The Dovekeepers

The novel is a fictionalized retelling of the historic Siege of Masada, one of the final events in the First Roman-Jewish War. The Roman-Jewish wars were a series of large revolts by Jewish people in Judea and the eastern Mediterranean region against the Roman Empire.

Events in the novel begin with the Fall of Jerusalem in August 70 CE when, on the orders of Emperor Titus, Roman soldiers destroyed most of the city and the Second Temple, the holy site of the Jewish people, said to have been built by King Herod. After Jerusalem fell, its surviving inhabitants fled to outposts across Judaea, the Roman province roughly analogous to regions claimed by modern-day Israel and Palestine. As Roman forces massacred Jewish insurgents across Judaea, one of the places people found refuge was the ancient fortress of Masada. Other fortresses were Herodium and Machaerus. Zealots, a sect of Jewish people who militantly opposed Roman occupation, held the fortress at Masada. Sicarii (assassins) were a sub-group of Zealots, known as such because of the sica (curved daggers) they carried. In Hoffman’s novel, Yosef and Amram are members of the Sicarii.

Intent on crushing every last bit of rebellion in the Roman Empire, the Roman legions under General Flavius Lucius Silva advanced upon Masada, the only standing freehold of the Jewish people, in 72 CE. The primary account of the Siege of Masada comes from the writings of ancient historian Flavius Josephus, a Jerusalem native who surrendered to Rome in 66 CE. Josephus wrote that he was told the story of the siege by two women who had survived the onslaught by hiding in a cistern. According to Josephus, five children also survived the siege. In the novel, the women and children are imagined as Yael, Revka, Yehuda, Levi, Noah, Arieh, and Yonah.

By the spring of 73 CE, Roman soldiers had built a circumvallation (siege) wall circling Masada, making movement in and out of the fortress difficult. The soldiers also built a ramp to bridge the gap between the wall and the fortress and erected a siege tower with a battering ram—a heavy beam—on top of the ramp. The ram was used to break down the wall of Masada. When the Romans finally entered the fortress, they found all the supplies inside burnt and all 960 inhabitants dead, possibly by mass suicide.

After Masada fell, the Jewish rebellion was quelled for a long time, and Jewish people scattered across the Roman Empire. In Jewish history, the siege of Masada has come to represent the ultimate act of heroism, with rebels preferring death to captivity. Eleazar ben Ya’ir, the leader of the Zealots in Hoffman’s novel, is a historical figure from the account of Josephus.