Lucius Flavius Silva

Lucius Flavius Silva Nonius Bassus was a late-1st-century Roman general, governor of the province of Iudaea and consul. History remembers Silva as the Roman commander who led his army, composed mainly of the Legio X Fretensis, in 72 AD up to Masada and laid siege to its near-impregnable mountain fortress occupied by a group of Jewish rebels called the Sicarii. The end of the siege in 73 AD culminated with Silva's forces breaching the defenses of the Masada plateau and the mass suicide of the Sicarii who preferred death to defeat or capture. Silva's actions are documented by 1st-century Jewish-Roman historian Josephus; the remains of a 1st-century Roman victory arch identified in Jerusalem in 2005; and of course the extensive earthworks at the Masada site, a monument to the high-water mark of Roman siege warfare.

Flavius Silva was born in the Roman town of Urbs Salvia what is now Italy circa 40 AD. Silva’s career trajectory was typical of a child of a privileged family seeking power in the Roman Empire. He began his career within the vigintivirat which is an early first step toward a gaining entry into the Roman Senate. The vigintivirat was a college of twenty citizens charged with administering municipal and government affairs within the government of Rome. As part of the triumvir capitalized, Silva was one of three "responsible for assisting the judicial magistrates". After Vigintivirat, Silva became military tribune of legio IV Scythica, Quaestor and tribune of the plebs and legate of the Legio XXI Rapax. Quaestor is the first stage of curriculum honorum judiciary allowing entry in the Senate. During the civil war in Rome A.D. 68-69, Silva backed Vespasian. Silva was adlected into Praetorian and Patrician rank in 73. In 73 Silva was appointed legatus Augusti pro praetore of Judaea, replacing Sextus Lucilius Bassus, who died during his tenure. Silva was governor of Judea for eight years under the reign of Vespasian and his elder son Titus, from 73 to 81. In 81 he became ordinary consul. Flavius Silva was patron of Urbs Salvia and held there twice the honorary position of Praetor quinquennalis.

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