Middle Eastern empires

The Fertile Crescent saw the rise and fall of many great civilizations that made the region one of the most vibrant and colorful in history, including empires like that of the Assyrians and Babylonians, and influential trade kingdoms, such as the Lydians and Phoenicians.

Starting as a small settlement in the Early Bronze Age (c. 3500 BCE), Ebla developed into a trading empire and later into an expansionist power that imposed its hegemony over much of northern and eastern Syria.

The Akkadian Empire exercised influence across Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Anatolia, sending military expeditions as far south as Dilmun and Magan (modern Bahrain and Oman) in the Arabian Peninsula.

The key to Sargon's victories was his coordination in the army movement, his ability to improvise tactics, his combined arms strategy, and his skill at siege warfare, as well as the keeping of intelligence always relying on heavy reconnaissance.

The city of Babylon makes its second to the last appearance in historical sources after the fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which had ruled the city-states of the alluvial plain between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris for more than a century.

From his reign on, the alluvial plain of southern Iraq was called, with a deliberate archaism, Mât Akkadî, "the country of Akkad", after the city that had united the region centuries before, but it is known to us as Babylonia.

Even after the Babylonian Empire had been overthrown by the Persian king Cyrus the Great (539), the city itself remained an important cultural center and the ultimate prize in the eyes of aspiring conquerors.

Shaushtatar, king of Mitanni, sacked the Assyrian capital of Assur some time in the 15th century during the reign of Nur-ili, and took the silver and golden doors of the royal palace to Washukanni.

[citation needed] The peak of Egyptian imperial expansion came when threatened from abroad, when Ramesses II led an army to the north to fight the Hittites at Kadesh.

Following the conquests of Adad-nirari II in the late 10th century BCE, Assyria emerged as the most powerful state in the world at the time, coming to dominate the Ancient Near East, East Mediterranean, Asia Minor, Caucasus, and parts of the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa, eclipsing and conquering rivals such as Babylonia, Elam, Persia, Urartu, Lydia, the Medes, Phrygians, Cimmerians, Israel, Judah, Phoenicia, Chaldea, Canaan, the Kushite Empire, the Arabs, and Egypt.

[9] The earliest Phoenician settlements outside the Levant were on Cyprus and Crete, gradually moving westward towards Corsica, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, and Sicily, as well as on the European mainland in Genoa and Marseilles.

"[16] Cross's interpretation of the Nora Stone provides additional evidence that in the late 9th century BCE, Tyre was involved in colonizing the western Mediterranean, lending credence to the establishment of a colony in Carthage in that time frame.

The Medes gained control over the lands in eastern Anatolia that had once been part of Urartu and eventually became embroiled in a war with the Lydians, the dominant political power in western Asia Minor.

Finally, in 539 BCE, they opened the gates of Babylon to Cyrus the Persian, thus fulfilling Daniel's message of doom upon the notorious Belshazzar, the last Chaldean ruler: "You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting" (Dan.

[25] The Greco-Persian Wars eventually culminated with the independence of Persia's westernmost territories (comprising Macedon, Thrace, and Paeonia) and the definitive withdrawal from the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper.

In 333 B.C, following the Battle of Gaugamela, the Empire was overthrown and incorporated by Alexander the Great, starting a new period in Middle Eastern history, one noted by the emergence of Hellenistic and Greco-Persian culture, as well as dynasties (e.g. Kingdom of Pontus).

Alexander was a remarkable person who combined the military genius and political vision of his father Philip II of Macedon, with a literary bent romanticism and a taste for adventure.

Alexander's conquest of Persia replaced the Achaemenids with the Seleucids, but the absence of a clear successor after his untimely death and the in-fighting that inevitably followed meant that his empire would not long outlive him.

The Armenian Empire was a short lived state that rose to predominance under Tigranes the Great who conquered the entire middle east with the exception of the central and southern Arabia and western anatolia.

[37] The Roman general Tenagino Probus was able to regain Alexandria in November, but was defeated and escaped to the fortress of Babylon, where he was besieged and killed by Zabdas, who continued his march south and secured Egypt.

The use of new military tactics and strategy, alliances, mercenary forces, and reforms in governance contributed to the survival of the Eastern Empire for further centuries, despite being greatly diminished in size after the Muslim conquest of the Levant.

In many ways, the Sassanid period witnessed the highest achievement of Persian civilization and constituted the last great Iranian Empire before the Muslim conquest and adoption of Islam.

The first Shah of the Sassanid dynasty, Ardashir, promised to destroy the Hellenistic influence in Persia, avenge Darius III against the heirs of Alexander, and reconquer all the territories once held by the Achaemenid kings.

He blamed the Romans for aiding the Armenians, who were a close ally to Rome, and in 230 invaded Mesopotamia and besieged Nisibis, however unsuccessfully, while his cavalry threatened Cappadocia and Syria.

Ardashir extended the Persian Empire to Oxus in the north-east, to the Euphrates in the west, and on his death bed in 241, he passed on his crown to Shapur, who would carry on the war further into Rome.

The Ghassanids, who had successfully opposed the Persian allied Lakhmids of al-Hirah (Southern Iraq and Northern Arabia), prospered economically and engaged in much religious and public building; they also patronized the arts and at one time entertained the poets Nabighah adh-Dhubyani and Hassan ibn Thabit at their courts.

From this position he attacked the coastal cities of Iran – which at that time was in civil war, due to a dispute as to the succession – even raiding the birthplace of the Sasanian kings, Fars province.

Imru' al-Qais escaped to Bahrain, taking his dream of a unified Arab nation with him, and then to Syria seeking the promised assistance from Constantius II which never materialized, so he stayed there until he died.

It is now widely believed that the annexation of the Lakhmid kingdom was one of the main factors behind the fall of the Sasanian Empire and the Muslim conquest of Persia as the Sassanians were defeated in the Battle of Hira by Khalid ibn al-Walid.

According to the Arab historian Abu ʿUbaidah (d. 824), Khosrow II was angry with the king, al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir, for refusing to give him his daughter in marriage, and therefore imprisoned him.