I loved the mini-series "Masada", too. I have it on DVD. The VHS chopped away almost the first half of the story.
I am about a third of the way into the book, "The Dovekeepers", and the miniseries changed it quite a bit. For one thing there is no relationship (cousins) between Shirah, and Yahael; Shirah is hired to be the child Yahael's caregiver, until she is expelled from the house. The now grown Yahael meets Shirah again at Masada, and Shirah is the mother of a daughter and a son for most of the novel; she also has a sister not in the movie. A third of the way into the book there is only one illicit affair. The mini-series also omits much of work of the Dovekeepers and its importance to the inhabitants of the mountain as well as the at first almost paradisical atmosphere of the mountaintop to the wanderers in the desert who arrived there at last. I have finished the book, and although there isn't wholesale fornicating as in the miniseries, there are several illicit affairs not gone into in detail. In every case,the women are destroyed by love. But the book was much better than the film.
However, for a book depicting the woman survivors of Masada as strong persons, read David Kosoff's "Voices of Masada", which begins with the two women and five children emerging from their hiding place on the mountain to the shocked faces of the Roman conquerors, some fighting tears as they see the dead families with their children of the Zealot occupiers. The story portrays the main protagonist, Ruth, one of the two woman with five orphan children who are chosen by Eleazar ben Yair to survive the mass suicide, as his designated historian of the Jewish story of the revolt. Her compatriot, an older woman, Sarah, is a Zealot fighter, who in the Roman camp forcefully persuades the soldiers into providing entertainment for the children to counteract memories of the horrors they have witnessed. The five children are also given personalities and their stories told. The novel takes them from Masada to the various participants on either side of the revolt as Ruth gathers material for her history. Among those she interviews are Cornelius Flavius Silva, the victorious general, Flavius Josephus, the turncoat Jewish leader who became a Roman apologist and historian, as well as the survivors of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple whom she meets when eventually she finds her way to her brother's house. Among them is Jesse, a Romanized Jew, and compatriot of Josephus who tells the story of the leader's betrayal, and his own for which he tries to atone by continuing his Roman persona, gaming with them and cheating them at that and in other ways, using the proceeds to support Jewish children orphaned during the revolt. Other occupants of the house, as well as Sarah interweave their stories of the devastation of Jerusalem and the demolition of the temple, and how they came to Masada. And last, the story from Ruth of the last night on Masada and the heartbreaking climax. At the end of the story the reader detects Jesse's attraction to and compassion for Ruth. The story ends with a feeling of hope and the possibility of rebuilding devastated lives.
My paperback copy of this novel is worn and dog-eared from re-reading.
I also have a copy of the book by Yigael Yadin, the Israeli archaeologist who excavated Masada. Although many of his conclusions have been challenged, it is an interesting read.
I have always been fascinated by the story.
I could be a morning person if morning happened at noon.
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