Editing Babylonia (section)

===Fall of Babylon===
{{Further|Fall of Babylon |Achaemenid Assyria}}
[[File:Xerxes I tomb Babylonian soldier circa 470 BCE.jpg|thumb|Babylonian soldier of the [[Achaemenid army]], circa 480 BC. Relief of the tomb of [[Xerxes I]].]]
Babylonia was absorbed into the [[Achaemenid Empire]] in 539 BC, becoming the [[satrapy]] of Babirush ({{langx|peo|[[:wikt:𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽|𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽]]|Bābiruš}}).

A year before Cyrus' death, in 529 BC, he elevated his son [[Cambyses II]] in the government, making him king of Babylon. He reserved for himself the fuller title of "king of the (other) provinces" of the empire. It was only when [[Darius I]] acquired the Persian throne and ruled it as a representative of the [[Zoroastrianism|Zoroastrian religion]] that the old tradition was broken and the claim of Babylon to confer legitimacy on the rulers of [[West Asia]] ceased to be acknowledged.{{sfn|Sayce|1911|p=106}}

Immediately after Darius seized Persia, Babylonia briefly recovered its independence under a native ruler, Nidinta-Bel, who took the name of [[Nebuchadnezzar III]], and reigned from October 522 BC to August 520 BC, when Darius took the city by storm. During this period Assyria to the north also rebelled. A few years later, probably 514 BC, Babylon again revolted under the [[Urartians|Urartian]] king [[Nebuchadnezzar IV]]; on this occasion, after its capture by the Persians, the walls were partly destroyed. The [[Esagila]], the great temple of [[Marduk]], however, still continued to be kept in repair and to be a center of Babylonian religious feelings.{{sfn|Sayce|1911|p=106}}

[[Alexander the Great]] conquered Babylon in 333 BC for the [[Macedonia (ancient kingdom)|Macedonians]], and died there in 323 BC. Babylonia and Assyria then became part of the Greek [[Seleucid Empire]].{{citation needed|date=April 2017}} It has long been maintained that the foundation of [[Seleucia]] diverted the population to the new capital of [[Lower Mesopotamia]] and that the ruins of the old city became a quarry for the builders of the new seat of government,{{sfn|Sayce|1911|p=106}} but the recent publication of the ''[[Babylonian Chronicles]]'' has shown that urban life was still very much the same well into the [[Parthian Empire]] (150 BC to 226 AD). The Parthian king [[Mithridates I of Parthia|Mithridates]] conquered the region into the Parthian Empire in 150 BC, and the region became something of a battleground between Greeks and Parthians.

There was a brief interlude of [[Roman Empire|Roman]] conquest (the provinces of [[Assyria (Roman province)|Assyria]] and [[Mesopotamia (Roman province)|Mesopotamia]]; 116–118 AD) under [[Trajan]], after which the Parthians reasserted control.

The [[satrap]]y of Babylonia was absorbed into [[Asōristān]] ([[Middle Persian]] for "the land of Assyria") in the [[Sasanian Empire]], which began in 226 AD, and by this time [[East Syriac Rite|East Syriac Rite Christianity]], which emerged in Assyria and Upper Mesopotamia the first century, had become the dominant religion among the [[Assyrian people]], who had never adopted the [[Zoroastrianism]] or [[Hellenistic religion]] or the languages of their rulers.

Apart from the small [[2nd century BC]] to [[3rd century]] AD independent Neo-Assyrian states of [[Adiabene]], [[Osroene]], [[Assur]], [[Beth Garmai]], [[Beth Nuhadra]] and [[Hatra]] in the north, Mesopotamia remained under largely Persian control until the Arab [[Muslim conquest of Persia]] in the seventh century AD. Asōristān was dissolved as a geopolitical entity in 637, and the native [[Eastern Aramaic languages|Eastern Aramaic]]-speaking and largely Christian populace of southern and central Mesopotamia (with the exception of the [[Mandeans]]) gradually underwent [[Arabization]] and [[Islamization]], in contrast to northern Mesopotamia where an [[Assyrian continuity]] endures to the present day.