Mesopotamia under the Persians
Cyrus II, the founder of the Achaemenian
Empire, united Babylonia with his country in a
personal union, assuming the title of "King of Babylonia,
King of the Lands." His son Cambyses was
appointed vice-king and resided in Sippar. The
Persians relied on the support of the priests
and the business class in the cities. In a
Babylonian inscription, Cyrus relates with pride
his peaceful, bloodless conquest of the city of Babylon.
At the same time, he speaks of Marduk as the king of
gods. His moderation and restraint were rewarded: Babylonia
became the richest province of his empire. There is no
indication of any national rebellion in Babylonia under
Cyrus and Cambyses (529-522). That there
must have been an accumulation of discontent became clear at the ascension
to the throne of Darius I (522-486), when a usurper
seized the throne of Babylonia under the name of
Nebuchadrezzar III only to lose both the throne and his life
after 10 weeks. Darius waived any punitive action. He had
to take more drastic measures in 521, when a new Nebuchadrezzar
incited another rebellion. This usurper's reign lasted two months.
Executions and plundering followed;
Darius ordered that the inner walls of Babylon
be demolished, and he reformed the organization of the
state. Babylon, however, remained the capital of the new
satrapy and also became the administrative headquarters
for the satrapies of Assyria and Syria. One result was
that the palace had to be enlarged.
Babylonia remained a wealthy and
prosperous land, in contrast to Assyria,
which was still a poor country. At the same time, the administration of
the kingdom was more and more in the hands of the Persians,
and the tax burdens grew heavier. This produced discontent, centering
especially on the large temples in Babylon.
Xerxes (486-465) had his residence in Babylon
while he was crown prince, and he knew the country very well. When he
assumed his kingship, he immediately curtailed the autonomy
of the satrapies. This, in turn, gave rise to many rebellions. In
Babylonia there were two short interim governments of
Babylonian pretenders during 484-482. Xerxes
retaliated by desecrating and partially destroying the holy places of the
god Marduk and the Tower of Babel in the
city of Babylon. Priests were executed,
and the statue of Marduk was melted down.
The members of the royal family still resided in the
palaces of the city of Babylon, but
Aramaic became more and more the language of the
official administration. One source of information for this
period are the clay-tablet archives of the commercial house
of Murashu and Sons of Nippur for the
years of 455-403, which tell much about the important role the
Iranians played in the country. The state domains were largely in
their hands. They controlled many minor feudal tenants,
grouped into social classes according to ancestry and
occupation. The business people were predominantly
Babylonians and Aramaeans, but there
were also Jews.
The documents become increasingly sparse after 400. The cultural life
of Babylon became concentrated in a few central cities,
particularly Babylon and Uruk;
Ur and Nippur were also important centers. The
work of astronomers continued, as evidenced in records of
observations. Nabu-rimanni, living and working around
500, and Kidinnu, 5th or 4th century BC, were known to
the Greeks; both astronomers are famous
for their methods of calculating the courses of the Moon and the
planets. In the field of literature,
religious poetic works as well as texts of omens
and Sumero-Akkadian word lists were constantly copied,
often with commentaries.
The Seleucid period (320-141 BC)
At the end of the Achaemenian Empire,
Mesopotamia was partitioned into the satrapy of Babylonia
in the south, while the northern part of Mesopotamia was
joined with Syria in another satrapy. It
is not known how long this division lasted, but, by the death of
Alexander the Great in 323 BC, the north was removed from
Syria and made a separate satrapy.
In the wars between the successors of Alexander,
Mesopotamia suffered much from the passage and the
pillaging of armies. When Alexander's empire was divided
in 321 BC, one of his generals, Seleucus (later Seleucus
I Nicator), received the satrapy of Babylonia to rule.
