ABSTRACT
From 539 to 331, Babylonia was a province of the Achaemenid Persian empire,the first of the great Iranian empires (c.550-300 BC). The name derives from the supposed founder of its ruling dynasty, ‘Achaemenes’, which was also the name of the royal clan (Herodotus 1.125), members of which ruled the empire for over 200 years. At the time, it was the largest empire the world had seen, spanning the territory from the Hellespont to north India, including Egypt (most of the time) and extending to Central Asia up to the frontiers of modern Kazakhstan. Unlike succeeding periods, no contemporary political entity of even remotely comparable size existed along its frontiers. Babylonia lay at the empire’s heart, crucial to successful control, given its strategic position between the empire’s eastern and western sectors. It was also agriculturally one of the richest provinces, reportedly paying the largest annual silver tax into the royal coffers (Herodotus 3.92). It is impossible to understand Babylonia’s history at this time separately from the empire as a whole. Although Babylonian culture and learning continued, indeed thrived, in this period, there were also important shifts and changes in Babylonian society, which are linked to the empire’s history and institutions.
