Fall of Babylon to Cyrus the Great
The Neo-Babylonian Empire, which had itself destroyed Jerusalem and taken the Judean elite into exile under Nebuchadnezzar II a few decades earlier, had by 539 BCE weakened considerably under its final king, Nabonidus, whose religious reforms favoring the moon-god Sin over Babylon's patron deity Marduk alienated the city's powerful priesthood. Cyrus the Great, having already united the Medes and Persians and conquered Lydia, marched on Babylon and, according to later Greek and Babylonian accounts, took the city with minimal resistance -- the priesthood's alienation from Nabonidus meant Babylon's gates reportedly opened with little fight. The Cyrus Cylinder, a contemporary Babylonian inscription, presents Cyrus as a legitimate restorer of Marduk's proper worship rather than a foreign conqueror. Cyrus's policy toward conquered peoples, including permitting the return of exiled populations to their homelands and the restoration of local religious practices, marked a deliberate contrast to the mass-deportation policies of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires that preceded Persian rule, and would characterise Achaemenid administration across its vast multi-ethnic territory.
- Year: 539 BCE
- Category: Military
