WI Neo-Assyrian Empire Survives (a little longer)

Supposing -- the "how" notwithstanding -- the Neo-Babylonian revolt is averted, and the Assyrian Empire is still (essentially) intact circa 550 BC? Does Cyrus the Great, or someone like him, still emerge in the east around this time? If so, does Assyria fall straight to him? Primary question, how is Middle Eastern history and civilization altered, and what are the butterflies from there?

CONSOLIDATE: Also, I realize a similar thread was done some years ago...
 
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Cyrus probably would not be there. Persia however bore the old, rich heritage of Elam, and probably would be a big player anyway.
 
Persia however bore the old, rich heritage of Elam, and probably would be a big player anyway.

Could be; what I'm especially wondering, right now, is whether whoever takes down and replaces the Assyrians replaces the Cult of Ashur with (proto?)Zorastrianism still, or whether something else emerges entirely? It'd be a hell of a butterfly if the next big empire had a character completely different from the Achemenids.

Another way of phrasing this scenario might be "What if the Neo-Babylonian Empire never existed?"
 
Why do you call them the neo-babylonian and neo-assyrian empires? I always thought they were just Babylonian and Assyrian.
 
Why do you call them the neo-babylonian and neo-assyrian empires? I always thought they were just Babylonian and Assyrian.

AIUI, "Neo-Assyrian" is used to distinguish the empire of the 10th to 7th Centuries BC with the Middle Assyrian period preceding it, while "Neo-Babylonian Empire" is used to distinguish the (relatively) brief period of Babylonian resurgence b/w the Neo-Assyrians and the Achaemenids from the far older First Babylonian Dynasty (of Hammurabi fame). Does that help?

Of course to make things even more confusing, consider this -- without the dilligent preservation work of the Neo-Babylonian Empire seeking to extol the glories of the Old Babylonian Empire, TTL might know a lot less about the latter in the millenia to come...
 
Why do you call them the neo-babylonian and neo-assyrian empires? I always thought they were just Babylonian and Assyrian.

The Neo-Babylonian is used to describe the short lived, but prestigious, empire of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II which existed between 626 and 539BC, as opposed to the Babylonian Empire of about 5-600 years earlier.

Similarly the Neo-Assyrians are the 934-609BC Empire and the Assyrians are an earlier Empire.
 
What if Sennacherib's destruction of Babylon is not overturned by Esarhaddon? Assyria could keep a hold of the other cities in Babylonia without Babylon as a focus of resistance to Assyrian rule. If you still get Ashurbanipal to destroy Elam, than the Medes/Persians will still probably move into the power vacuum, so its not too unlikely for a Cyrus analogue to emerge later on. However, whether or not he can take down Assyria is all down to if the Assyrians are bogged down and tired fighting some other enemy, which seems very possible.
 
I think we all agree a (Persian) Cyrus analogue is likely to emerge -- what I'm primarily interested in right now is whether this leader will still make the big social changes under Cyrus (regarding things like religious tolerance, slavery, women's rights, local government, etc). To the extent he doesn't, the butterflies are going to be enormous...
 
Supposing -- the "how" notwithstanding -- the Neo-Babylonian revolt is averted, and the Assyrian Empire is still (essentially) intact circa 550 BC? Does Cyrus the Great, or someone like him, still emerge in the east around this time? If so, does Assyria fall straight to him? Primary question, how is Middle Eastern history and civilization altered, and what are the butterflies from there?

CONSOLIDATE: Also, I realize a similar thread was done some years ago...

Well, actually, when the Assyrians fell, they were pretty much at the zenith of their power. Although Egypt broke away during Ashurbanipal's reign, Assyria also destroyed it's old enemy Elam, and Urartu was rendered pretty much caput as well. If a struggle for the succession had not broken out between the sons of Ashurbanipal at exactly the wrong time...when Nabopolassar was consolidating his rule in Babylonia and the Medes were on the rise...Assyria might well have survived.

