The Battle of Opis was the last major military engagement between the
Achaemenid Persian Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...
and the
Neo-Babylonian Empire
The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the List of kings of Babylon, King of B ...
, which took place in September 539 BC, during the Persian invasion of
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
. At the time, Babylonia was the last major power in
Western Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
that was not yet under Persian control. The battle was fought in or near the strategic riverside city of
Opis
Opis (Akkadian ''Upî'' or ''Upija''; grc, Ὦπις) was an ancient Babylonian city near the Tigris, not far from modern Baghdad. Akkadian and Greek texts indicate that it was located on the east side of the Tigris, near the Diyala River.
T ...
, located north of the capital city of
Babylon
''Bābili(m)''
* sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠
* arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel''
* syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel''
* grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn''
* he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel''
* peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru''
* elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
in modern-day
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, and resulted in a decisive victory for Persia. Shortly afterwards, the Babylonian city of
Sippar
Sippar ( Sumerian: , Zimbir) was an ancient Near Eastern Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates river. Its '' tell'' is located at the site of modern Tell Abu Habbah near Yusufiyah in Iraq's Baghdad Governorate, som ...
surrendered to Persian forces, who then supposedly entered Babylon without facing any further resistance. The Persian king
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia (; peo, 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 ), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Schmitt Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Under his rule, the empire embraced ...
was subsequently proclaimed as the king of Babylonia and its subject territories, thus ending its independence and incorporating the entirety of the
fallen Neo-Babylonian Empire into the greater Achaemenid Empire.
Location
The battle took place in and around
Opis
Opis (Akkadian ''Upî'' or ''Upija''; grc, Ὦπις) was an ancient Babylonian city near the Tigris, not far from modern Baghdad. Akkadian and Greek texts indicate that it was located on the east side of the Tigris, near the Diyala River.
T ...
, an ancient city situated on the
Tigris River
The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the P ...
and located about north of
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
in modern-day
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
. The city is thought to have been a preferred point to cross the Tigris; the
classical Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
philosopher
Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens (; grc, wikt:Ξενοφῶν, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Anci ...
describes a bridge at this point.
[Oppenheim, A.L. "The Babylonian Evidence of Achaemenian Rule in Mesopotamia", in ''The Cambridge History of Iran'' vol. 2, p. 539. Ilya Gershevitch (ed). Cambridge University Press, 1993. ][Briant, Pierre. ''From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire'', p. 362. Eisenbrauns, 2002. ] The timing of the Persian invasion may have been determined by the ebb of the
Mesopotamian rivers, which are at their lowest levels—and therefore easier to cross—in early autumn.
Opis was a place of considerable strategic importance; apart from the river crossing, it was at one end of the
Median Wall
The Median Wall was a wall built to the north of the ancient city of Babylon at a point where the distance between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates decreases considerably. It was believed to have been constructed during the latter part of the reig ...
, a fortified defensive barrier north of the ancient city of
Babylon
''Bābili(m)''
* sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠
* arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel''
* syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel''
* grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn''
* he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel''
* peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru''
* elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
that had been built several decades earlier by the Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar II. Control of Opis would have enabled the Persians to break through the Median Wall and open the road to the Babylonian capital.
[T. Cutler Young, Jr., "The rise of the Persians to imperial power under Cyrus the Great", in ''The Cambridge Ancient History'' vol. 4, p. 39. John Boardman (ed). Cambridge University Press, 1982. ]
Sources
The main contemporary source of information on Cyrus's Mesopotamian campaign of 539 BC is the
Nabonidus Chronicle
The Nabonidus Chronicle is an ancient Babylonian text, part of a larger series of Babylonian Chronicles inscribed in cuneiform script on clay tablets. It deals primarily with the reign of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, co ...
, one of a series of clay tablets collectively known as the
Babylonian Chronicles
The Babylonian Chronicles are a series of tablets recording major events in Babylonian history. They are thus one of the first steps in the development of ancient historiography. The Babylonian Chronicles were written in Babylonian cuneiform, f ...
that record the history of ancient Babylonia. Some additional detail is provided by one of the few documents to have survived from Cyrus's lifetime, the
Cyrus Cylinder
The Cyrus Cylinder is an ancient clay cylinder, now broken into several pieces, on which is written a declaration in Akkadian cuneiform script in the name of Persia's Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great. Kuhrt (2007), p. 70, 72 It dates from the 6th c ...
