Babylon under Persian Rule

Babylonia was part of the Persian Empire for just over two hundred years, from Cyrus’s conquest in 539 BCE to Alexander’s arrival in 331 BCE. It was the empire’s wealthiest province and one of its royal residences, and tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets from its temples and business houses make it the best-documented part of the empire. They show Babylonian institutions carrying on under Persian control, two serious waves of revolt, and a gradual tightening of royal power over the old temple cities.

The fall of the city to Cyrus, and what the Cyrus Cylinder claims about it, are told on Cyrus takes Babylon. Cyrus’s policy towards the exiled peoples of Babylonia, including the Judeans, is on Cyrus and the return of the Jews. This page is about what came after.

A kingdom inside an empire

Cyrus did not destroy the Babylonian state; he took it over. He called himself “king of Babylon, king of the lands”, and for a short time his son Cambyses held the title of king of Babylon under him. Babylonian scribes went on dating documents by the year of the reigning king, using the same calendar and legal forms as before.

From 535 BCE a Persian named Gubaru governed one enormous province stretching from Babylonia across Syria to the borders of Egypt. At some point this was divided, with “Beyond the River” (Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine) becoming a satrapy of its own. Some historians date the split to Darius I, others to Xerxes. Babylon itself became one of the residences of the court: Xenophon says the kings spent the winter months there, the spring at Susa and the summer at Ecbatana.

The revolts of 522–521 and 484 BCE

Babylonia rebelled twice in Darius I’s first two years. In 522 BCE Nidintu-Bel claimed to be Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus, and held Babylon until Darius defeated him in battle. The next year a man named Arakha, called an Armenian in the Behistun inscription, took the same name and was also defeated and executed. Both are shown among the captive kings on the Behistun relief, and their risings are part of the great revolts of 522–521 BCE.

In 484 BCE, early in Xerxes’ reign, two more rebels, Bel-shimanni and Shamash-eriba, claimed the kingship in northern Babylonia; older studies date the second revolt to 482. Xerxes’ forces crushed them, as told on Xerxes I. What followed is debated. Greek writers say Xerxes removed the great statue from the temple of Marduk, and some historians once believed he wrecked the temple Esagila and ended Babylonian kingship. Since the 1980s Amélie Kuhrt, Susan Sherwin-White and others have argued that the evidence for destruction is weak. What is clear from the tablets is a sharp break: the archives of many old families who had served in the temples of northern Babylonia stop in 484, suggesting that Xerxes punished the urban elite who had supported the rebels and replaced them with more reliable men.

Temples and taxes

The great temples of Babylonia were landowners and employers on a vast scale, with herds, date groves, workshops and thousands of dependants. The Persians left them in place but placed royal officials beside their administrators, demanded taxes in silver and produce, and called up temple workers for royal building projects and military service. The archive of the Eanna temple at Uruk shows temple staff being sent to work for the king as far away as Elam, the region of Susa. In the Ebabbar temple at Sippar, the records show tight royal control of temple finances under Cambyses and Darius.

Business houses: the Egibi and the Murashu

Two family archives give a close view of the economy. The Egibi of Babylon were a business family whose tablets cover five generations, from the late Babylonian kings into the reign of Xerxes. They traded in goods and land, lent money, and acted as agents collecting payments for the crown and for officials; members of the family travelled to Persia and Elam on business. Their archive ends around 484 BCE, at the same time as the revolts.

The Murashu family of Nippur flourished later, under Artaxerxes I and Darius II, and their roughly 700 to 800 tablets date mostly between about 455 and 403 BCE. They managed land that the king had given to soldiers, courtiers and Persian nobles, including members of the royal family, in return for military service and taxes. The Murashu leased these estates, provided seed, oxen and water from royal canals, collected the rents and paid the taxes in silver. Their documents show Persians, Babylonians, Jews and other groups living and working side by side, and how the empire’s land grants and taxes worked on the ground. The coins and money system behind this are described on the daric and the Achaemenid economy.

The wealth of Babylonia in Greek eyes

Herodotus says that Babylonia and Assyria paid 1,000 talents of silver a year and 500 boys to be made eunuchs, the highest silver tribute of any province, and that it fed the king’s household for four months of the year. He adds an unconfirmed story about the satrap Tritantaechmes, whose daily income was a large measure of silver and who kept 800 stallions, 16,000 mares and so many Indian hounds that four villages were freed from other taxes to feed them. Even allowing for exaggeration, the figures show how Greeks saw the province: as the treasury of Asia.

Babylonian culture under Persian kings

Persian rule did not end Babylonian learning. Scribes in Babylon kept the Astronomical Diaries, nightly records of the sky, prices and events, throughout the period, and Babylonian astronomy reached its high point in these centuries. Cuneiform remained the language of temples and law, while Aramaic spread as the everyday written language of the administration. In 331 BCE, after Gaugamela, the satrap Mazaeus surrendered the city to Alexander, who kept him as governor and planned to make Babylon the capital of his own empire. Compare Egypt under Persian rule, the other great ancient kingdom in the empire.