Astyages' army betrayed him to his enemy, and Cyrus established himself at Ecbatana, thus putting an end to the massive Median Empire and making the Persian faction dominant among the Iranic peoples. It was in the sixth year of Nabonidus (550/549 BC) that Cyrus the Great, the Achaemenid Persian king of Anshan in Elam, revolted against his suzerain Astyages, king of the Manda or Medes, at Ecbatana.
( March 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Babylonia had always been more vulnerable to conquest and invasion than its northern neighbour, and without the might of Assyria to keep foreign powers in check, Babylonia was ultimately exposed. In addition, Mesopotamian military might had usually been concentrated in the martial state of Assyria. Nabonidus and Belshazzar's Assyrian heritage is also likely to have added to this resentment. He also spent time outside Babylonia, rebuilding temples in the Assyrian city of Harran, and also among his Arab subjects in the deserts to the south of Mesopotamia. He seemed to have left the defense of his kingdom to Belshazzar (a capable soldier but poor diplomat who alienated the political elite), while occupying himself with the more congenial work, like excavating foundation records of the temples and determining the dates of their builders. The military party also despised him on account of his antiquarian tastes. He excited a strong feeling against himself by attempting to centralize the religion of Babylonia in the temple of Marduk at Babylon, and thus alienated the local priesthoods. The Marduk priesthood hated Nabonidus because of his suppression of Marduk's cult and his elevation of the cult of the moon-god Sin. The population of Babylonia became restive and increasingly disaffected under Nabonidus. Ī number of factors arose which would ultimately lead to the fall of Babylon. As Cyrus vowed in his cylinder to respect the people of Babylon, and since he liberated the incarcerated Jews to be returned to their homeland, he was viewed as the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and became popular in Babylon itself, in contrast to Nabonidus. Babylonia was thereafter incorporated into the Persian Achaemenid realm as a satrapy. In October 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great entered Babylonia in peace without being engaged in any battle. To the east, the Achaemenid Empire had been growing in strength. All of this left him somewhat unpopular with many of his subjects, particularly the priesthood and the military class. For long periods he entrusted rule to his son, prince and coregent Belshazzar, who was a capable soldier, but a poor politician. Nabonidus (Nabû-na'id, 556–539 BCE), son of the Assyrian priestess Adda-Guppi, came to the throne in 556 BCE, after overthrowing the young king Labashi-Marduk. Historians also use the term Liberation of Babylonia interchangeably. The Fall of Babylon denotes the end of the Neo-Babylonian Empire after it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BCE.
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