So let's say the civil war doesn't happen. Assyria remains united and its army...the best in the world...is not weakened by years of civil war following Ashurbanipal's death. Let's say his successor, Ashur-etil-ilani, is a different man than he was in OTL....a strong king in the mold of his fathers who enjoys the complete loyalty of his generals and family. He severely chastises the nomad invasion (an allied horde of Scythians, Medes, Persians, Cimmerians) which hit Assyria at the death of Ashurbanipal, then turns on Nabopolassar, nipping that problem in the bud by defeating, capturing, and flaying alive the Chaldean leader and burning Babylon to the ground, like Sennacherib did, once upon a time. Like his predecessors, he then makes punitive campaigns into Media and Persia, extracting a tribute of horses and mercenary soldiers from the Iranian tribes.

When Ashur-etil-ilani dies in 575 BC, his grandson (lets call him Shalmaneser VI) succeeds him. He too is a man in the mold of Ashurbanipal, and successfully defends the borders of Assyria. He defeats attempts by the Saite kings of Egypt to meddle in Syria-Palestine, and re-establishes Assyrian control over the Nile Delta, including the city of Sais itself (Pharoah Wahibre is forced to move his capital to Thebes). Shalmaneser VI dies in 540 BC, with the Assyrian Empire stronger than it has been since the reign of Esarhaddon.

In this scenario, Cyrus probably does not arise in the East, because Assyria would have been pursuing its policy of frequent raids into Iran to keep the tribes there weak. Assuming Zoroaster lives at all, he probably won't have a strong royal booster for quite some time.

As for the butterflies, Saite Egypt probably lasts a bit longer, assuming the Assyrians don't decide to make an end of it. The empires of the Medes and the Persians either don't arise at all, or arise much later. Lydia in Asia Minor probably continues for some time as an ally and possible client state of Assyria.

There won't be any Persian Wars beginning in 490 BC, and may not be ever. As a knock-on effect, there probably is no Athenian Empire or Golden Age of Athens (in OTL it was the Persian threat which led to the formation of the Delian League, which Athens perverted into the Athenian Empire, stealing the treasury to fund the construction of the Age of Pericles in Athens).

From there, who knows? The Assyrians would probably fall eventually, but the Neo-Assyrian empire had already lasted for several hundred years, and it might have lasted, with luck, for a few hundred more.
 
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Well, so much for the Cyrus analogue consensus -- though it's a convincing case that a Zoroastrian (or similar religion) regime quite likely may never happen TTL (and hence huge butterflies). Also, quite impressive to think of a TL where the Greco-Persian Wars don't happen (nor an analogous ME invasion of the Hellenes).

All that said, I'd say the having both Ashurbanipal's son and grandson being effective rulers in his mold is a lucky enough break without having the Neo- Assyrians last another couple of centuries; I'd say having the empire fall circa 500 BC (instead of 626-600 BC) is lucky enough.
 
All that said, I'd say the having both Ashurbanipal's son and grandson being effective rulers in his mold is a lucky enough break without having the Neo- Assyrians last another couple of centuries; I'd say having the empire fall circa 500 BC (instead of 626-600 BC) is lucky enough.

Granted. But the Assyrian royal house was very "gifted" in that regard. From Tiglath Pileser III onward through Ashurbanipal, there was only one "weak" king in a period of over 120 years, and even that one might not have actually been weak...he just died very soon after taking the throne. So the idea that they might be able to hang on another century might not be too much to accept.
 
So the idea that they might be able to hang on another century might not be too much to accept.

I think I agree; I just think two centuries might be a stretch. I can see a perfectly plausible TL where the Neo-Assyrians keep going strong until the last quarter of the sixth century BC.

So what comes after? For example, I imagine the Lydians will have a much greater impact on Greek culture (like more Anatolian deities in Greek religion) -- that is, if the Cimmerians don't overpower them first (butterflies, butterflies). Is it possible, given a PoD in the 620's BC, for either of them to conquer Mesopotamia? (How's that for irony? Around the time OTL a Middle Eastern Empire was trying to conquer the Greeks, TTL the Greeks wereset about conquering the Middle East.)
 
I think I agree; I just think two centuries might be a stretch. I can see a perfectly plausible TL where the Neo-Assyrians keep going strong until the last quarter of the sixth century BC.

Agreed, or maybe even a little bit into the 5th century.

So what comes after? For example, I imagine the Lydians will have a much greater impact on Greek culture (like more Anatolian deities in Greek religion)

Quite possible.

-- that is, if the Cimmerians don't overpower them first (butterflies, butterflies).

