Masada (1981)
Creator: Joel Oliansky
Masada is a 1981 American historical drama television miniseries aired on ABC under the tentpole ABC Novel for Television. The screenplay by Joel Oliansky is based on Ernest Gann's 1971 novel The Antagonists. A dramatization of the historical siege of the Masada citadel in Roman Palestine by legions of the Roman Empire in AD 73. A siege that ended when the Roman armies entered the fortress, only to discover the mass suicide by the Jewish defenders when defeat became imminent.
Trailer
Creators
Cast
Peter O'Toole
General Cornelius Flavius Silva 
Peter Strauss
Eleazar ben Yair 
Barbara Carrera
Sheva 
Alan Feinstein
Aaron 
Giulia Pagano
Miriam 
Anthony Quayle
Rubrius Gallus 
Paul L. Smith
Gideon 
David Warner
Senator Pomponius Falco 
Clive Francis
Attius, Head Tribune 
David Opatoshu
Shimon 
Richard Pierson
Ephraim 
Joseph Wiseman
Jerahmeel, Head Essene User Reviews (1)
I remember watching this mini-series on the BBC and throughly enjoying every minute (I was 14!). It marries historical fact, legend and drama creating a cracking action adventure that sees nine hundred Jewish people take refuge in the eponymous and impregnable mountain fortress, fleeing the brutal regime of the Vespasianic legions under the command of Peter O'Toole's ("Silva"). The other principal casting maybe isn't the best - Peter Strauss didn't work for me at all and the seriously wooden Barbara Carrera also stretches the imagination just a tad, but the pace of the story builds well as the besieging Romans face all the desert environment and the Jewish freedom fighters can throw at them. There is an inevitability about it - the engineering prowess of the army soon starts to sound a death knell for the brave souls gathered above, and there are some strikingly brutal examples of just h…
