978-1-4222-3442-6

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However, Nebuchadnezzar’s descendants did not remain in power for long. Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians (people from the modern-day state of Iran) in 539 BCE . Under Cyrus the Great, the Persian Achaemenid Empire was established; the Achaemenids ruled Mesopotamia and most of the Middle East for the next 250 years. During this time the communities of Mesopotamia fell into decline, and Babylon and other cities withered and decayed. In the fourth century BCE , the Achaemenids were defeated by the armies of the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great. Alexander’s conquests brought Hellenistic culture to the region, and he planned to rebuild Babylon and make it an administrative center of his vast empire. However, Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BCE , before these plans could be carried out. Alexander’s Greek generals remained in power in Mesopotamia until 126 BCE , when the Parthians, a people from northern Persia, took control of the region. The Parthian rulers who controlled Mesopotamia were often in conflict with the Roman Empire, which controlled the lands adja- cent to the Mediterranean Sea (such as Syria). Roman legions occu- pied Mesopotamia for brief periods—from CE 98 to 117 and from 193 to 211. After 227, a new group came to power in Persia: the Sassanids. They soon took control of Mesopotamia as well. After the Roman Empire split during the fourth century, the Sassanids continued fighting with the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. From the city of Constantinople, in modern-day Turkey, the Christian Byzantines dominated the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. The Sassanids and the Byzantines struggled with one another for centuries, competing for territories and trade routes. But by the seventh century, the world of the Middle East underwent a radical change with the rise of a new religion, Islam. T HE R ISE OF I SLAM Around 570, Muhammad ibn Abdullah was born on the Arabian