Well, the Cimmerians were pretty much a spent force by this time. They were more of a major force in the 8th and early 7th centuries, when they destroyed Phrygia and almost destroyed Urartu. But the Lydians, with Assyrian help, had torn the heart out of them by the late 7th century. The big nomadic threat by this time was the Scythians, and they seemed more interested in raiding than in settling in Anatolia.

Is it possible, given a PoD in the 620's BC, for either of them to conquer Mesopotamia? (How's that for irony? Around the time OTL a Middle Eastern Empire was trying to conquer the Greeks, TTL the Greeks wereset about conquering the Middle East.)

I don't think Lydia would have been powerful enough and the Greeks weren't organized enough, even in a TL where they had been through the Persian Wars, to attempt it until the Greek cities had been conquered and brought to heel by the Macedonians. Which may not happen in this TL because the Persian invasions spurred them on the road which led to their emergence as a strong, unified state as well.
 
I don't think Lydia would have been powerful enough and the Greeks weren't organized enough, even in a TL where they had been through the Persian Wars, to attempt it until the Greek cities had been conquered and brought to heel by the Macedonians. Which may not happen in this TL because the Persian invasions spurred them on the road which led to their emergence as a strong, unified state as well.

Okay, then if the Persians aren't the leading candidate, and the Lydians aren't likely, who do you think would replace the Assyrians?
 
I don't know really anything about this subject, but I would like to note how interesting this conversation is.

Could the lack of the Persian Empire mean that civilization remains centered more in the Middle East even longer? How might this affect Phoenician and Greek colonization of the Mediterranean?
 
Okay, then if the Persians aren't the leading candidate, and the Lydians aren't likely, who do you think would replace the Assyrians?

The Medes have a chance.
The Armenians would be interesting but unlikely.
My guess is that the Empire collapses into three or four smaller polities for a while: Syria, Assyria proper and Chaldaea would be the core candidates, with outer players like Cilicia and Elam. Palestine could fall under Egyptian or alt-Nabatean control.
However, if Persia (Anshan) and Elam proper somehow reunite, they would be a force to be reckoned with.
 
I've always wondered if part of Assyria's difficulties were tied to how long Assurbanipal reigned, so another possibilty is to have Assurbanipal die, say, 10 years earlier and have his sucessor(who might well be better/come out cleaner from the sucession catfight earlier, esp. if we butterfly some of Assurbanipal's later progeny), have them go on campaign against the Elamites(who seem to have been powerful longer than we give them credit for) and be a bit more careful about placating Babylon.
 
How might this affect Phoenician and Greek colonization of the Mediterranean?

I think they were already colonizing around the time of the PoD.

My guess is that the Empire collapses into three or four smaller polities for a while: Syria, Assyria proper and Chaldaea would be the core candidates, with outer players like Cilicia and Elam... However, if Persia (Anshan) and Elam proper somehow reunite, they would be a force to be reckoned with.

Elam ain't coming back, not after what Ash did to them. Not sure who "Syria" is around this time, but since the Chaldeans got their shot OTL, I'm going to root for a Cilcian Empire in the described situation.
 
I think they were already colonizing around the time of the PoD.



Elam ain't coming back, not after what Ash did to them. Not sure who "Syria" is around this time, but since the Chaldeans got their shot OTL, I'm going to root for a Cilcian Empire in the described situation.

In a sense, OTL Persia was Elam coming back.
Syria is a mess of Aramaic-speaking groups mainly deported by the Assyrians, and I was referring to it mainly as a centre of agricultural potential that could offer the base for one (or more) sizeable states.
A "Syrian" territory under Cilician dominance is a quite distinct possibility, though I doubt Cilicia has the possibility to control Mesopotamia to any degree of stability. It would be a sort of Mitanni 2.0. Mesopotamia could fall to some group from the Iranian plateau (Manneans, if not the Medes?). If independent, it would turn "neo-babylonian" and dominated by Chaldeans, even if the capital city may be not Babylon, actually it could easily be either Isin or Ur. Cilicia simply would be uninterested in grand expansion eastwards and is likely to focus on a conflict with either Egypt or Lydia, or both.
That would be interesting.
By the way, here there's a lot of potential for a brand new remote power emerging in Bactria.
 
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