1.
Akkadian
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Akkadian is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the writing system, which was originally used to write the unrelated Ancient Sumerian. The language was named after the city of Akkad, a centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire. The mutual influence between Sumerian and Akkadian had led scholars to describe the languages as a sprachbund, Akkadian proper names were first attested in Sumerian texts from around the mid 3rd-millennium BC. From the second half of the third millennium BC, texts written in Akkadian begin to appear. By the second millennium BC, two variant forms of the language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively, for centuries, Akkadian was the native language in Mesopotamian nations such as Assyria and Babylonia. However, it began to decline during the Neo-Assyrian Empire around the 8th century BC, by the Hellenistic period, the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD, Akkadian belongs with the other Semitic languages in the Near Eastern branch of the Afroasiatic languages, a family native to East Africa, which then spread to West, Northwest and Northeast Africa. Within the Near Eastern Semitic languages, Akkadian forms an East Semitic subgroup and this novel word order is due to the influence of the Sumerian substratum, which has an SOV order. Additionally Akkadian is the only Semitic language to use the prepositions ina and ana, other Semitic languages like Arabic and Aramaic have the prepositions bi/bə and li/lə. The origin of the Akkadian spatial prepositions is unknown, in contrast to most other Semitic languages, Akkadian has only one non-sibilant fricative, ḫ. Akkadian lost both the glottal and pharyngeal fricatives, which are characteristic of the other Semitic languages, until the Old Babylonian period, the Akkadian sibilants were exclusively affricated. Old Akkadian is preserved on clay tablets dating back to c.2500 BC and it was written using cuneiform, a script adopted from the Sumerians using wedge-shaped symbols pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian scribes, the cuneiform script could represent either Sumerian logograms, Sumerian syllables, Akkadian syllables. For this reason, the sign AN can on the one hand be a logogram for the word ilum, additionally, this sign was used as a determinative for divine names. Another peculiarity of Akkadian cuneiform is that many signs do not have a phonetic value. Certain signs, such as AḪ, do not distinguish between the different vowel qualities, nor is there any coordination in the other direction, the syllable -ša-, for example, is rendered by the sign ŠA, but also by the sign NĪĜ. Both of these are used for the same syllable in the same text
2.
Nimrod
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Nimrod, a biblical figure described as a king of Shinar, was, according to the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles, the son of Cush, the great-grandson of Noah. The Bible states that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord, began to be mighty in the earth. Extra-biblical traditions associating him with the Tower of Babel led to his reputation as a king who was rebellious against God, attempts to match Nimrod with historically attested figures have failed. These include Tukulti-Ninurta I of the Middle Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian god Ninurta, the first biblical mention of Nimrod is in the Table of Nations. He is described as the son of Cush, grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah, and as a mighty one in the earth and a mighty hunter before the Lord. Owing to an ambiguity in the original Hebrew text, it is whether it is he or Ashur who additionally built Nineveh, Resen, Rehoboth-Ir. Sir Walter Raleigh devoted several pages in his History of the World to reciting past scholarship regarding the question of whether it had been Nimrod or Ashur who built the cities in Assyria. In Hebrew and Christian tradition, Nimrod is considered the leader of those who built the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar, Nimrods kingdom included the cities of Babel, Erech, Accad, and perhaps Calneh, in Shinar. Several of these early Judaic sources also assert that the king Amraphel, since Accad, was destroyed and lost with the destruction of its Empire in the period 2200–2154 BCE, the stories mentioning Nimrod seem to recall the late Early Bronze Age. The association with Erech, a city that lost its importance around 2,000 BCE as a result of struggles between Isin, Larsa and Elam, also attests the early provenance of the stories of Nimrod. According to some theorists, their placement in the Bible suggests a Babylonian origin—possibly inserted during the Babylonian captivity. Some rabbinic commentators have also connected the name Nimrod with a Hebrew word meaning rebel. In Pseudo-Philo, Nimrod is made leader of the Hamites, while Joktan as leader of the Semites, versions of this story are again picked up in later works such as Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. The Book of Jubilees mentions the name of Nebrod only as being the father of Azurad and this account would thus make him an ancestor of Abraham, and hence of all Hebrews. Josephus wrote, Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and he was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no way of turning men from the fear of God. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again, and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers
3.