From about 315 to about 312 BC, however, Antigonus I Monophthalmus
(The "One-Eyed") took over the satrapy as ruler of all Mesopotamia,
and Seleucus had to flee and accept refuge with
Ptolemy of Egypt. With the aid of
Ptolemy, Seleucus was able to enter
Babylon in 312 BC (311 by the Babylonian reckoning)
and hold it for a short time against the forces of Antigonus
before marching to the east, where he consolidated his power. It is
uncertain when he returned to Babylonia and reestablished
his rule there; it may have been in 308, but by 305 BC he had assumed the
title of king. With the defeat and death of
Antigonus at the Battle of Ipsus in 301,
Seleucus became the ruler of a large empire
stretching from modern Afghanistan to the
Mediterranean Sea. He founded a number of cities, the most
important of which were Seleucia, on the Tigris,
and Antioch, on the Orontes River in
Syria. The latter, named after his father or his son,
both of whom were called Antiochus, became the principal
capital, while Seleucia became the capital of the eastern
provinces. The dates of the founding of these two cities are unknown, but
presumably Seleucus founded Seleucia
after he became king, while Antioch was built after the
defeat of Antigonus.
Mesopotamia is scarcely mentioned in the Greek
sources relating to the Seleucids, because the
Seleucid rulers were occupied with Greece and
Anatolia and with wars with the Ptolemies
of Egypt in Palestine and Syria.
Even the political division of Mesopotamia is uncertain,
especially since Alexander, Seleucus,
and Seleucus' son Antiochus I Soter all
founded cities that were autonomous, like the
Greek polis. The political division of the land into 19 or 20
small satrapies, which is found later, under the Parthians,
began under the Seleucids. Geographically, however,
Mesopotamia can be divided into four areas:
Characene, also called Mesene, in the south;
Babylonia, later called Asuristan, in
the middle; northern Mesopotamia, where there was later a
series of small states such as Gordyene, Osroene,
Adiabene, and Garamea; and finally the
desert areas of the upper Euphrates, in Sasanian times
called Arabistan. These four areas had different
histories down to the Arab conquest in the 7th century,
although all of them were subject first to the Seleucids
and then to the Parthians and Sasanians.
At times, however, several of the areas were fully independent,
in theory as well as in fact, while the relations of certain cities with
provincial governments and with the central government varied. From
cuneiform sources it is known that traditional
religious practices and forms of government as well as other
customs continued in Mesopotamia; there were only a few
Greek centers, such as Seleucia and the
island of Ikaros (modern Faylakah, near
Kuwait), where the practices of the Greek polis
held sway. Otherwise, native cities had a few Greek
officials or garrisons but continued to function as they had in the past.
Seleucia on the Tigris was not only
the eastern capital but also an autonomous city
ruled by an elected senate, and it replaced
Babylon as the administrative and
commercial centre of the old province of Babylonia.
In the south several cities, such as Furat and
Charax, grew rich on the maritime trade with
India; Charax became the main
entrepôt for trade after the fall of the
Seleucids. In the north there was no principal city, but several
towns, such as Arbela (modern Irbil) and
Nisibis (modern Nusaybin), later became
important centers. In the desert region, "caravan cities"
such as Hatra and Palmyra began their
rise in the Seleucid period and had their heyday under
the Parthians.
The only time that the Seleucid kings lost control of
Mesopotamia was from 222 to 220 BC, when Molon,
the governor of Media, revolted and marched to the west.
When the new Seleucid king, Antiochus III,
moved against him from Syria, however, Molon's
forces deserted him, and the revolt ended. The Parthians,
under their able king Mithradates I, conquered
Seleucid territory in Iran and entered
Seleucia in 141 BC. After the death of Mithradates I
in 138 BC, Antiochus VII began a campaign to recover the
Seleucid domains in the east. This campaign was
successful until Antiochus VII lost his life in
Iran in 129 BC. His death ended Seleucid rule in
Mesopotamia and marked the beginning of small
principalities in both the south and north of Mesopotamia.
