Fall of Babylon to Cyrus the Great (539 BC): End of an Empire

The fall of Babylon in 539 BC was the conquest of the Neo-Babylonian Empire by Cyrus the Great, king of Persia. After defeating the Babylonian army at Opis on the Tigris, Persian forces entered the city of Babylon in October 539 BC, apparently without a major battle, and captured its last king, Nabonidus. The event ended the last great Mesopotamian-ruled empire and made the Achaemenid Persians masters of the Near East from the Aegean to Central Asia.

Background: the Neo-Babylonian Empire

Babylon had been one of the great cities of the ancient world for more than a thousand years, since the age of Hammurabi in the 18th century BC. In 626 BC a Chaldean leader, Nabopolassar, made himself king of Babylon and, with the Medes, destroyed the Assyrian Empire. His son Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605-562 BC) conquered Syria and Judah and rebuilt Babylon on a grand scale, with new walls, palaces and the Ishtar Gate.

After Nebuchadnezzar’s death, three kings followed in quick succession. In 556 BC the throne passed to Nabonidus, an elderly official who was not a member of the royal family. His mother, Adad-guppi, was a devotee of Sin, the moon god of Harran in northern Mesopotamia (now south-eastern Turkey).

An absent king

Nabonidus was an unusual ruler. He showed special devotion to Sin and spent about ten years, from around 552 to 543 BC, at the oasis of Tayma in north-west Arabia, as described in Nabonidus at Tayma. During this time his son Belshazzar governed in Babylon.

Because the king was absent, the New Year (Akitu) festival, the most important ceremony of Babylon’s god Marduk, could not be performed properly for several years. The Nabonidus Chronicle notes this repeatedly. Later texts written under Persian rule portray Nabonidus as impious and as an enemy of Marduk’s priesthood. Historians debate how much of this hostility was real at the time and how much was Persian propaganda written after the conquest.

The rise of Cyrus

Meanwhile Cyrus had overthrown the Median king Astyages around 550 BC and conquered Lydia around 547-546 BC, as told in Fall of Sardis. By the late 540s BC Persia surrounded Babylonia on the north and east. Nabonidus returned from Arabia in about 543 BC, perhaps aware of the growing danger.

The campaign of 539 BC

The main contemporary source is the Nabonidus Chronicle, a Babylonian clay tablet now in the British Museum. It is damaged in places, but its account of 539 BC is brief and precise.

In the months before the attack, Nabonidus ordered the statues of the gods of several Babylonian cities to be brought into Babylon, probably to protect them. This was a traditional precaution in wartime, but it may also have offended local priesthoods.

The Battle of Opis

In the month of Tashritu (September-October) 539 BC, Cyrus fought the Babylonian army at Opis, on the Tigris north of Babylon. The Chronicle says the Babylonians were defeated and retreated, and that Cyrus carried off plunder and killed people. This line is significant, because it shows that the conquest was not entirely peaceful, despite later Persian claims.

Sippar and Babylon

On the 14th day of Tashritu (about 10 October), Sippar was taken without a battle, and Nabonidus fled. Two days later, on the 16th (about 12 October), Ugbaru, the governor of the region of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus entered Babylon without a fight. Nabonidus was captured when he returned to the city.

The Chronicle says that soldiers from Gutium surrounded the gates of the Esagila, Marduk’s great temple, but that no weapons were brought in and religious rituals went on without interruption. This suggests a careful effort to avoid offending the city’s priests.

On 3 Arahsamnu (about 29 October 539 BC), Cyrus himself entered Babylon. According to the Chronicle, green branches were spread before him and peace was imposed on the city. A governor named Gubaru appointed local officials. The Chronicle also records the death of Ugbaru shortly afterwards; whether Ugbaru and Gubaru were one man or two is still discussed.

How Cyrus presented his rule

Cyrus did not present himself as a foreign conqueror. A clay foundation text written in Babylonian, now known as the Cyrus Cylinder, describes Nabonidus as a wicked king who neglected Marduk. It claims that Marduk himself chose Cyrus to restore order and let him enter Babylon without a battle.

