Babylon's prestige and significance had diminished as the Persian kings did not become absorbed by the native Babylonian culture and continued to rule from capitals outside of Babylonia.

Bel-shimanni's revolt was brief, only lasting about two weeks, most probably either being defeated by Shamash-eriba or willingly giving up his claim and joining with the northern rebel.

Additionally, the Persians appear to have worked on dismantling the religious hegemony Babylon held over Babylonia by encouraging the rise of local cults in other Mesopotamian cities, most notably in Uruk.

The city, owing to its prestigious and ancient history, continued to be an important site, however, with a large population, defensible walls and a functioning local cult for centuries.

[4] Though Babylon did become one of the Achaemenid Empire's capitals (alongside Pasargadae, Ecbatana and Susa), retaining some importance through not being relegated to just a provincial city,[5] the Persian conquest introduced a ruling class which was not absorbed by the native Babylonian culture, instead maintaining their own additional political centers outside of Mesopotamia.

The large number of uprisings were only suppressed by Darius with great difficulty and as a result his victory widely commemorated in texts and monuments.

Based on information contained in the tablets recognising Bel-shimanni, Mariano San Nicolò [de] was in 1934 confidently able to pinpoint his reign to Xerxes's second year as king (484 BC).

[14] Further evidence examined since then, such as an abrupt end to many Babylonian archives in 484 BC, makes it clear that something remarkable occurred during this year.

Although it is unclear whether this type of sudden and unexplained interference by imperial authorities was restricted to Borsippa or widespread throughout Babylonia, it might have been what allowed the rebel leaders to gather significant enough support to revolt.

In addition to this specific example, tax pressures and a general exploitation of Babylonian resources had gradually increased throughout the reign of Xerxes's predecessor, Darius.

[1] The contents of Babylonian text archives deposited in 484 BC prove the existence of a large interconnected network of urban elites throughout Babylonia prior to the revolts.

These archives implicate several figures as supporters of Bel-shimanni's and Shamash-eriba's revolts, including the governor (šākinṭēmi) of Babylon itself, prebendaries of temples in Sippar (with frequently mentioned figures being the archive owners Marduk-rēmanni and Bēl-rēmanni) as well as the powerful Ša-nāšišu family, which controlled the most important religious and civic offices of both Babylon and Sippar in the reign of Darius.

[16] Caroline Waerzeggers identified the Ša-nāšišu family in the years leading up to 484 BC as "ideally positioned to facilitate coordinated action".

[13] After the death of Darius, Xerxes's rule was initially accepted in Babylonia, despite mounting unrest in the region and an ongoing revolt in Egypt.

[15] Shamash-eriba's proclamation as king, though he did not yet control Babylon itself, was the first open act of revolt from the Babylonians since the uprising of Nebuchadnezzar IV in 521 BC.

[14] As the ruler of Sippar, Shamash-eriba's revolt initially gained ground in northern Babylonia whereas Bel-shimanni power-base was south of Babylon, in Borsippa and Dilbat.

[23] The orthodox view, most clearly expressed by George Glenn Cameron in 1941 and Franz Marius Theodor de Liagre Böhl in 1962, is that Babylon was harshly reprimanded, with Xerxes ruining the city, taking away the Statue of Marduk (Babylon's main cult image of Marduk), which in turn prevented the celebration of Akitu (the Babylonian New Year's festival, which required the statue's presence), splitting the large Babylonian satrapy ("Babylon-and-across-the-River") into two smaller provinces, and removing the title king of Babylon from his royal titulature.

Other researchers, such as Hans-Jörg Schmid in 1981, further embellished the details of this supposed retribution, considering it possible the Esagila was destroyed and that the river Euphrates was diverted.

Other researchers, such as Amélie Kuhrt and Susan Sherwin-White in 1987, consider the ideas forwarded by Böhl and others as being "based on a careless reading of Herodotus combined with incomplete Babylonian evidence and an implicit wish to make very disparate types of material harmonize with a presumed “knowledge” of Xerxes’ actions, policies and character".

[24] The gradual disappearance of the title might reflect the stabilisation of the Persian Empire into a more integrated political unit, rather than some instant punishment against Babylon.

[24] The lesser number of clay tablets from the reign of Xerxes and later might be attributable not to Persian oppression but to a multitude of other factors, such as accidents, the appearance of new forms of recordkeeping and new writing technologies or the further spread the Aramaic language.

[28] In contrast, those whose archives cease in 484 BC were overwhelmingly people who lived in the cities, their ideology not rooted in their relationship to the new Persian overlords but to the political tradition of Babylonia in the form of the country's temples and cities; urban institutions had been established long before the Persian conquest and were run by a small number of families intimately connected through status, education, employment and marriage.

The end of the archives coincides with the disappearance of elite families with roots in Babylon from southern Babylonia, suggesting that the Persian retribution at least partially focused on dismantling what remained of the pro-Babylonian faction in the aftermath of the revolts.

[30] By 484 BC, a small number of prominent families of Babylonian origin had dominated the local politics of Uruk for generations.

His rise to the top of the pantheon at Uruk might have been a symbolic assertion by the city to counter the central religious authority of Babylon.

[35] Paul-Alain Beaulieu believes that it is possible that Anu's rise was either imposed or encouraged by the Persians in the aftermath of the defeat of the Babylonian revolts.

Encouraging the new elite families of Uruk to create a renewed local civic cult independent of the theology advocated by Babylon might have been a step in working against unity among the Babylonian cities.