Masada

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>Agreed. Masada is our model (well, one of them)

Just a quick note on the historical Masada. The siege apparently was pretty straightforward as such things go, and the Romans used a natural knoll as the basic of their ramp. There was little in the way of warfare - the rebels inside were Sicari (as in Judas *Iscariot*) basically assassins. They had been kicked out of Jerusalem by their fellow Jews when the sieg eof that city began, and had massacred a nearby Jewish village for food supplies.

Archaeology has both confirmed the basic outline of Josephus' account and questioned some of the details -especially the final assault and the mass suicide/collective murder. Only 25 skeletons have been found in situ - a bit of a mystery.

See http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/masadamyth1.htm

Any relationship between the history and the nationalist myth that has grown up around Masada is tentative at best, but that's a) always always the case, and b) highly political and c) wandering wandering way OT. (I've just finished 'The Masada Myth: Collective Memory And Mythmaking In Israel' by Nachman Ben-Yehuda).

I used the outline of Masada as the basic of the WW city map. Herod's palace is now the air temple - though veering upwards.

Cheers

John