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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
I
RAQ
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