Editing History of Iraq (section)

==Classical Antiquity==
===Achaemenid and Seleucid rule===
{{Main|Babylonia (Persian province)|Achaemenid Assyria|Seleucid Empire}}
[[File:The story of the ancient nations - a text-book for high schools (1912) (14766210391).jpg|thumb|[[Seleucia]] was the capital of the [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic]] Seleucid Empire]]
Mesopotamia was conquered by the [[Achaemenid Empire|Achaemenid Persians]] under [[Cyrus the Great]] in 539 BC, and remained under Persian rule for two centuries.

The Persian Empire fell to [[Alexander the Great|Alexander of Macedon]] in 331 BC and came under [[Hellenistic Greece|Greek]] rule as part of the [[Seleucid Empire]]. [[Babylon]] declined after the founding of [[Seleucia on the Tigris]], the new [[Seleucid Empire]] capital. The Seleucid Empire at the height of its power stretched from the Aegean in the west to [[Indo-Greeks|India]] in the east. It was a major center of [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic]] culture that maintained the preeminence of [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] customs where a Greek political elite dominated, mostly in the urban areas.<ref name="Steven C. Hause, William S. Maltby 2004 76">{{cite book | author=Steven C. Hause, William S. Maltby |title=Western civilization: a history of European society | url=https://archive.org/details/westerncivilizat0000haus | url-access=registration |publisher=Thomson Wadsworth |year=2004 |page=[https://archive.org/details/westerncivilizat0000haus/page/76 76] |isbn= 978-0-534-62164-3 |quote= The Greco-Macedonian Elite. The Seleucids respected the cultural and religious sensibilities of their subjects but preferred to rely on Greek or Macedonian soldiers and administrators for the day-to-day business of governing. The Greek population of the cities, reinforced until the second century BCE by immigration from Greece, formed a dominant, although not especially cohesive, elite. }}</ref> The Greek population of the cities who formed the dominant elite were reinforced by immigration from [[Ancient Greece|Greece]].<ref name="Steven C. Hause, William S. Maltby 2004 76"/><ref name="Glubb, Sir John Bagot 1967 34">{{cite book|author= Glubb, Sir John Bagot|title=Syria, Lebanon, Jordan|publisher=Thames & Hudson|year=1967|page=34|oclc=585939|quote=In addition to the court and the army, Syrian cities were full of Greek businessmen, many of them pure Greeks from Greece. The senior posts in the civil service were also held by Greeks. Although the Ptolemies and the Seleucids were perpetual rivals, both dynasties were Greek and ruled by means of Greek officials and Greek soldiers. Both governments made great efforts to attract immigrants from Greece, thereby adding yet another racial element to the population. }}</ref> Much of the eastern part of the empire was conquered by the [[Parthian Empire|Parthians]] under [[Mithridates I of Parthia]] in the mid-2nd century BC.

===Parthian and Roman rule===
{{Main|Asoristan|Osroene|Adiabene|Mesopotamia (Roman province)|Assyria (Roman province)}}
[[File:Charles_Le_Brun_-_Entry_of_Alexander_into_Babylon.JPG|alt=|thumb|"Entry of Alexander into Babylon", a 1665 painting by [[Charles LeBrun]], depicts Alexander the Great's uncontested entry into the city of Babylon, envisioned with pre-existing [[Ancient Greek architecture|Hellenistic architecture]].]] At the beginning of the 2nd century AD, the [[Roman Empire|Romans]], led by emperor [[Trajan]], invaded Parthia and conquered Mesopotamia, making it an imperial province. It was returned to the Parthians shortly after by Trajan's successor, [[Hadrian]].

[[Early Christianity|Christianity]] reached Mesopotamia in the 1st century AD, and [[Roman Syria]] in particular became the center of [[East Syrian Rite|Eastern Rite]] Christianity and the [[Syriac Christianity|Syriac]] literary tradition. [[Mandeism]] is also believed to have either originated there around this time or entered as Mandaeans sought refuge from Palestine.
Sumerian-Akkadian religious tradition disappeared during this period, as did the last remnants of [[cuneiform]] literacy, although temples were still being dedicated to the Assyrian national god [[Ashur (god)|Ashur]] in his home city as late as the 4th century.<ref name="George Roux - Ancient Iraq">George Roux – Ancient Iraq</ref>

===Sassanid Empire===
{{Main|Asoristan}}
[[File:The Sasanian Empire at its apex under Khosrow II.svg|thumb|The [[Sasanian Empire]] at its greatest extent in c. 620 under [[Khosrow II]]]]
In the 3rd century AD, the Parthians were in turn succeeded by the [[Sassanid dynasty]], which ruled Mesopotamia until the 7th-century Islamic invasion. The Sassanids conquered the independent states of [[Adiabene]], [[Osroene]], [[Hatra]], and finally [[Assur]] during the 3rd century. In the mid-6th century, the Persian Empire under the Sassanid dynasty was divided by [[Khosrow I]] into four quarters, of which the western one, called ''Khvārvarān'', included most of modern Iraq, and was subdivided into the provinces of ''Mishān'', [[Asuristān]] ([[Assyria]]), [[Adiabene]], and Lower Media. The term Iraq is widely used in the medieval Arabic sources for the area in the center and south of the modern republic as a geographic rather than a political term, implying no greater precision of boundaries than the term "Mesopotamia" or, indeed, many of the names of modern states before the 20th century.

There was a substantial influx of [[Arabs]] in the Sassanid period. [[Upper Mesopotamia]] came to be known as ''Al-Jazirah'' in Arabic (meaning "The Island" in reference to the "island" between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), and Lower Mesopotamia came to be known as ''[[name of Iraq|ʿIrāq-i ʿArab]]'', meaning "the escarpment of the Arabs" (viz. to the south and east of "the island").<ref>possibly an Arabic folk etymology of an older toponym deriving from the name of ''[[Uruk]]'', see [[name of Iraq]].</ref>

Until 602, the desert frontier of the Persian Empire had been guarded by the Arab [[Lakhmid]] kings of [[Al-Hirah]]. In that year, [[Shahanshah]] [[Khosrow II]] Aparviz (Persian خسرو پرويز) abolished the Lakhmid kingdom and laid the frontier open to nomad incursions. Farther north, the western quarter was bounded by the Byzantine Empire. The frontier more or less followed the modern [[Syria-Iraq border]] and continued northward, passing between [[Nusaybin|Nisibis]] (modern Nusaybin) as the Sassanian frontier fortress and Dara and [[Amida (Mesopotamia)|Amida]] (modern [[Diyarbakır]]) held by the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantines]].