Seleucid rule brought changes to Mesopotamia,
especially in the cities where Greeks and
Macedonians were settled. In these cities the king usually made
separate agreements with the Greek officials of the city
regarding civil and military authority,
immunity from taxes or corvée, or the like. Native cities
continued with their old systems of local government,
much as they had under the Achaemenians. Greek
gods were worshiped in temples dedicated to them in the
Greek cities, and native Mesopotamian gods had
temples dedicated to them in the native cities. In time,
however, syncretism and identification of the
foreign and local deities developed. Although
the policy of Hellenization was not enforced upon the
population, Greek ideas did influence the local
educated classes, just as local practices were
gradually adopted by the Greeks. As in Greece
and the lands of the eastern Mediterranean, in
Mesopotamia the philosophies of the
Stoics and other schools probably had an impact,
as did mystery religions; both were hallmarks of the
Hellenistic Age. Unfortunately there is no evidence from
the east on the popularity of Greek beliefs among the
local population, and scholars can only speculate on the
basis of the fragmentary notices in authors such as Strabo.
The Seleucid rulers respected the native
priesthoods of Mesopotamia, and there is no
record of any persecutions. On the contrary, the rulers seem to have
favored local religious practices, and ancient forms of
worship continued. Cuneiform writing by priests, who
copied incantations and old religious texts, continued
into the Parthian period.
The administrative institutions of the countryside of
Mesopotamia remained even more traditional than those of
the cities; the old taxes were simply paid to new
masters. The satrapy, much reduced in size from
Achaemenian times, was the basis for Seleucid
control of the countryside. A satrap or strategus
(a military title) headed each satrapy, and the satrapies were divided
into hyparchies or eparchies; the
sources that use these and other words, such as toparchy,
are unclear about the subdivisions of the satrapy. There was a great
variety of smaller units of administration. In the capital and in the
provincial centers, both Greek and Aramaic
were used as the written languages of the government. The
use of cuneiform in government documents ceased
sometime during the Achaemenian period, but it continued
in religious texts until the 1st century of the Common
era. The archives were managed both in the capital and in
provincial cities by an official called a bibliophylax.
There were many financial officials (oikonomoi); some of
them oversaw royal possessions, and others managed
local taxes and other economic matters. The legal
system in the Seleucid empire is not well
understood, but presumably both local Mesopotamian laws
and Greek laws, which had absorbed or replaced old
Achaemenian imperial laws, were in force. Excavations at
Seleucia have uncovered thousands of seal impressions on clay,
evidence of a developed system of controls and
taxes on commodities of trade. Many of the sealings
are records of payment of a salt tax. Most of the
tolls and tariffs, however, were local
assessments rather than royal taxes.
Artistic remains from the Seleucid
period are exceedingly scarce, and, in contrast to Achaemenian art,
no royal or monumental art has been recovered. One might characterize the
objects that can be dated to the Seleucid era as
popular or private art, such as seals,
statuettes, and clay figurines. Both
Greek and local styles are found, with
an amalgam of styles prevalent at the end of Seleucid
rule, evidence of a syncretism in cultures. The numerous
statues and statuettes of Heracles found in the east
testify to the great popularity of the Greek deity, in
Mesopotamia identified with the local god
Nergal.
Aramaic was the "official" written
language of the Achaemenian Empire; after the conquests
of Alexander the Great, Greek, the
language of the conquerors, replaced Aramaic. Under the
Seleucids, however, both Greek and
Aramaic were used throughout the empire, although
Greek was the principal language of government. Gradually
Aramaic underwent changes in different parts of the empire, and
in Mesopotamia in the time of the Parthians
it evolved into Syriac, with dialectical
differences from western Syriac, used in
Syria and Palestine. In southern Mesopotamia,
other dialects evolved, one of which was Mandaic, the
scriptural language of the Mandaean religion.
Literature in local languages is nonexistent, except
for copies of ancient religious texts in cuneiform writing
and fragments of Aramaic writing. There were authors who
wrote in Greek, but little of their work has survived and
that only as excerpts in later works. The most important of these authors
was Berosus, a Babylonian priest who
wrote about the history of his country, probably under
Antiochus I (reigned 281-261 BC). Although the excerpts
of his work that are preserved deal with the ancient, mythological
past and with astrology and astronomy,
the fact that they are in Greek is indicative of interest
among local Greek colonists in the culture
of their neighbors. Another popular author was Apollodorus of
Artemita (a town near Seleucia), who wrote under
the Parthians a history of Parthia in
Greek as well as other works on geography.
