Editing History of Iraq (section)

===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.