ealt a fatal blow to the Median empire, capturing its king,
Astyages, and joining Media to his own district. He founded what was
afterwards known as the Persian empire.

The overthrow of the Medes gave Cyrus control over Assyria, and it was
to be expected that his gaze should be turned in the direction of
Babylonia. Nabonnedos recognized the danger, but all his efforts to
strengthen the powers of resistance to the Persian arms were of no
avail. Civil disturbances divided the Babylonians. The cohesion between
the various districts was loosened, and within the city of Babylon
itself, a party arose antagonistic to Nabonnedos, who in their
short-sightedness hailed the advance of Cyrus. Under these
circumstances, Babylon fell an easy prey to the Persian conqueror. In
the autumn of the year 539 Cyrus entered the city in triumph, and was
received with such manifestations of joy by the populace, as to make one
almost forget that with his entrance, the end of a great empire had
come. Politically and religiously, the history of Babylonia and Assyria
terminates with the advent of Cyrus; and this despite the fact that it
was his policy to leave the state of affairs, including religious
observances, as far as possible, undisturbed. A new spirit had, however,
come into the land with him. The official religion of the state was that
practiced by Cyrus and his predecessors in their native land. The
essential doctrines of the religion, commonly known as Mazdeism or
Zoroastrianism, presented a sharp contrast to the beliefs that still
were current in Babylonia, and it was inevitable that with the influx of
new ideas, the further development of Babylonian worship was cut short.
The respect paid by Cyrus to the Babylonian gods was a mere matter of
policy. Still, the religious rites continued to be practiced as of old
in Babylonia and Assyria for a long time, and when the religion finally
disappeared, under the subsequent conquests of the Greeks, Romans, and
Arabs, it left its traces in the popular superstitions and in the
ineradicable traditions that survived. But so far as the _history_ of
this religion is concerned, it comes to an end with the downfall of the
second Babylonian empire.

* * * * *

The period, then, to be covered by a treatment of the religion of the
Babylonians and Assyrians extends over the long interval between about
4000 B.C. and the middle of the sixth century. The development of this
r