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Historical Period

Babylonia under the Great Kings, Alexander, the Seleucids, and Parthia.

Use the timeline below to navigate through major events and milestones.

Persian, Greek & Parthian Babylonia · 539 BC-224 AD
Classical Mesopotamia

Persian, Greek & Parthian Babylonia

For seven centuries the land between the rivers was a prize fought over by outsiders — the richest satrapy of the Persian kings, the deathbed of Alexander the Great, the seat of Greek Seleucia and Parthian Ctesiphon, and the border where Rome and Parthia bled. Babylon slowly faded and its ancient script died out, even as new cities rose beside it. Slide across the classical age of Mesopotamia.

539 BC
Achaemenid Babylonia
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539 BC

Achaemenid Babylonia
  • Political

    The jewel of the Persian Empire

    Babylonia becomes the wealthiest province of the Achaemenid empire, and its kings winter in Babylon's palaces.

10 milestones

Meanwhile

Around 539 BC

Full Chronicle

Persian, Greek & Parthian Babylonia

For seven centuries the land between the rivers was a prize fought over by outsiders — the richest satrapy of the Persian kings, the deathbed of Alexander the Great, the seat of Greek Seleucia and Parthian Ctesiphon, and the border where Rome and Parthia bled. Babylon slowly faded and its ancient script died out, even as new cities rose beside it. Slide across the classical age of Mesopotamia.

  1. Achaemenid Babylonia

    • The jewel of the Persian Empire

      Babylonia becomes the wealthiest province of the Achaemenid empire, and its kings winter in Babylon's palaces.

  2. Achaemenid Babylonia

    • Babylon revolts against Darius

      Twice, pretenders claiming to be a son of Nabonidus raise Babylon in revolt, and twice Darius I crushes them.

  3. Achaemenid Babylonia

    • Xerxes ends the kingship of Babylon

      After another revolt, Xerxes drops the title 'King of Babylon' and the city's separate royal identity ends.

  4. Achaemenid Babylonia

    • The Ten Thousand at Cunaxa

      Near Babylon, a Greek mercenary army fights at Cunaxa in a Persian civil war — the march home told in Xenophon's Anabasis.

  5. Macedonian Conquest

    • Alexander enters Babylon

      After his victory at Gaugamela, Alexander the Great is welcomed into Babylon and orders its temples restored.

  6. Macedonian Conquest

    • The death of Alexander

      Alexander the Great dies of fever in Nebuchadnezzar's palace at Babylon, and his empire is torn apart by his generals.

  7. Seleucid Empire

    • Seleucia-on-the-Tigris

      Seleucus I founds a vast new Greek capital on the Tigris, and the population of old Babylon drifts away to it.

  8. Parthian Empire

    • The Parthians take Babylonia

      Mithridates I of Parthia conquers Mesopotamia, and Ctesiphon on the Tigris becomes the seat of a new empire.

  9. Parthian Empire

    • The last cuneiform

      The final datable cuneiform tablets are written in Babylon — the end of a script three thousand years old.

  10. Rome & Parthia

    • Trajan reaches the Persian Gulf

      The Roman emperor Trajan sacks Ctesiphon and marches to the Gulf, the high-water mark of Rome in Mesopotamia.