Iraq
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The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. The main ethnic groups are Arabs and Kurds, others include Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians, around 95% of the countrys 36 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism, and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish, two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. These rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, historically known as Mesopotamia, is often referred to as the cradle of civilisation. It was here that mankind first began to read, write, create laws, the area has been home to successive civilisations since the 6th millennium BC. Iraq was the centre of the Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian and it was also part of the Median, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Ayyubid, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires. Iraqs modern borders were mostly demarcated in 1920 by the League of Nations when the Ottoman Empire was divided by the Treaty of Sèvres, Iraq was placed under the authority of the United Kingdom as the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. A monarchy was established in 1921 and the Kingdom of Iraq gained independence from Britain in 1932, in 1958, the monarchy was overthrown and the Iraqi Republic created. Iraq was controlled by the Arab Socialist Baath Party from 1968 until 2003, after an invasion by the United States and its allies in 2003, Saddam Husseins Baath Party was removed from power and multi-party parliamentary elections were held in 2005. The American presence in Iraq ended in 2011, but the Iraqi insurgency continued and intensified as fighters from the Syrian Civil War spilled into the country, the Arabic name العراق al-ʿIrāq has been in use since before the 6th century. There are several suggested origins for the name, one dates to the Sumerian city of Uruk and is thus ultimately of Sumerian origin, as Uruk was the Akkadian name for the Sumerian city of Urug, containing the Sumerian word for city, UR. An Arabic folk etymology for the name is rooted, well-watered. During the medieval period, there was a region called ʿIrāq ʿArabī for Lower Mesopotamia and ʿIrāq ʿajamī, for the region now situated in Central and Western Iran. The term historically included the south of the Hamrin Mountains. The term Sawad was also used in early Islamic times for the region of the plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In English, it is either /ɪˈrɑːk/ or /ɪˈræk/, the American Heritage Dictionary, the pronunciation /aɪˈræk/ is frequently heard in U. S. media. Since approximately 10,000 BC, Iraq was one of centres of a Caucasoid Neolithic culture where agriculture, the following Neolithic period is represented by rectangular houses. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gypsum, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations
4.
Talmud
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The Talmud is a central text of Rabbinic Judaism. It is also referred to as Shas, a Hebrew abbreviation of shisha sedarim, the six orders. Talmud translates literally as instruction in Hebrew, and the term may refer to either the Gemara alone, or the Mishnah, the entire Talmud consists of 63 tractates, and in standard print is over 6,200 pages long. The Talmud is the basis for all codes of Jewish law, Rabbis expounded and debated the Torah and discussed the Tanakh without the benefit of written works, though some may have made private notes, for example of court decisions. It is during this period that rabbinic discourse began to be recorded in writing, the earliest recorded oral Torah may have been of the midrashic form, in which halakhic discussion is structured as exegetical commentary on the Pentateuch. But an alternative form, organized by subject matter instead of by biblical verse, became dominant about the year 200 CE, the Oral Torah was far from monolithic, rather, it varied among various schools. The most famous two were the School of Shammai and the School of Hillel, in general, all valid opinions, even the non-normative ones, were recorded in the Talmud. The oldest full manuscript of the Talmud, known as the Munich Talmud, each tractate is divided into chapters,517 in total, that are both numbered according to the Hebrew alphabet and given names, usually using the first one or two words in the first mishnah. A perek may continue over several pages, each perek will contain several mishnayot with their accompanying exchanges that form the building-blocks of the Gemara, the name for a passage of gemara is a sugya. A sugya, including baraita or tosefta, will comprise a detailed proof-based elaboration of a Mishnaic statement. A sugya may, and often does, range widely off the subject of the mishnah, in a given sugya, scriptural, Tannaic and Amoraic statements are cited to support the various opinions. In so doing, the Gemara will highlight semantic disagreements between Tannaim and Amoraim, and compare the Mishnaic views with passages from the Baraita. Rarely are debates formally closed, in instances, the final word determines the practical law. There is a literature on the procedural principles to be used in settling the practical law when disagreements exist, see under #Logic. The Mishnah is a compilation of legal opinions and debates, statements in the Mishnah are typically terse, recording brief opinions of the rabbis debating a subject, or recording only an unattributed ruling, apparently representing a consensus view. The rabbis recorded in the Mishnah are known as the Tannaim, the Mishnahs topical organization thus became the framework of the Talmud as a whole. But not every tractate in the Mishnah has a corresponding Gemara, also, the order of the tractates in the Talmud differs in some cases from that in the Mishnah. In addition to the Mishnah, other tannaitic teachings were current at about the time or shortly thereafter
5.
