In the years following the fall of Nineveh (612 BC), a couple of states fought each other for hegemony in the Near East. While the Medes extended their power over the whole of Iran and the mountain ranges to the north ofMesopotamia, the so-called Neo-Babylonian Empire consolidated its rule over Mesopotamia, and Egypt under the 26th dynasty enjoyed for the last time a period of political independence and influence on its neighbors. The eastern borderlands of the Mediterranean formed the bone of contention between Egypt and the Neo-Babylonian kingdom. In the armies of both states served groups of mercenaries from the west of Asia Minor, among whom were Greeks, an indication of the ever closer contacts between the Aegean world, the Near East and Egypt since the 8th and 7th centuries BC. The Babylonians were victorious over the Egyptians and seemed poised to become the successors of the Assyrians. Under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the king who as a prince had conquered Jerusalem in 587 BC, Babylon for a short time became the center of the world, an impressive city with enormous city walls, temples, palaces, and its famous “hanging gardens” on the palace rooftops. But the power of Babylonia was not to last long.
Shortly before 550 BC, in the vast territory under the dominion of the Medes a shift of power took place that transferred the kingship to a new dynasty from another Iranian people, the Persians. Cyrus, from the family of the Achaemenids, became the new king under circumstances that are not very clear to us. What we do know is that Cyrus embarked on a systematic policy of expansion. Around 545 BC, he conquered Lydia, which at this time under its king Croesus comprised the west of Asia Minor and was strongly influenced by Greek culture. The Greek cities on the coast also fell one by one under Persian dominion. A few years later, he attacked Babylon and put an end to the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar’s successors in 539 BC. Next, he extended Persian power to the extreme northeast of Iran, where he was killed in combat with Central Asian nomads. His successor, Cambyses, continued the series of conquests with an invasion of Egypt, resulting in the incorporation of this country as well into the Persian Empire. In this manner, the Persians achieved for the first time the political unification of Egypt, the Near East, and Iran. In fact, large parts of the urbanized and sedentary world of western Eurasia and northern Africa were now brought together in one empire. Under Cambyses’ successor, Darius I, it was divided into 20 satrapies in which the population, although in many respects retaining some degree of independence, had to acknowledge Persian sovereignty and pay taxes to the king. To the north, the empire bordered on the territories of the Iranian steppe nomads of Central Asia and South Russia that the Greeks called the Scythians. An expedition against them under King Darius failed. In the east, the river Indus became the border of the empire, where high mountain ranges and deserts in present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan sealed the empire off from most of the Indian world. Likewise, Arabia to the south was an inhospitable desert region. Further expansion seemed feasible only toward the west, and this westward expansion would be achieved by the same king Darius around 500 BC in a clash between the Persian Empire and the world of the Greek mini-states.
World History
