Masada is an American historical drama television miniseries that aired on ABC in April 1981. Advertised by the network as an 'ABC Novel for Television', the screenplay by Joel Oliansky is based on Ernest Gann's 1971 novel The Antagonists. The series is 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.