Post-imperial Assyria

Post-imperial Assyria
609 BC–c. AD 240
Assur Nineveh Arbela Locations of the major sites of Assur, Nineveh and Arbela in modern Iraq
Common languages	Aramaic, Akkadian, Greek
Religion	Ancient Mesopotamian religion Hellenistic religion Judaism Syriac Christianity
Historical era	Classical antiquity
• Fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire	609 BC
• Conquest by the Achaemenid Empire	539 BC
• Conquests of Alexander the Great	330 BC
• Conquest by the Parthian Empire	c. 141 BC
• Flourishing under Parthian suzerainty	1st–2nd centuries AD
• Sack of Assur by the Sasanian Empire	c. AD 240
Preceded by Succeeded by Neo-Assyrian Empire Sasanian Empire
Today part of	Iraq

The post-imperial period^[1] was the final stage of ancient Assyrian history, covering the history of the Assyrian heartland from the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 609 BC to the final sack and destruction of Assur, Assyria's ancient religious capital, by the Sasanian Empire c. AD 240.^[1][2] There was no independent Assyrian state during this time, with Assur and other Assyrian cities instead falling under the control of the successive Median (615–549 BC), Neo-Babylonian (612–539 BC), Achaemenid (539–330 BC), Seleucid (312–c. 141 BC) and Parthian (c. 141 BC–AD 224) empires. The period was marked by the continuance of ancient Assyrian culture, traditions and religion, despite the lack of an Assyrian kingdom. The ancient Assyrian dialect of the Akkadian language went extinct however, completely replaced by Aramaic by the 5th century BC.

During the fall of Assyria in the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire 626–609 BC, northern Mesopotamia was extensively sacked and destroyed by Median and Babylonian forces. The Babylonian kings, who annexed large parts of Assyria cared little for economically or socially developing the region and as such there was a dramatic decline in population density. Many of the greatest cities of the Neo-Assyrian period, such as Nineveh, were deserted and others, such as Assur, decreased dramatically in size and population. The region only began the process of recovery under the rule of the Achaemenid Empire. After his conquest of Babylon in 539, the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great returned the cult statue of the Assyrian national deity Ashur to Assur. The Achaemenid practice of not interfering with local cultures, and the organization of the Assyrian lands into a single province, Athura, allowed Assyrian culture to endure.

Assyria was extensively resettled during the Seleucid and Parthian periods. In the last two centuries or so of Parthian rule, Assyria flourished; the great cities of old, such as Assur, Nineveh and Nimrud were resettled and expanded, old villages rebuilt and new settlements constructed. The population density of Parthian Assyria reached heights not seen since the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Much of Assyria was not ruled directly by the Parthians, but instead by a number of vassal kingdoms, such as Hatra and Adiabene, which had some Assyrian cultural influence. Assur, at this time at least two thirds of the size the city was during Neo-Assyrian times, appears to have been a semi-autonomous city-state, governed by a sequence of Assyrian city-lords who might have seen themselves as the successors of the ancient Assyrian kings. This latter-day Assyrian cultural golden age came to an end when Ardashir I of the Sasanian Empire overthrew the Parthians and, during his campaigns against them, extensively sacked Assyria and its cities.