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BABYLON (Ancient city) MESSOPOTAMIA
Alexander's successors:
The settlement at Babylon
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
The peace treaty of 311 did not inaugurate a true age of peace. On
the contrary. Every signatory had a secret agenda and used the warless years to
build new armies and prepare for war. The period of uneasy peace lasted until
307.
Antigonus Monophthalmus used the truce to attack Seleucus, the satrap
of Babylon, who had not signed the treaty. Seleucus' arrival at Babylon can be
dated between May 13 and June 1, 311. Although there was some fighting in one
of the citadels, the assault on the world's largest city had been an easy success,
which had been facilitated by the fact that the satrap of Babylon, Peithon, had
died a few months earlier in the battle of Gaza.
Almost immediately, the satrap of Media,
Antigonus' friend Nicanor, and the satrap of Aria, Euagoras, marched on Babylon,
but Seleucus was waiting for them near the Tigris. When Euagoras was killed during
the battle, his men went over to Seleucus, and Nicanor was forced to retreat.
Seleucus immediately took Nicanor's capital Ecbatana
and enlisted his soldiers in his own army. He now marched to the south, where
he captured Susa and added
Elam to his possessions. In a half year's time, he had become a powerful ruler,
and he accepted the title Nicator, 'victor'.
He was still in Elam when Demetrius arrived on the scene. By this
time, the peace treaty was in the making, and Antigonus could afford to send soldiers
to the east. In September, the attackers started to besiege the two citadels of
Babylon. (He was to become famous by this type opf warfare.) When the first one
was captured and looted, the main force left the city, leaving one Archelaus as
satrap to take the second citadel. Seleucus had orders to return, and Seleucus
organized a guerilla war against Archelaus. It is not known whether (and if, when),
the second citadel was forced into surrender.
In August, when the peace treaty was in force, Antigonus himself arrived
at Babylon. There were street-fights, and Antigonus was unable to capture all
buildings he wanted to take. The struggle in the streets lasted until after April
10, 309, New Year's day. During the summer, Antigonus conducted punitive campaigns
in the neighborhood, and Seleucus continued the guerilla.
Finally, Seleucus and Antigonus met each other in a full-scale battle.
Seleucus ordered his men to have breakfast during the night, and attacked before
dawn. His enemies were hungry and unarmed, and Antigonus was forced to go back
to Syria (August 30 or 31).
The two parties must have concluded a peace treaty, because Seleucus proceeded
to conquer the eastern satrapies, and Antigonus was active in the west.
He had every reason to return. In the meantime, Ptolemy had added
Cyprus to his territories,
and moved to the Aegean Sea,
where he gained a bridgehead on the island Cos.
From there, he sailed to Delos,
where he reorganized the Nesiotic League, which would support the ruler of Egypt.
Antigonus now was compelled to focus on the west.
Seleucus now had a free hand to go to the east. Here, he conquered
Bactria and invaded India. His victories were duly commemorated with a coin issue
- although the particlar coin to the right was struck a quarter of a century after
the events.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
Introduction
In October 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus took Babylon, the ancient
capital of an oriental monarchy covering modern Iraq,
Syria, Lebanon,
and Israel. In a broader
sense, Babylon was the ancient world's capital of scholarship and science. The
subject provinces soon recognized Cyrus as their legitimate ruler. Since he was
already lord of peripheral regions in modern Turkey
and Iran (and Afghanistan?),
it is not exaggerated to say that the capture of Babylon meant the birth of a
true world empire. The Achaemenid empire was to last for more than two centuries,
until it was divided by the successors of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great.
A remarkable aspect of the capture of Babylon is the fact that Cyrus allowed the
Jews (who were exiled in Babylonia) to return home.
Several texts describe this event:
The Chronicle of Nabonidus gives contemporary information about the rise
of Cyrus and the erratic behavior of the Babylonian king Nabonidus, who leaves
Babylon and spends several years in the oasis Tema in Arabia. His son Belsharusur
(the biblical Belshazzar) acts as regent but is unable to ward off the approaching
Persian danger. Finally, Nabonidus returns and fights. But it is in vain; Cyrus
is welcomed as representative of the supreme god.
The Verse account of Nabonidus is a poem by one of the priests of the Esagila,
the temple of the Babylonian supreme god Marduk. It shows that they were upset
because the important New Year's festival (Akitu) had not been celebrated in the
king's absence. The author of this libel does little to hide his contempt for
the impious madman.
The prophet Daniel tells a story about the madness of another king of Babylonia,
Nebuchadnezzar. There are several details in this story that make it plausible
that the original story was about Nabonidus. Reconstruction of this original is
possible through comparison with the text known as the Prayer of Nabonidus.
The text known as the Cyrus Cylinder does not care about the reason for
Nabonidus' behavior. The new king presents himself -according to the priest who
wrote this text- as the one chosen by the supreme god to liberate Babylon from
tyranny. We may speculate that Cyrus considered himself to be on a divine mission,
under guidance of the Persian supreme god Ahuramazda; the Babylonian clerk who
wrote down this text calls the god who had lead Cyrus to victory Marduk. Cyrus
also boasts that he has liberated many people who were exiled to Babylon.
The Jewish prophet known as Second Isaiah tells more or less the same story:
the Persian ruler is chosen by a supreme god (the God of the Jews, in his view)
and after winning a victory, Cyrus allows the Jews to go back home.
The prophet Ezra gives us the -probably authentic- text of Cyrus' decree
on the exiled Jews.
The Greek researcher Herodotus, finally, has a very unreliable story about
the Fall of Babylon.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
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