Masada is a natural for Hollywood - but with different ending

THE people who inspire me every day, the heroes who refuse to quit in the face of crushing odds, are the ones fighting an enemy they can often feel but not see - the teenagers and children who have been diagnosed with serious illnesses.

Courage in the face of bullets and shells is one thing: The threat of death arrives in confusion and chaos, and is often over within seconds.

Courage in the face of disease is something very different - a long, unblinking bravery that tests every nerve.

It's hard to be brave on your own. In fact, to hold your nerve when all around are losing heart is almost impossible.

That's why humans need heroes, not just in wars but in the hidden trials of everyday life. We need to believe that the human spirit is unbreakable. We need to see men and women proving how strong we can be.

The horrifying pictures coming out of Abu Ghraib jail, of torture and humiliation inflicted by allied troops on Iraqi prisoners, demonstrate how naive we were to hope that a modern war could breed new heroes.

To seek warrior heroes we must turn to the past and to our imaginations, which is why the blockbuster of the summer will be Wolfgang Petersen's Troy.

The cast list is a thriller on its own: Brad Pitt as Achilles, Orlando Bloom as Paris, Peter O'Toole as Priam, Sean Bean as Odysseus, Eric Bana as Hector and the unknown Diane Kruger as Helen of Troy.

Helen's was the ''face that launched a thousand ships''. Homer's poem, The Iliad, catalogues the Greek navy but, in Petersen's movie, computer imaging means we'll actually get to see it.

Not that Petersen, director of The Perfect Storm and Air Force One, would have been my choice to portray the devastating violence of the Trojan War.

The Iliad is not just literature's first novel, it is also the first slice of pulp fiction.

Gore drips from every verse as Homer describes all the ways a man can die in battle: Speared in the ribs, slashed across the stomach, stabbed through the eye; brains dashed out, entrails spilling out; blood spurting, guts heaving; begging, weeping, screaming.

The Iliad is more blood-sodden than Mel Gibson's vision of the crucifixion. When Achilles slays Hector at the story's climax, the Trojan hero delivers his last speech pinned to the ground through the throat by the Greek's spear.

I first read the tale at school in Cyprus, but it really made its impact on me when a journalist friend gave me a recent verse translation by Robert Fagles, a Princeton professor.

I was shocked to realise that the legend of the wooden horse plays no part in the story, nor the myth of how Paris stole Helen from her Greek husband, nor how Achilles died from a wound to the only vulnerable spot on his body. . . his heel.

The Iliad is simply a war story - with a blood-crazed, boastful narcissist for its central character. Achilles is a flawed hero, which makes him far more interesting to Hollywood than his contemporary, King David.

As a plucky, lucky shepherd boy, David slew his enemies' mightiest warrior. Achilles does the same, but the build-up is far more gripping - the hero's ego is so out of control that he teeters on the brink of self-destruction right through the book.

It's like watching the implosion of a football legend or a rock star. Jewish scripture once provided many of the legends of the big screen: John Huston's The Bible, The Ten Commandments.

But today, Jewish heroes don't always suit the scriptwriters' agenda. Samson would be a cool Arnie archetype if only he could rise from the rubble of the Philistine palace, shrugging the ruined pillars from his shoulders.

Maybe he could be rebuilt as a robot, an Old Testament Terminator. And the heroes of Masada would be shot down on Sunset Boulevard.

All my life I have revered the 960 Zealot and Sicarii revolutionaries who held out against the Romans for two years after the destruction of the Temble by the legions. They chose to die rather than live as slaves.

When I stood at the fort with my platoon, 1,900 years later, I was filled with unquenchable pride in my heritage.

Hollywood would have to rewrite the ending - with a handful of defenders escaping to continue the resistance.

Otherwise, how can they make Masada II? The Masada story is echoed in a classic fantasy novel by the British writer David Gemmell. Called simply Legend, it tells how the seven walls of a city set in a mountain pass are defended by a dwindling band of fanatics.

I love the story, not least because it's an allegory for the impossible fight against terminal disease. Gemmell dreamed up Legend when he was being tested for cancer.

His body became the citadel, his dauntless spirit the courageous archers, axemen and swordfighters who hold off a numberless horde of nomadic barbarians.

Gemmell followed Legend with more than 25 heroic epics, and one moral runs through them all - always fight, never give up.

They are wonderful tales, thrillingly told, and never fail to fire me with inspiration. Most are set in an imaginary Bronze Age, where technology matches the times of Homer and David.

The religious atmosphere is not remotely Greek, though - no deities to intervene in men's battles, no pantheon of immortals, no spirits in the water and the trees.

There is one God, the Source - all-powerful but not interfering. Barbaric sacrifices are useless: Prayer is not.

One day a Messiah might come, but it hasn't happened yet. In other words, the world of Gemmell's heroes is distinctly Jewish. Hollywood should take note.