Tower of Babel
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The Tower of Babel is a Near Eastern etiological myth that is recorded in the Jewish Tanakhs first book, it is meant to explain the origin of different languages. According to the story, a united humanity of the following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating eastward. The Great Ziggurat of Babylon was 91 metres in height, Alexander the Great ordered it demolished circa 331 BCE in preparation for a reconstruction that his death forestalled. A Sumerian story with similar elements is told in Enmerkar. The story of the city of Babel is recorded in Genesis 11, everyone on earth spoke the same language. As people migrated east, they settled in the land of Shinar, People there sought to make bricks and build a city and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for themselves, so that they not be scattered over the world. God came down to look at the city and tower, and remarked that as one people with one language, nothing that they sought would be out of their reach. God went down and confounded their speech, so that they could not understand each other, and scattered them over the face of the earth, thus the city was called Babel. As it appears in the King James version of the Bible,1. Now the whole world had one language, as people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 2. They said to other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly. ”They used brick instead of stone. 3 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens, let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. ”4 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 5 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do, now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 6 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. ”7 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 8 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, the phrase Tower of Babel does not appear in the Bible, it is always the city and the tower or just the city. The original derivation of the name Babel is uncertain, but it may come from bab-ilum, according to the Bible, the city received the name Babel from the Hebrew word balal, meaning to jumble or to confuse. The story of the Tower of Babel explains the confusion of tongues, the storys theme of competition between God and humans appears elsewhere in Genesis, in the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The 1st-century Jewish interpretation found in Flavius Josephus explains the construction of the tower as an act of defiance against God ordered by the arrogant tyrant Nimrod. There have, however, been some challenges to this classical interpretation, with emphasis placed on the explicit motive of cultural
6.
Sumer
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Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, Sumerian farmers were able to grow an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus of which enabled them to settle in one place. Proto-writing in the dates back to c.3000 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr and date back to 3300 BC, modern historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c.5500 and 4000 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language, an agglutinative language isolate. These conjectured, prehistoric people are now called proto-Euphrateans or Ubaidians, some scholars contest the idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language. Reliable historical records begin much later, there are none in Sumer of any kind that have dated before Enmebaragesi. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians lived along the coast of Eastern Arabia, todays Persian Gulf region, Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period, continuing into the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. During the 3rd millennium BC, a cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians, who spoke a language isolate, and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a Sprachbund, Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC, but Sumerian continued as a sacred language. Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about a century in the Neo-Sumerian Empire or Third Dynasty of Ur approximately 2100-2000 BC, the term Sumerian is the common name given to the ancient non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Sumer, by the East Semitic-speaking Akkadians. The Sumerians referred to themselves as ùĝ saĝ gíg ga, phonetically /uŋ saŋ gi ga/, literally meaning the black-headed people, the Akkadian word Shumer may represent the geographical name in dialect, but the phonological development leading to the Akkadian term šumerû is uncertain. Hebrew Shinar, Egyptian Sngr, and Hittite Šanhar, all referring to southern Mesopotamia, in the late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into many independent city-states, which were divided by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city. The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods, classical Sumer ends with the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 23rd century BC. Following the Gutian period, there is a brief Sumerian Renaissance in the 21st century BC, the Amorite dynasty of Isin persisted until c.1700 BC, when Mesopotamia was united under Babylonian rule. The Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian population, 2500–2334 BC Akkadian Empire period, c. 2218–2047 BC Ur III period, c, 2047–1940 BC The Ubaid period is marked by a distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery which spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. It appears that this culture was derived from the Samarran culture from northern Mesopotamia and it is not known whether or not these were the actual Sumerians who are identified with the later Uruk culture
7.
Babylon
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Babylon was a major city of ancient Mesopotamia in the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city was built upon the Euphrates and divided in parts along its left and right banks. Babylon was originally a small Semitic Akkadian city dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire c.2300 BC, the town attained independence as part of a small city-state with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Babylon grew and South Mesopotamia came to be known as Babylonia, the empire quickly dissolved after Hammurabis death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. After being destroyed and then rebuilt by the Assyrians, Babylon became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 609 to 539 BC, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the city came under the rule of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman, and Sassanid empires. It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from c.1770 to 1670 BC and it was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000. Estimates for the extent of its area range from 890 to 900 hectares. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometres south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings, the English Babylon comes from Greek Babylṓn, a transliteration of the Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name in the early 2nd millennium BC had been Babilli or Babilla, by the 1st millennium BC, it had changed to Babili under the influence of the folk etymology which traced it to bāb-ili. The Gate of God or Gate of El being from the Aramaic Hebrew Bab for Gate and El for God and this being similar to the Hebrew word for confusion Balal. In the Bible, the name appears as Babel, interpreted in the Hebrew Scriptures Book of Genesis to mean confusion, the modern English verb, to babble, or to speak meaningless words, is popularly thought to derive from this name, but there is no direct connection. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings and debris. The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an area of about 2 by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south, along the Euphrates to the west. Originally, the river roughly bisected the city, but the course of the river has since shifted so that most of the remains of the western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain, remains of the city include, Kasr—also called Palace or Castle, it is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki and lies in the center of the site. Amran Ibn Ali—the highest of the mounds at 25 meters, to the south and it is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu. Homera—a reddish colored mound on the west side, most of the Hellenistic remains are here
8.
