Battle of Opis

Battle of Opis
Part of the Persian conquest of Babylonia
DateSeptember 539 BC
Location33°10′53″N 44°42′00″E / 33.18139°N 44.70000°E / 33.18139; 44.70000
Result

Achaemenid

Victory
Territorial
changes
Persian army captures Opis and Sippar
Belligerents
Neo-Babylonian Empire Achaemenid Empire
Commanders and leaders
Nabonidus
Belshazzar Executed?
Cyrus the Great
Gobryas
Strength
50,000 troops (per Herodotus)
10,000 troops (other estimates)[1]
70,000 troops (per Herodotus)
Casualties and losses
Heavy[2] Unknown
Opis is located in Iraq
Opis
Opis
Location within modern-day Iraq

The Battle of Opis was the last major military engagement between the Achaemenid Persian Empire and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which took place in September 539 BC, during the Persian invasion of Mesopotamia. At the time, Babylonia was the last major power in Western Asia that was not yet under Persian control. The battle was fought in or near the strategic riverside city of Opis, located north of the capital city of Babylon in modern-day Iraq, and resulted in a decisive victory for Persia. Shortly afterwards, the Babylonian city of Sippar surrendered to Persian forces, who then supposedly entered Babylon without facing any further resistance. The Persian king Cyrus the Great was subsequently proclaimed as the king of Babylonia and its subject territories, thus ending its independence and incorporating the entirety of the fallen Neo-Babylonian Empire into the greater Achaemenid Empire.

  1. ^ Bury, John Bagnell (1988). The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 4: Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean, C. 525 to 479 BC (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 24–25. ISBN 9780521228046.
  2. ^ Boardman, John "Nabonidus: Babylonia from 605–539 B.C.", in The Cambridge Ancient History vol. 3.2, p. 249. Contributor John Boardman. Cambridge University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-521-22717-8

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