Greek continued to be a lingua franca
used by educated people in Mesopotamia
well into the Parthian period.
Under the Seleucid system of dating, as far as is
known, a fixed year became the basis for continuous dating for the first
time in the Middle East. The year chosen was the year of entry of
Seleucus into Babylon, 311 BC according to the
Mesopotamian reckoning and 312 BC according to the
Syrians. Before this time, dating had been only according
to the regnal years of the ruling monarch (e.g., "fourth
year of Darius"). The Parthians, following the
Seleucids, sought to institute their own system of reckoning
based on some event in their past that scholars can only surmise--possibly
the assumption of the title of king by the first ruler of the
Parthians, Arsaces.
Since Greece was overpopulated at the beginning of
Seleucid rule, it was not difficult to persuade
colonists to come to the east, especially when they were given
plots of land (cleroii) from royal domains that they
could pass on to their descendants; if they had no descendants, the land
would revert to the king. Theoretically all land belonged to the ruler,
but actually local interests prevailed. As time passed, however, the
influx of Greek colonists diminished and then ended when
the wars of the Hellenistic kings interrupted this
movement. Nonetheless, Greek influences continued, and it
is fascinating to find in cuneiform documents records of
families where the father has a local Mesopotamian name and his
son a Greek one, and vice versa. Inasmuch as Mesopotamia
was peaceful under the Seleucids, the processes of
accommodation and assimilation among the people appear to have flourished.
The Sasanian period (224-637 AD)
The Sasanian period marks the end of the ancient and
the beginning of the medieval era in the history of the
Middle East. Universalist religions such
as Christianity, Manichaeism, and even
Zoroastrianism
and Judaism absorbed local religions and cults at the
beginning of the 3rd century. Both the Sasanian
and the Roman empires ended by adopting an official
state religion, Zoroastrianism for the
former and Christianity for the latter. In
Mesopotamia, however, older cults such as that
of the
Mandaeans,
the moon cult of Harran, and
others continued alongside the great religions.
The new rulers were not as tolerant as the
Seleucids and Parthians had been, and
persecutions occurred under Sasanian rule.
After Ardashir I, the first of the Sasanians,
consolidated his position in Persis (modern Fars
province), he moved into southern Mesopotamia, and
Mesene submitted. In 224 he defeated and killed the last
Parthian ruler, Artabanus V, after which
Mesopotamia quickly fell before him and Ctesiphon
became the main capital of the Sasanian empire.
In 230 Ardashir besieged Hatra but
failed to take it. Hatra called on Roman
aid, and in 232 the Roman emperor Severus
Alexander launched a campaign that halted Ardashir's
progress. At the death of Severus Alexander in 235 the
Sasanians took the offensive, and probably in 238
Nisibis and Harran came under their control.
Hatra was probably captured in early 240, after which
Ardashir's son Shapur was made
coregent; Ardashir himself died soon afterward.
The Roman emperor Gordian III led a
large army against Shapur I in 243. The Romans retook
Harran and Nisibis and defeated the
Sasanians at a battle near Resaina, but
at Anbar, renamed Peroz-Shapur
("Victorious Is Shapur"), the Sasanians inflicted a
defeat on the Romans, who lost their emperor. His
successor, Philip the Arabian, made peace, giving up
Roman conquests in northern Mesopotamia.
Osroene, however, which had been returned to the
local ruling family of Abgar by Gordian,
remained a vassal state of the Romans.