Euphrates
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The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia, originating in eastern Turkey, the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf. The Ancient Greek form Euphrátēs was borrowed from Old Persian Ufrātu, the Elamite name is ultimately derived from the Sumerian Buranuna, possibly through the Akkadian name. In Akkadian the river was similarly called Purattu, which has been perpetuated in Semitic languages, the Elamite, Akkadian, and possibly Sumerian forms are suggested to be from an unrecorded substrate language. The earliest references to the Euphrates come from texts found in Shuruppak and pre-Sargonic Nippur in southern Iraq. In these texts, written in Sumerian, the Euphrates is called Buranuna, the name could also be written KIB. NUN. or dKIB. NUN, with the prefix d indicating that the river was a divinity. In Sumerian, the name of the city of Sippar in modern-day Iraq was also a written UD. KIB. NUN, the Euphrates is the longest river of Western Asia. It emerges from the confluence of the Kara Su or Western Euphrates, the same figures are given by Isaev and Mikhailova. The length of the Shatt al-Arab, which connects the Euphrates, both the Kara Su and the Murat Su rise northwest from Lake Van at elevations of 3,290 metres and 3,520 metres amsl, respectively. At the location of the Keban Dam, the two rivers, now combined into the Euphrates, have dropped to an elevation of 693 metres amsl, from Keban to the Syrian–Turkish border, the river drops another 368 metres over a distance of less than 600 kilometres. The Euphrates receives most of its water in the form of rainfall and melting snow, discharge in these two months accounts for 36 percent of the total annual discharge of the Euphrates, or even 60–70 percent according to one source, while low runoff occurs in summer and autumn. The discharge regime of the Euphrates has changed dramatically since the construction of the first dams in the 1970s, data on Euphrates discharge collected after 1990 show the impact of the construction of the numerous dams in the Euphrates and of the increased withdrawal of water for irrigation. Average discharge at Hīt after 1990 has dropped to 356 cubic metres per second, the seasonal variability has equally changed. The pre-1990 peak volume recorded at Hīt was 7,510 cubic metres per second, the minimum volume at Hīt remained relatively unchanged, rising from 55 cubic metres per second before 1990 to 58 cubic metres per second afterward. In Syria, three rivers add their water to the Euphrates, the Sajur, the Balikh and the Khabur and these rivers rise in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains along the Syro–Turkish border and add comparatively little water to the Euphrates. The Sajur is the smallest of these tributaries, emerging from two streams near Gaziantep and draining the plain around Manbij before emptying into the reservoir of the Tishrin Dam. The Balikh receives most of its water from a spring near Ayn al-Arus. In terms of length, drainage basin and discharge, the Khabur is the largest of these three and its main karstic springs are located around Ras al-Ayn, from where the Khabur flows southeast past Al-Hasakah, where the river turns south and drains into the Euphrates near Busayrah
9.
