Herod built a pleasure palace on the edge of a cliff at Masada strong enough to survive millennia, and the Roman siege ramp built to take it by force is still standing beside it.
A palace built for a king who feared his own people
Herod's Northern Palace was constructed across three descending terraces cut into the cliff face, combining living quarters, bathhouses and reception rooms with commanding views, part of a wider complex that also included sophisticated cisterns capturing seasonal rainfall, engineering that allowed a desert fortress to sustain a substantial population and even elaborate leisure use rather than only bare survival.
A ramp still visible today
The Roman army under Flavius Silva built a massive earthen siege ramp against the fortress's western side to bring a battering ram within reach of the walls, and the ramp survives largely intact today, one of the best-preserved Roman siege works anywhere, with Josephus reporting the labour was performed substantially using Jewish prisoners of war.
As this entry's companion article covers
Josephus's account of the defenders' final mass suicide, and the way that narrative was later shaped into a modern Israeli national symbol before archaeology complicated the story, are addressed directly in this entry's companion article rather than repeated here.