Shapur renewed his attacks and took many towns, including
Dura-Europus, in 256 and later moved into northern
Syria and Anatolia. The defeat and
capture of the Roman emperor Valerian at
the gates of Edessa, probably in 259, was the high point
of his conquests in the west. On Shapur's return to
Ctesiphon the ruler of Palmyra,
Septimius Odaenathus (also called Odainath),
attacked and defeated his army, seizing booty. Odeanathus
took the title of emperor, conquered Harran
and Nisibis, and threatened Ctesiphon in
264-266. His murder relieved the Sasanians, and in 273
the Roman emperor Aurelian sacked
Palmyra and restored Roman authority in
northern Mesopotamia. Peace between the two empires
lasted until 283, when the Roman emperor Carus
invaded Mesopotamia and advanced on Ctesiphon,
but the Roman army was forced to withdraw after
Carus' sudden death. In 296 Narseh I, the
seventh Sasanian king, took the field and defeated a
Roman force near Harran, but in the
following year he was defeated and his family was taken captive. As a
result, the Romans secured Nisibis and
made it their strongest fortress against the Sasanians.
The Roman province of Mesopotamia, which
was the land between the Euphrates and Tigris
in the northern foothills, became in effect a military
area with limes (the fortified frontiers of the Roman Empire)
and highly fortified towns.
Under Shapur II the Sasanians again
took the offensive, and the first war lasted from 337 to 350; it ended
with no result as Nisibis was successfully defended by
the Romans. In 359 Shapur again invaded
Roman territory and captured the Roman
fortress Amida after a long and costly siege. In 363 the
emperor Julian advanced almost to Ctesiphon,
where he died, and his successor Jovian had to give up
Nisibis and other territories in the north to the
Sasanians. The next war lasted from 502 to 506 and ended with no
change. War broke out again in 527, lasting until 531, and even the
Byzantine general Belisarius was not
able to prevail; as usual, the boundaries remained unchanged. In 540 the
Sasanian king Khosrow (Chosroes) I
invaded Syria and even took Antioch,
although many fortresses behind him in northern Mesopotamia
remained in Byzantine hands. After much back-and-forth
fighting, peace was made in 562. War with the Byzantine
Empire resumed 10 years later, and it continued under Khosrow's
successor, Hormizd IV. Only in 591, in return for their
assistance in the restoration to the Sasanian throne of
Khosrow II, who had been deposed and had fled to
Byzantine territory, did the Byzantines regain
territory in northern Mesopotamia. With the murder in 602
of the Byzantine emperor Maurice, who
had been Khosrow's benefactor, and the usurpation of
Phocas, Khosrow II saw a golden
opportunity to enlarge Sasanian domains and to take
revenge for Maurice. Persian armies took
all northern Mesopotamia, Syria,
Palestine, Egypt, and Anatolia.
By 615, Sasanian forces were in Chalcedon,
opposite Constantinople. The situation changed completely
with the new Byzantine emperor Heraclius,
who, in a daring expedition into the heart of enemy territory in 623-624,
defeated the Sasanians in Media. In
627-628 he advanced toward Ctesiphon, but, after sacking
the royal palaces at Dastagird, northeast of
Ctesiphon, he retreated.
After the death of Khosrow II, Mesopotamia
was devastated not only by the fighting but also by the flooding
of the Tigris and Euphrates, by a
widespread plague, and by the swift succession of
Sasanian rulers, which caused chaos. Finally in 632 order was
restored by the last king, Yazdegerd III, but in the
following year the expansion of the Muslim Arabs began
and the end of the Sasanian empire followed a few years
afterward.
Unlike the Parthians, the Sasanians
established their own princes as rulers of the small
kingdoms they conquered, except on the frontiers, where they accepted
vassals or allies because their hold over the frontier
regions was insecure. By placing Sasanian princes over
the various parts of the empire, the Sasanians maintained
more control than the Parthians had. The provincial
divisions were more systematized, and there was a hierarchy of four
units--the satrapy (shahr in Middle Persian), under which
came the province (ostan), then a district
(tassug), and finally the village (deh). In
Mesopotamia these divisions were changed throughout
Sasanian history, frequently because of Roman
invasions.