Ur
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Ur was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in south Iraqs Dhi Qar Governorate. The city dates from the Ubaid period circa 3800 BC, and is recorded in history as a City State from the 26th century BC. The site is marked by the restored ruins of the Ziggurat of Ur. The temple was built in the 21st century BC, during the reign of Ur-Nammu and was reconstructed in the 6th century BC by Nabonidus, the Assyrian born last king of Babylon. The ruins cover an area of 1,200 metres northwest to southeast by 800 metres northeast to southwest, archaeologists have discovered the evidence of an early occupation at Ur during the Ubaid period. These early levels were sealed off with a deposit of soil that was interpreted by excavators of the 1920s as evidence for the Great Flood of the Book of Genesis. The further occupation of Ur only becomes clear during its emergence in the third millennium BC, the third millennium BC is generally described as the Early Bronze Age of Mesopotamia, which ends approximately after the demise of the Third Dynasty of Ur in the 21st century BC. There are two sources which inform scholars about the importance of Ur during the Early Bronze Age. The first is a body of cuneiform documents, mostly from the empire of the so-called Third Dynasty of Ur. This was the most centralized bureaucratic state the world had yet known, concerning the earlier centuries, the Sumerian King List provides a tentative political history of ancient Sumer. The second source of information is archaeological work in modern Iraq, although the early centuries are still poorly understood, the archaeological discoveries have shown unequivocally that Ur was a major urban center on the Mesopotamian plain. Especially the discovery of the Royal Tombs have confirmed its splendour and this wealth, unparalleled up to then, is a testimony of Urs economic importance during the Early Bronze Age. Archaeological research of the region has contributed greatly to our understanding of the landscape. Imports to Ur came from parts of the world. The imported objects include precious metals such as gold and silver and we know that Ur was the most important port on the Persian Gulf, which extended much further inland than it does today. All the wealth came to Mesopotamia by sea had to pass through Ur. So far evidence for the earliest periods of the Early Bronze Age in Mesopotamia is very limited, Mesh-Ane-pada is the first king mentioned in the Sumerian King List, and appears to have lived in the 26th century BC. That Ur was an important urban centre already then seems to be indicated by a type of cylinder seal called the City Seals and these seals contain a set of proto-cuneiform signs which appear to be writings or symbols of the name of city-states in ancient Sumer
10.
Seleucid Empire
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Seleucus received Babylonia and, from there, expanded his dominions to include much of Alexanders near eastern territories. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, Persia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and what is now Kuwait, Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan and Turkmenistan. The Seleucid Empire was a center of Hellenistic culture that maintained the preeminence of Greek customs where a Greek political elite dominated. The Greek population of the cities who formed the dominant elite were reinforced by immigration from Greece, Seleucid expansion into Anatolia and Greece was abruptly halted after decisive defeats at the hands of the Roman army. Their attempts to defeat their old enemy Ptolemaic Egypt were frustrated by Roman demands, contemporary sources, such as a loyalist degree from Ilium, in Greek language define the Seleucid state both as an empire and as a kingdom. Similarly, Seleucid rulers were described as kings in Babylonia and he refers to either Alexander Balas or Alexander II Zabinas as a ruler. Alexander, who conquered the Persian Empire under its last Achaemenid dynast, Darius III, died young in 323 BC. Alexanders generals jostled for supremacy over parts of his empire, Ptolemy, a former general and the satrap of Egypt, was the first to challenge the new system, this led to the demise of Perdiccas. Ptolemys revolt led to a new subdivision of the empire with the Partition of Triparadisus in 320 BC, Seleucus, who had been Commander-in-Chief of the Companion cavalry and appointed first or court chiliarch received Babylonia and, from that point, continued to expand his dominions ruthlessly. Seleucus established himself in Babylon in 312 BC, the used as the foundation date of the Seleucid Empire. The whole region from Phrygia to the Indus was subject to Seleucus, but Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus in consequence of a marriage contract, and received in return five hundred elephants. Following his and Lysimachus victory over Antigonus Monophthalmus at the decisive Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, Seleucus took control over eastern Anatolia, in the latter area, he founded a new capital at Antioch on the Orontes, a city he named after his father. An alternative capital was established at Seleucia on the Tigris, north of Babylon, Seleucuss empire reached its greatest extent following his defeat of his erstwhile ally, Lysimachus, at Corupedion in 281 BC, after which Seleucus expanded his control to encompass western Anatolia. He hoped further to take control of Lysimachuss lands in Europe – primarily Thrace and even Macedonia itself, nevertheless, even before Seleucus death, it was difficult to assert control over the vast eastern domains of the Seleucids. Seleucus invaded the Punjab region of India in 305 BC, confronting Chandragupta Maurya and it is said that Chandragupta fielded an army of 600,000 men and 9,000 war elephants. Archaeologically, concrete indications of Mauryan rule, such as the inscriptions of the Edicts of Ashoka, are known as far as Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and it is generally thought that Chandragupta married Seleucuss daughter, or a Macedonian princess, a gift from Seleucus to formalize an alliance. In a return gesture, Chandragupta sent 500 war elephants, an asset which would play a decisive role at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. In addition to this treaty, Seleucus dispatched an ambassador, Megasthenes, to Chandragupta, Megasthenes wrote detailed descriptions of India and Chandraguptas reign, which have been partly preserved to us through Diodorus Siculus
11.