. Further information on Cyrus's campaign is provided by the later
ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
writers
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...
and
Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens (; grc, wikt:Ξενοφῶν, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Anci ...
, though neither mention the battle at Opis and their accounts of the campaign differ considerably from the Persian and Babylonian sources. Most scholars prefer to use the Nabonidus Chronicle as the main source on the battle, as it is a contemporaneous source.
[Dandamaev, MA; Vogelsang, WJ (trans.). ''A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire'', pp. 41–42, 49. BRILL, 1989. ]
Although much of the Nabonidus Chronicle is fragmentary, the section relating to the last year of Nabonidus's reign – 539 BC – is mostly intact. It provides very little information about Cyrus's activities in the years immediately preceding the battle. The chronicler focuses on events of immediate relevance to Babylonia and its rulers, only occasionally records events outside Babylonia and does not provide much detail other than a bare outline of key incidents. There is almost no information for the period 547–539. Most of the chronicle's text for this period is illegible, making it impossible to assess the significance of the few words that can be read.
[Kuhrt, Amélie. "Babylonia from Cyrus to Xerxes", in ''The Cambridge Ancient History: Vol IV – Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean'', pp. 112–138. Ed. John Boardman. Cambridge University Press, 1982. ]
Background
![Ancient near east 540 bc](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Ancient_near_east_540_bc.svg)
At the time of the Battle of Opis, Persia was the leading power in the Near East. Its power had grown enormously under its king, Cyrus II, who had conquered a huge swathe of territory to create an empire that covered an area corresponding to the modern countries of
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
,
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
,
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...
,
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
,
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. ...
and
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
. The only remaining significant unconquered power in the Near East was the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which controlled Mesopotamia and subject kingdoms such as
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
,
Judea
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Hebrew language#Modern Hebrew, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous L ...
,
Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
and parts of
Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. ...
. It had been closely linked with Cyrus's enemies elsewhere. The empire was previously an ally of
Croesus
Croesus ( ; Lydian: ; Phrygian: ; grc, Κροισος, Kroisos; Latin: ; reigned: c. 585 – c. 546 BC) was the king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC.
Croesus was ...
of
Lydia
Lydia (Lydian language, Lydian: 𐤮𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣𐤠, ''Śfarda''; Aramaic: ''Lydia''; el, Λυδία, ''Lȳdíā''; tr, Lidya) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the mod ...
, whose kingdom was overrun by the Persians a few years prior to the invasion of Babylonia.
[Briant, Pierre. ''From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire'', pp 40–43. Eisenbrauns, 2002. ]
By the time of the battle, Babylonia was in an unpromising geopolitical situation; the Persian empire bordered it to the north, east and west. It had also been suffering severe economic problems exacerbated by plague and famine, and its king Nabonidus was said to be unpopular among many of his subjects for his unconventional religious policies. According to Mary Joan Winn Leith,
"Cyrus's success is credited to military acumen, to judicious bribery, and to an energetic publicity campaign waged throughout Babylonia, which portrayed him as a lenient and religiously tolerant overlord." On the other hand,
Max Mallowan
Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan (6 May 1904 – 19 August 1978) was a prominent British archaeologist, specialising in ancient Middle Eastern history. He was the second husband of Dame Agatha Christie.
Life and work
Born Edgar Mallowan in Wands ...
notes: "Religious toleration was a remarkable feature of Persian rule and there is no question that Cyrus himself was a liberal-minded promoter of this humane and intelligent policy," and such a publicity campaign was in effect a means of permitting his reputation to precede his military campaign. Cyrus was said to have persuaded a Babylonian provincial governor named
Gobryas
Gobryas ( grc, Γοβρύας; peo, 𐎥𐎢𐎲𐎽𐎢𐎺 g-u-b-ru-u-v, reads as ''Gaub(a)ruva''?; Elamite: ''Kambarma'') was a common name of several Persian noblemen.
Gobryas (Cyrus the Great's general)
This Gobryas is mentioned in the Cy ...
(and a supposed Gadates) to defect to his side.
