5. The Radicals Forever Associated With the Masada
Sicarii, meaning “dagger men” in Latin, got their name from the kind of knife known as the sica (plural sicae) that they used to slay their victims. They aimed to rid Judea of the Romans and their Jewish collaborators, and resorted to terrorism and assassination to accomplish their goal. They hid in crowds at public gatherings, waited for opportune moments, then charged their targets, stabbed them, and escaped in the resulstant confusion and panic by blending into the crowd.
They chiefly targeted the pro-Roman Jewish aristocracy, whom they slaughtered and whose estates they torched. Eventually, the Sicarii turned to kidnapping and hostage taking for ransom. Their prominent victims included a High Priest of the Jewish Temple, after whose killing they went on an assassination spree that terrorized Judea’s upper strata of Jews and Romans.
