Cyrus the Great Conquers Babylon
The last independent Mesopotamian empire fell to the Persians in a single campaign, ending three thousand years of native rule
Quick facts
- Conqueror
- Cyrus the Great of Persia
- Fall of Babylon
- 539 BCE
- Deposed king
- Nabonidus
- Result
- Babylon absorbed into the Achaemenid Persian Empire
What happened
In 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus the Great invaded the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following the Diyala river toward Babylon and reportedly digging canals to divert its flow and ease the crossing. Cyrus's forces met and routed the Babylonian army near Opis, after which the city of Sippar opened its gates without resistance. The Babylonian king Nabonidus fled, and Cyrus sent his officer Ugbaru, governor of Gutium, to take Babylon itself; only the temple district of Esagil held out briefly under Babylonian control before the city fell. Two weeks later, Cyrus entered Babylon in person amid public celebration, and he added 'king of Babylon' to his royal titles, inheriting the whole of the former Babylonian Empire's territory with, by most accounts, little further resistance.
Why it matters
Cyrus's conquest ended roughly three thousand years of native Mesopotamian rule, folding the region into the vast Achaemenid Persian Empire and closing the era this timeline covers. It also marks the point where Mesopotamian political history and Persian imperial history become the same story.
How we know
The Nabonidus Chronicle, a contemporary Babylonian cuneiform record, describes the military campaign and Cyrus's entry into Babylon in close to real time, giving historians an account written within the same generation as the events rather than reconstructed from later legend.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Cyrus the Great · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Cyrus the Great (entering Babylon) · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Part of a timelineAncient Mesopotamia30 events · The land between the rivers where farming villages became cities, cuneiform became writing, and kings first wrote their laws downView all →