Gutium
The Guti () or Quti, also known by the derived exonyms Gutians or Guteans, were a nomadic people of West Asia, around the Zagros Mountains (Modern Iran) during ancient times. Their homeland was known as Gutium ( Sumerian: ,''Gu-tu-umki'' or ,''G ...
, the territory governed by Gobryas, was a frontier region of considerable size and strategic importance, which Cyrus was said to have used as the starting point for his invasion.
The Nabonidus Chronicle records that prior to the battle, Nabonidus had ordered cult statues from outlying Babylonian cities to be brought into the capital, suggesting that the conflict had begun possibly in the winter of 540 BC. In a fragmentary section of the chronicle which is presumed to cover 540/39 BC, there is a possible reference to fighting, a mention of
Ishtar
Inanna, also sux, 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒀭𒈾, nin-an-na, label=none is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power. She was originally worshiped in Su ...
and
Uruk
Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.Harm ...
, and a possible reference to Persia.
The Battle of Opis was thus probably only the final stage in an ongoing series of clashes between the two empires.
Battle
The Nabonidus Chronicle records that the battle took place in the month of
Tashritu (27 September-27 October) "at Opis on the
ank of theTigris".
[Grayson, A.K. ''Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles''. Locust Valley, NY: JJ Augustin, 1975. ] Very little is known about the events of the battle; the chronicle does not provide any details of the battle's course, the disposition of the forces on either side or the casualties inflicted. The Persian army under Cyrus fought "the army of
Akkad" (meaning the Babylonians in general, not the city of that name). The identity of the Babylonian commander is not recorded in the chronicle but it has traditionally been assumed that
Belshazzar
Belshazzar (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Bēl-šar-uṣur'', meaning "Bel, protect the king"; ''Bēlšaʾṣṣar'') was the son and crown prince of Nabonidus (556–539 BC), the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Through his mother he might h ...
, the son of Nabonidus, was in command. His fate is unclear and he may have been killed in the battle.
The outcome of the battle was clearly a Babylonian defeat, possibly a rout, as the defeated Babylonian army is not mentioned again in the chronicle. Following the battle the Persian forces "took plunder" from the defeated Babylonians.
Most translations of the Chronicle also refer to a "massacre" of "the people of Akkad",
[Kuhrt, A. ''The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources of the Achaemenid Period'', pp. 48–51. Routledge, 2007. ] though translators disagree on which side was responsible and who was killed – the population of Opis or the retreating Babylonian army.
In Pierre Briant's view, "This victory was followed by an immense haul of booty and the massacre of those who attempted to resist." Andrew Robert Burn comments: "Indeed on one reading of the text, Akkad broke out into open revolt, and Nabonidus' last military achievement was slaughter of rebels." Maria Brosius interprets the massacre as a punitive action, "mak
ngan example of a city trying to resist the Persian army". Cuyler Young comments on the Chronicle accounts: "This reference in the Chronicle suggests that the Persians captured intact the main camp of Nabonidus' army and that, as is so often the case, the real killing of the engagement came after the Babylonians had fallen prey to fear and panic and had retreated from the field."
Amélie Kuhrt comments that the references to a massacre and looting suggest that the battle was "probably a hard-won victory".
[Kuhrt, Amélie. "Usurpation, conquest and ceremonial: from Babylon to Persia". ''Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies'', p. 48. David Cannadine, Simon Price (eds). Cambridge University Press, 1992. ] W. G. Lambert
Wilfred George Lambert FBA (26 February 1926 – 9 November 2011) was a historian and archaeologist, a specialist in Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology.
Early life
Lambert was born in Birmingham, and, having won a scholarship, he was edu ...
argues a contrarian view that there was no massacre or slaughter at all.
The battle is not mentioned in the inscription on the Cyrus Cylinder, which portrays Cyrus as liberating Babylon peacefully and with the consent of its people. However, the battle demonstrates that the existing Babylonian regime actively resisted Cyrus's invasion of Mesopotamia.
Aftermath
The defeat at Opis appears to have ended any serious resistance to the Persian invasion. The Nabonidus Chronicle states that following the battle, "on the fourteenth day
OctoberSippar
Sippar ( Sumerian: , Zimbir) was an ancient Near Eastern Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates river. Its '' tell'' is located at the site of modern Tell Abu Habbah near Yusufiyah in Iraq's Baghdad Governorate, som ...
was captured without battle. Nabonidus fled."