The Cylinder says Cyrus restored temples, returned divine statues to their home cities and allowed displaced people to go back to their settlements. A Babylonian poem known as the Verse Account of Nabonidus attacks the fallen king in similar terms. Both texts follow long Mesopotamian traditions in which a new ruler justified himself by condemning his predecessor.

Cyrus took the traditional title “king of Babylon, king of the lands”. In 538 BC his son Cambyses took part in the New Year festival and was briefly named king of Babylon. Babylonian scribes dated documents by Cyrus’s reign, and daily business, temple administration and trade continued.

Key people

• Cyrus II (Cyrus the Great): Founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, who ruled from about 559 to 530 BC.
• Nabonidus: Last king of Babylon (r. 556-539 BC), devoted to the moon god Sin and long absent in Arabia.
• Belshazzar: Son of Nabonidus and regent in Babylon during his father’s absence; his fate in 539 BC is not recorded in Babylonian sources.
• Ugbaru: Governor of Gutium who led the Persian troops into Babylon; often identified with the Gobryas of Xenophon.
• Gubaru: Official who appointed governors after the conquest and later served as governor of Babylonia.

Greek and biblical traditions

Herodotus, writing about a century later, describes a long siege of Babylon. In his account Cyrus diverted the Euphrates into a basin, lowered the river and sent his troops along the riverbed into the city, while the inhabitants were celebrating a festival and did not notice the enemy inside. Xenophon’s Cyropaedia gives a similar story and adds that the Babylonian king was killed.

Neither story matches the Babylonian chronicle, which describes a quick entry without fighting. Many historians therefore treat the river story as a later legend, though some think a short blockade may have taken place.

The Book of Daniel describes Belshazzar’s feast, at which mysterious writing appears on the wall and announces the end of his kingdom. It says Belshazzar was killed that night and the kingdom passed to “Darius the Mede”. The phrase “the writing on the wall” comes from this story. No Darius the Mede is known from contemporary records, and Daniel is generally dated by scholars to the 2nd century BC.

Consequences

The fall of Babylon gave Cyrus a huge, rich and well-administered territory, including Mesopotamia, Syria, Phoenicia and the former kingdom of Judah. Babylonia became one of the wealthiest provinces of the Persian Empire, and its scribal and legal traditions continued under Persian rule.

For the Judean exiles living in Babylonia since the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 or 586 BC, the conquest opened the way to return. The Book of Ezra records a decree of Cyrus allowing Jews to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. For this reason Cyrus is praised in the Hebrew Bible, and the prophet known as Second Isaiah calls him the Lord’s anointed.

Babylon did not accept Persian rule permanently without resistance. Two rebels claiming to be sons of Nabonidus seized power in 522-521 BC, each taking the name Nebuchadnezzar, and further revolts broke out under Xerxes in 484 BC. All were suppressed. Babylon remained an important city until Alexander the Great, who died there in 323 BC.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 626 BC: Nabopolassar becomes king of Babylon, founding the Neo-Babylonian dynasty.
• 605-562 BC: Reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, the empire’s height.
• 556 BC: Nabonidus becomes king.
• c. 552-543 BC: Nabonidus lives at Tayma in Arabia; Belshazzar governs Babylon.
• c. 550 BC: Cyrus overthrows the Median king Astyages.
• 539 BC, September-October: Cyrus defeats the Babylonian army at Opis.
• 539 BC, about 10 October: Sippar falls without a battle; Nabonidus flees.
• 539 BC, about 12 October: Persian troops under Ugbaru enter Babylon.
• 539 BC, about 29 October: Cyrus makes his formal entry into Babylon.
• 538 BC: Cambyses takes part in the New Year festival; the return of Judean exiles begins under Cyrus.

Why it matters

The fall of Babylon ended a long line of empires ruled from Mesopotamia, stretching back to Akkad in the 3rd millennium BC, and created the largest state the world had yet seen. The way Cyrus presented his conquest, as a restorer chosen by the local god rather than as a destroyer, became a model for Persian rule over many peoples. Through the Bible and Greek historians, the event also passed into Western culture, from Belshazzar’s feast to the idea of Cyrus as a tolerant ruler.