified with Gmiind on the Tegemsee, or with Matzen, near Rattenberg. [L. S.] MASCLIANA or MASCLIANAE, a town in Dacia, which the Peutinger Table fixes at 11 M. P. from Gagana. The Geographer of liavenna calls it Marsclunis; its position must be sought for near Karansebes. [E. B. J.] MASDORA'NI (Mao-Soipar'ol or Ma^ocpavoV), a wild tribe who occupied the mountain range of Masdoranus, between Parthia and Ariana, extending SV. towards the desert part of Carmania or Kir- man. (I'tol. vi. 17. § 3.) [v.]