The chronicle's wording implies that Nabonidus was present in Sippar when the Persians arrived. Cyrus remained in Sippar, and "on the sixteenth day
2 OctoberUg/
Gubaru, governor of
Gutium
The Guti () or Quti, also known by the derived exonyms Gutians or Guteans, were a nomadic people of West Asia, around the Zagros Mountains (Modern Iran) during ancient times. Their homeland was known as Gutium ( Sumerian: ,''Gu-tu-umki'' or ,''G ...
, and the army of Cyrus without a battle entered Babylon." Nabonidus himself was captured shortly afterward when he returned to Babylon.
His ultimate fate is unclear, but according to the 3rd century BC Babylonian historian
Berossus
Berossus () or Berosus (; grc, Βηρωσσος, Bērōssos; possibly derived from akk, , romanized: , "Bel is his shepherd") was a Hellenistic-era Babylonian writer, a priest of Bel Marduk and astronomer who wrote in the Koine Greek language ...
, Nabonidus was spared and he went into exile in
Carmania, where he died years later. Persian troops took control of the city, though the Nabonidus Chronicle provides little detail of how this was done. The chronicle makes a point of noting the conquering army's protection of the city's most important temples and records that "Interruption of (rites/cults) in
heEsagila
The Ésagila or Esangil ( sux, , ''"temple whose top is lofty"'') was a temple dedicated to Marduk, the protector god of Babylon. It lay south of the ziggurat Etemenanki.
Description
In this temple was the statue of Marduk, surrounded by cu ...
empleor the
ther Ther may refer to:
*''Thér.'', taxonomic author abbreviation of Irénée Thériot (1859–1947), French bryologist
* Agroha Mound, archaeological site in Agroha, Hisar district, India
*Therapy
*Therapeutic drugs
See also
*''Ther Thiruvizha
''T ...
temples there was none, and no date was missed." Seventeen days later, on 29 October, Cyrus himself entered Babylon, where he was proclaimed king, issued royal proclamations and appointed governors of his newly conquered realm.
Ancient Greek accounts of Cyrus's campaign and the fall of Babylon differ significantly from the cuneiform accounts preserved in the Nabonidus Chronicle and the Cyrus Cylinder, suggesting that the Greeks were drawing on—or perhaps inventing—different traditions about the conquest of Babylonia. The two ancient Greek sources for the campaign, Herodotus and Xenophon, present broadly similar versions of events. According to Herodotus, Cyrus marched to Babylon along the side of the Diyala river (past Opis, though the battle is not mentioned), where the Persians fought a battle with the Babylonians near the capital. Cyrus subsequently laid siege to Babylon, ordering his troops to dig a canal to drain off part of the Euphrates to enable his troops to penetrate the city through weak points in its defences. Xenophon provides a similar but more elaborate account, claiming that Cyrus dug a huge trench around the city to divert the Euphrates and make the river bed passable for the Persian army. Herodotus, Xenophon and the Biblical
Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th century BC setting. Ostensibly "an account of the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at Babylon", it combines a prophecy of history with an eschatology ...
all assert that the Babylonians were taken by surprise while celebrating a festival.
[ Beaulieu, Paul-Alain. ''The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon, 556-539 B.C.'', p. 226. Yale University Press, 1990. ]
Berossus presents an account that is different again, asserting that Cyrus defeated Nabonidus, who "fled with certain others and shut himself up in
Borsippa
Borsippa ( Sumerian: BAD.SI.(A).AB.BAKI; Akkadian: ''Barsip'' and ''Til-Barsip'')The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory': Vol. 1, Part 1. Accessed 15 Dec 2010. or Birs Nimrud (having been identified with Nimrod) is an archeologi ...
. Meanwhile Cyrus occupied Babylon and ordered to destroy the exterior walls of the city, because the city seemed very formidable to him and difficult to capture. Afterward Cyrus marched to Borsippa, in order to organize the siege against Nabonidus. But Nabonidus did not await the end of the siege, and surrendered."
These accounts, written long after the Persian conquest, contradict many aspects of the contemporary cuneiform evidence, which does not mention any sieges, engineering works or battles near Babylon. The cuneiform descriptions of a peaceful surrender of Babylon are corroborated by archaeological evidence from the city, as no evidence of conflagrations or destruction have been found in the layers corresponding to the fall of the city to the Persians.
