Religious responses in Babylonia to the rise of Persia

It is an axiom of the ancient world that politics and religion were inseparable; the example of the urban elite of Babylon and their response to the rise of the Persian Empire in the sixth century BCE is a case in point. The defection of King Nabonidus from the patronage of the chief god, Marduk, to that of the moon god, Sîn, and his mismanagement of domestic religious policy preempted a religious schism in the Babylonian ruling class that resulted in the complicity of some elite groups in the transition of sovereignty to the Persian invader Cyrus the Great. This article treats the unravelling of Nabonidus’ relationship with the Marduk cult in the decade prior to the Persian assault and then turns to the religious motivations of responses by Nabonidus’ most powerful subjects at the time of the fall of Babylonia.