Josephus
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Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Roman-Jewish War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and interpreter, after Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperors family name of Flavius. Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship and he became an advisor and friend of Vespasians son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the Siege of Jerusalem. Since the siege proved ineffective at stopping the Jewish revolt, the citys destruction, Josephus recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century CE and the First Jewish–Roman War, including the Siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, the Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Roman audience and these works provide valuable insight into first century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity. Josephus introduces himself in Greek as Iōsēpos, son of Matthias and he was the second-born son of Matthias. His older full-blooded brother was also called Matthias and their mother was an aristocratic woman who descended from the royal and formerly ruling Hasmonean dynasty. Josephuss paternal grandparents were Josephus and his wife—an unnamed Hebrew noblewoman, distant relatives of each other and he descended through his father from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the 24 orders of priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus was a descendant of the high priest Jonathon, born and raised in Jerusalem, Josephus was educated alongside his brother. In his early twenties, he traveled to negotiate with Emperor Nero for the release of 12 Jewish priests, Josephus successfully fought the Roman army in Galilee, until he was captured by the Romans during the height of the war. After the Jewish garrison of Yodfat fell under siege, the Romans invaded, killing thousands, according to Josephus, he was trapped in a cave with 40 of his companions in July 67 CE. The Romans asked the group to surrender, but they refused, Josephus suggested a method of collective suicide, they drew lots and killed each other, one by one, counting to every third person. Two men were left, who surrendered to the Roman forces, in 69 CE, Josephus was released. According to his account, he acted as a negotiator with the defenders during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, in which his parents and first wife died. While being confined at Yodfat, Josephus claimed to have experienced a divine revelation, after the prediction came true, he was released by Vespasian, who considered his gift of prophecy to be divine. In 71 CE, he went to Rome in the entourage of Titus, becoming a Roman citizen, in addition to Roman citizenship, he was granted accommodation in conquered Judaea and a decent, if not extravagant, pension. While in Rome and under Flavian patronage, Josephus wrote all of his known works, although he uses Josephus, he appears to have taken the Roman praenomen Titus and nomen Flavius from his patrons
12.
Cyrus the Great
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Cyrus II of Persia, commonly known as Cyrus the Great and also called Cyrus the Elder by the Greeks, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. From the Mediterranean Sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, under his successors, the empire eventually stretched at its maximum extent from parts of the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east. His regal titles in full were The Great King, King of Persia, King of Anshan, King of Media, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, the reign of Cyrus the Great lasted between 29 and 31 years. Cyrus built his empire by conquering first the Median Empire, then the Lydian Empire, either before or after Babylon, he led an expedition into central Asia, which resulted in major campaigns that were described as having brought into subjection every nation without exception. Cyrus did not venture into Egypt, as he died in battle. He was succeeded by his son, Cambyses II, who managed to add to the empire by conquering Egypt, Nubia, Cyrus the Great respected the customs and religions of the lands he conquered. This became a successful model for centralized administration and establishing a government working to the advantage. In fact, the administration of the empire through satraps and the principle of forming a government at Pasargadae were the works of Cyrus. Cyrus the Great is also recognized for his achievements in human rights, politics. Having originated from Persis, roughly corresponding to the modern Iranian province of Fars and this view has been criticized by some historians as a misunderstanding of the Cylinders generic nature as a traditional statement that new monarchs make at the beginning of their reign. The name Cyrus is a Latinized form derived from the Greek Κῦρος, Kỹros, the name and its meaning has been recorded in ancient inscriptions in different languages. This may also point to a relationship to the mythological first king of Persia, Jamshid. Karl Hoffmann has suggested a translation based on the meaning of an Indo-European-root to humiliate, in the Persian language and especially in Iran, Cyruss name is spelled as کوروش. In the Bible, he is known as Koresh, the Persian domination and kingdom in the Iranian plateau started by an extension of the Achaemenid dynasty, who expanded their earlier domination possibly from the 9th century BC onward. The eponymous founder of dynasty was Achaemenes. Achaemenids are descendants of Achaemenes as Darius the Great, the king of the dynasty, traces his genealogy to him. Ancient documents mention that Teispes had a son called Cyrus I, Cyrus I had a full brother whose name is recorded as Ariaramnes. In 600 BC, Cyrus I was succeeded by his son, Cambyses I, Cyrus the Great was a son of Cambyses I, who named his son after his father, Cyrus I