Scholars are in general agreement that Herodotus's account is an invention, while Kuhrt comments that Xenophon's account in his ''
Cyropedia
The ''Cyropaedia'', sometimes spelled ''Cyropedia'', is a partly fictional biography of Cyrus the Great, the founder of Persia's Achaemenid Empire. It was written around 370 BC by Xenophon, the Athenian-born soldier, historian, and student of S ...
'' is "virtually impossible to use ... as a strictly historical source" due to its literary form, as a moral treatise on Cyrus in the form of an historical novella.
Paul-Alain Beaulieu
Paul-Alain Beaulieu is a Canadian Assyriologist, a Professor of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto.
Beaulieu earned a master's degree from the Université de Montréal in 1980 under the supervision of Marcel Leib ...
suggests that the Greek accounts may constitute an aggregate of various folk tales and legends which came to be associated with the fall of Babylon."
David George Hogarth
David George Hogarth (23 May 1862 – 6 November 1927), also known as D. G. Hogarth, was a British archaeologist and scholar associated with T. E. Lawrence and Arthur Evans. He was Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford from 1909 to 1927.
Hog ...
and
Samuel Rolles Driver
Samuel Rolles Driver (2 October 1846 – 26 February 1914) was an English divine and Hebrew scholar. He devoted his life to the study, both textual and critical, of the Old Testament. He was the father of Sir Godfrey Rolles Driver, also a disti ...
comment on what they saw as Herodotus's unreliability:
According to the
Behistun Inscription, Babylon revolted twice against Darius, and was recaptured on the second occasion by his general Gobryas. Herodotus only mentions the first revolt of Babylon in which Zopyrus captured the city for Darius, and omits this second revolt.
Historiography
The Babylonian defeat at Opis and the apparently unopposed Persian entry into Babylon ended the independence of Babylonia (although there were a number of unsuccessful revolts against later Persian rulers). That the Babylonian collapse was swift and apparently total is confirmed by the ancient accounts of Cyrus's campaign in Mesopotamia and corroborating evidence such as cuneiform inscriptions dating to shortly after the Persian conquest. A number of explanations have been advanced for the rapid collapse of the Babylonian state. The Cyrus Cylinder and the roughly contemporary
Verse Account of Nabonidus attribute Nabonidus's failure to the desire of the god
Marduk
Marduk (Cuneiform: dAMAR.UTU; Sumerian: ''amar utu.k'' "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) was a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of ...
to punish a regime that had opposed his will. The strongly anti-Nabonidus tone of these documents, which accused the former king of behaving capriciously and neglecting the worship of the gods, suggests that their authors – the Babylonian priestly elite – were alienated from Nabonidus and may have welcomed a Persian takeover. It is, however, unclear how widely the Persians were supported within Babylonia, as accounts of the invasion and Nabonidus's rule are coloured by Cyrus's subsequent propaganda.
[McIntosh, Jane. ''Ancient Mesopotamia'', pp. 113–14. ABC-CLIO, 2005. ]
Other writers have advanced a number of additional or alternative explanations for the Babylonian defeat. M. A. Dandamaev suggests variously that the regime suffered from a lack of allies; a lack of support among the general population; opposition from subject peoples such as the Jews, who may have seen the invading Persians as liberators; and the inability of the Babylonian forces to resist numerically superior and better equipped opponents.
References
{{Cyrus the Great
539 BC
Opis
Opis (Akkadian ''Upî'' or ''Upija''; grc, Ὦπις) was an ancient Babylonian city near the Tigris, not far from modern Baghdad. Akkadian and Greek texts indicate that it was located on the east side of the Tigris, near the Diyala River.
T ...
6th century BC
Opis
Opis (Akkadian ''Upî'' or ''Upija''; grc, Ὦπις) was an ancient Babylonian city near the Tigris, not far from modern Baghdad. Akkadian and Greek texts indicate that it was located on the east side of the Tigris, near the Diyala River.
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Opis
Opis (Akkadian ''Upî'' or ''Upija''; grc, Ὦπις) was an ancient Babylonian city near the Tigris, not far from modern Baghdad. Akkadian and Greek texts indicate that it was located on the east side of the Tigris, near the Diyala River.
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Neo-Babylonian Empire
Nabonidus