Many native tax collectors were replaced by
Persians, who were more trusted by the rulers. In addition to the
many tolls and tariffs, corvée,
and the like, the two basic taxes were the land and
poll taxes. The latter were not paid by the
nobility, soldiers, civil servants,
and the priests of the Zoroastrian
religion. The land tax was a percentage of the harvest,
but it was determined before the collection of the crops, which naturally
caused many problems. Khosrow I undertook a new survey of
the land and imposed the tax in a prearranged sum based on the amount of
cultivable land, the quantity of
date palms and olive trees, and the
number of people working on the land. Taxes were to be paid
three times a year. Abuses were still rampant, but this
was better than the old system; at least, if a drought or some other
calamity occurred, taxes could be reduced or remitted. Although
information is contradictory, it appears that religious
communities other than the Zoroastrian one had
extra taxes imposed on them from time to time. This was
especially true of the growing Christian community,
particularly in the time of Shapur II, after
Christianity became the official religion of the
Roman Empire.
Religious communities became fixed under the
Sasanians, and Mesopotamia with its large
Christian and Jewish populations experienced
changes because of the shift in primary allegiance from the ruler
to the head of the religious group. The exilarch
of the Jews had legal and
tax-collecting authority over the Jews of the
Sasanian empire. Mani, the founder of
the Manichaean religion, was born in lower
Mesopotamia, and his religion spread quickly both to the east and
west, even before his death. In its homeland, Mesopotamia,
it came under severe persecution by the priests of the Zoroastrian
religion, who viewed Manichaeism as a dangerous heresy.
Christianity, however, was viewed not as a heresy but as
a separate religion, tolerated until it became the official religion of
the enemy Roman Empire; Christians were
then regarded as potential traitors to the Sasanian
state. The first large growth of Christianity in
Mesopotamia came with the deportation and resettlement of
Christians, especially from Antioch with its
patriarch, during Shapur I's wars with
the Romans. In a synod convened in 325,
the metropolitan see of Ctesiphon was
made supreme over other sees in the Sasanian
empire, and the first patriarch or
Catholics was Papa. In 344 the first
persecutions of Christians began; they lasted with
varying degrees of severity until 422, when a treaty with the government
ended the persecutions.
The earliest contemporary mention of Christians in
Mesopotamia is in the inscriptions of Karter,
the chief Zoroastrian priest after the reign of
Shapur I. He mentions both Christians and
Nazareans, possibly two kinds of Christians,
Greek-speaking and Syriac-speaking, or
two sects. It is not known which groups are meant, but it
is known that followers of the Gnostic Christian leaders
Bardesanes (Bar Daisan) and Marcion were
active in Mesopotamia. Later, after the
Nestorian church
separated from the
Monophysites,
whose centre was in Antioch, the Nestorian
church dominated Mesopotamia until the end of the
Sasanian dynasty, when the Monophysites were
growing in numbers. After about 485 the Sasanian
government was satisfied that the Nestorian church in
their domains was not loyal to Byzantium, and further
persecutions were not state-inspired but rather prosecuted by the
Zoroastrian clergy. At the end of the Sasanian
period, the Nestorians were fighting the
Monophysites, now called Jacobites, more than
the Zoroastrians. The Jacobites
established many monasteries, especially in northern Mesopotamia,
whereas the Nestorians were cool toward
monasticism.
Ethnicity became less important than religious
affiliation under the Sasanians, who thus
changed the social structure of Mesopotamia.
The Arabs continued to grow in numbers, both as
nomads and as settled folk, and Arabic
became widely spoken. King Nu'man III of the Arab
client kingdom of the Lakhmids of Al-Hirah
in southern Mesopotamia became a Christian
in 580, but in 602 he was deposed by Khosrow II, who made
the kingdom a province of the empire. This act removed a barrier against
inroads by Arab tribesmen from the desert, and, after the
union of Arabs in the peninsula under the banner of
Islam, the fate of the Sasanian empire was
sealed. The Muslims, on the whole, were welcomed in
Mesopotamia as deliverers from the foreign yoke
of the Persians, but the conversion of
the mass of the population to Islam did not proceed
rapidly, mainly because of the well-organized Christian
and Jewish communities. The arrival of Islam,
of course, changed the history of Mesopotamia more than
any other event in its history.
