Herodium

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Aerial photo of Herodium from the south west.

Herodium from the south.

Trilingual sign at entrance.

Herodium or Herodion (Hebrew: הרודיון) is a hill shaped like a truncated cone (758 m. above sea level), 12 kilometers south of Jerusalem, at 31°39.95′0″N, 35°14.49′0″E, built as a fortress palace by King Herod the Great.

Josephus Flavius:

"This fortress, which is some sixty stadia^[1] distant from Jerusalem, is naturally strong and very suitable for such a structure, for reasonably nearby is a hill, raised to a (greater) height by the hand of man and rounded off in the shape of a breast. At intervals it has round towers, and it has a steep ascent formed of two hundred steps of hewn stone. Within it are costly royal apartments made for security and for ornament at the same time. At the base of the hill there are pleasure grounds built in such a way as to be worth seeing, among other things because of the way in which water, which is lacking in that place, is brought in from a distance and at great expense. The surrounding plain was built up as a city second to none, with the hill serving as an acropolis for the other dwellings." (War I, 31, 10; Antiquities XIV, 323-325)

Herodium was conquered and destroyed by the Romans in 71 CE, when Lucilius Bassus and his X Fretensis were on their way for Masada.