User talk:Nepaheshgar/Battle of Opis

Note: I am waiting for a comprehensive paper that will be hopefully written in 2009 or 2010 on the issue.

The Battle of Opis, fought in September 539 BC, was the second and final engagement of the war between Cyrus the Great of Persia and Nabonidus of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. It followed an earlier battle on the Tigris said to have taken place some time in February 539 BC. The battle resulted in a decisive defeat for the Babylonians and led, a few weeks later, to Cyrus's unopposed entry into the city of Babylon and his proclamation as king of Babylonia.

Location
The site of the battle was near the city of Opis on the river Tigris, located about 50 miles (80 km) from modern Baghdad. The city is thought to have been a preferred point to cross the river, which presumably was shallower or narrower there than elsewhere. By taking Opis, Cyrus broke through the Median Wall defensive line north of Babylon and opened the road to the capital.

The battle
The main source of information on the battle is the Nabonidus Chronicle, one of a series of clay tablets collectively known as the Babylonian Chronicles that record the history of ancient Babylonia. The full text of the Nabonidus Chronicle has been published in a number of translations in English, including by Oppenheim (1950), Grayson (1975) , Glassner (2004).

The tablet records that in the month Tashritu [27 September-27 October] Cyrus did battle at Opis on the [bank of the] Tigris among the army of Akkad;. There has been several translations of the continuation of the text.

William G. Lambert(2007), who wrote an article in analyzing the continuation translated this portion as "In Tishri when Cyrus did battle with the army of Akkad at Opis, on the [bank] of the Tigris. The soldiers of Akkad withdrew.  He (Cyrus) took plunder and defeated the soldiers of (Akkad)"

According to the general treatment of the Babylonian Chronicles by Grayson (1975) and a later translation by Glassner (2004), in the aftermath of the battle Cyrus "carried off the plunder (and) slaughtered the people.". An older translation by Oppenheim renders the line as "the inhabitants of Akkad revolted, but he massacred the confused inhabitants", but is unclear about who did the massacring. . Another translation quoted in the literature(for example mention by Richard Frye in 1984 and Katzstein 1979) reads  :"In the month of Tašrîtu, when Cyrus attacked the army of Akkad in Opis [i.e., Baghdad] on the Tigris, the inhabitants of Akkad revolted, but (Nabonidus) massacred the confused inhabitants. The fifteenth day [12 October], Sippar was seized without battle."

William G. Lambert (2007) after examinaning Grayson's translation disputes Grayson's translation arguing that "The difficulty [with the accepted translation] is that after defeating the Babylonian army it appears that nothing more was done about that army, but instead the local town was looted and the population slaughtered. "Akkad" means "Babylonia," but while "the army of Akkad" is an appropriate designation for Nabonidus' troops, "the people of Akkad" should then mean "the people of Babylonia," which is absurd. There was no non-Babylonian population around Opis or Sippar. A solution which makes perfect sense is to take nišu in the common meaning "men" to refer to the Babylonian army. Cyrus did battle with the Babylonian army at Opis, that army retreated, Cyrus looted their camp, then he caught up with them and defeated them" An older translation by Oppenheim (1950) renders the line as "the inhabitants of Akkad revolted, but he massacred the confused inhabitants", but is unclear about who did the massacring. H.J. Katzenstein (1979) and Richard Nelson Frye (1984) present the same line but attribute the massacre to Nabonidus.

The chronicle goes on to state: "On the fourteenth day [6 October] Sippar was captured without battle. Nabonidus fled. On the sixteenth day [12 October] Ug/Gubaru, governor of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus without a battle entered Babylon. Afterwards, after Nabonidus returned, he was captured in Babylon."

The other primary ancient source for Cyrus's Babylonian campaign, Herodotus's Histories, gives a completely different account. He does not mention the Battle of Opis and asserts that Cyrus subjected Babylon to a two-year siege, which only ended when the Persians diverted the course of the Euphrates to allow their army to enter the city through a floodgate. However, this contradicts the accounts of the Babylonian and Persian sources, and scholars are in general agreement that Herodotus's account is an invention. But other historians regard the second part of the account factual, while the first part contains a an earlier timeline, or as most agree, a false one.

Aftermath
Historians are divided about whether the description of a massacre and looting in the accepted translation of the Nabonidus Chronicle refers to an attack on the city of Opis or whether it refers to the fate of the main camp of Nabonidus' broken army, assuming that the Persians captured it intact. The battle and massacre are not mentioned from the later Cyrus cylinder inscription, which portrays Cyrus as liberating Babylon peacefully and with the consent of its people. Simon J. Sherwin comments that the battle at Opis "gives the lie to the idea of Cyrus as a benign liberator" and suggests that the aim of the reported massacre was "to terrorize the population" to intimidate Sippar and Babylon into surrendering without resistance. Maria Brosius similarly interprets Cyrus's actions as punitive, "mak[ing] an example of a city trying to resist the Persian army". Amélie Kuhrt comments that the reference to an apparent massacre and looting suggests that the battle was "probably a hard-won victory."

Although later inscriptions such as the Cyrus cylinder and the Verse Account of Nabonidus portrayed the Persian conquest of Babylonia as essentially peaceful, the battle demonstrates that the existing Babylonian regime actively resisted Cyrus's invasion of Mesopotamia. It was perhaps a sign of the divisions in the regime - Nabonidus was reputedly highly unpopular among the Babylonian elite - that some Babylonian subjects appear to have welcomed the Persians. It is, however, unclear how widely the Persians were supported within Babylonia, as accounts of the invasion and Nabonidus's rule are coloured by Cyrus's subsequent propaganda. The account related in the Chronicle indicates that after the battle Cyrus halted at Opis, sending his general Gubaru with an army to invest Babylon. The king did not travel to the capital until well after it had been secured, some three weeks after the battle. Sherwin draws attention to Cyrus's non-participation in the taking of Babylon, suggesting that it demonstrates that Cyrus "was not expecting an easy victory".