History of Assyria - Pre-Christian Period

Pre-Christian Period

The history of ancient Assyria harks back to the Akkadian Empire of the Early Bronze Age. The Neo-Assyrian Empire flourished between 911BC and 608BC, before it was conquered by a coalition led by their Babylonian brothers which also included Medes, Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians . Linguistically, the Assyrians today speak dialects of eastern Aramaic, which was originally introduced to Mesopotamia in 1200 BC by large numbers of Aramean migrants who interbred with the native Akkadians. Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire during Classical Antiquity.

After the defeat of Ashur-uballit II in 608 BC at Haran, and finally at Carchemish in 605 BC, the Assyrian empire was divided up by the key invading forces, the Babylonian Chaldean dynasty and the Medes. The Median empire was then conquered by Cyrus in 547 BC., under the Achaemenid dynasty, and the Persian empire was thus founded, which later consumed the Neo-Babylonian or "Chaldean" Empire. King Cyrus changed Assyria's capital from Nineveh to Arbela. Assyrians became front line soldiers for the Persian empire under King Xerxes, playing a major role in the Battle of Marathon under King Darius I in 490 BC.

Achaemenid Assyria retained a separate identity for some time, official correspondence being in Imperial Aramaic, and there was even an attempted revolt by Assyria in 520 BC. Under Greek Seleucid rule, however, Aramaic gave way to Greek language as the official language. Mesopotamian Aramaic was marginalised, but remained the spoken language of the native population of Assyria,and indeed the whole of Mesopotamia.

Syria became a Roman province in 64 BC, following the Third Mithridatic War. The Assyrian army accounted for three legions of the Roman army, defending the Parthian border. In the 1st century, it was the Asyrian army that enabled Vespasian's coup. Syria was of crucial strategic importance during the crisis of the third century. From the later 2nd century, the Roman senate included several notable Assyrians, including Claudius Pompeianus and Avidius Cassius. In the 3rd century, Assyrians even reached for imperial power, with the Severan dynasty.

From the 1st century BC, Assyria was the theatre of the protracted Perso-Roman Wars. It would eventually become a Roman province (Assyria Provincia) between 116 and 363 AD, although Roman control of this province was unstable and was often returned to the Persians.