The Babylonian revolts of 484 BC were revolts of two rebel kings of Babylon, Bel-shimanni (Akkadian: Bêl-šimânni) and Shamash-eriba (Akkadian: Šamaš-eriba), against Xerxes I, king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.

Babylonia had been conquered by the Persians in 539 BC, but through the 55 years of Persian rule, the Babylonians had grown dissatisfied with their foreign overlords. Babylon's prestige and significance had diminished as the Persian kings did not become absorbed by the native Babylonian culture and continued to rule from capitals outside of Babylonia. Furthermore, the Persian kings failed in the traditional duties of the Babylonian king in that they rarely partook in Babylon's rituals (which required the presence of a king) and rarely gave cultic gifts in Babylonian temples. Babylonian letters written shortly before the revolt paint a picture of dissatisfaction and concern, as the Persians withdrew the income of Babylonian temple officials without explanation and tax pressures and exploitation of resources increased throughout Babylonia. It is possible that the revolts were not just motivated by a wish to re-establish an independent Babylonian kingdom, but that the revolts also had religious undertones, something which might connect them to a religious uprising somewhere in the Persian Empire written about in Xerxes's inscriptions.

The revolt began in July 484 BC, the fourth month of Xerxes's second year as king. The citizens of Sippar (north of Babylon) proclaimed Shamash-eriba as king of Babylon and he also took for himself the title king of the Lands. In the same month, a second rebel king, Bel-shimanni, was recognised in Borsippa and Dilbat (south of Babylon). Shamash-eriba was still in control of Sippar at this point, which means that the two rebels were contemporaries, either allies or, more likely, rivals. Bel-shimanni's revolt was brief, only lasting about two weeks, most probably either being defeated by Shamash-eriba or willingly giving up his claim and joining with the northern rebel. By September, Shamash-eriba was recognised not only in Sippar and Borsippa, but also in Kish and Babylon itself. The Persians defeated him in October and re-established control of Babylonia.

The extent to which Babylon and the Babylonians were reprimanded by Xerxes is unclear. Traditionally, historians have ascribed widespread destruction to the aftermath of the revolts, with Xerxes supposedly having greatly damaged the temples of Babylon and removing the Statue of Marduk, Babylon's main cult image, from the city. The veracity of such claims is unclear, as no evidence exists whatsoever of any damage being done to the cities of Babylonia in 484 BC. Other forms of retribution are evident from the historical evidence; the text archives of a majority of Babylonia's most prominent families end in 484 BC, suggesting targeted revenge against the supporters of the revolts. Additionally, the Persians appear to have worked on dismantling the religious hegemony Babylon held over Babylonia by encouraging the rise of local cults in other Mesopotamian cities, most notably in Uruk.

Background The Neo-Babylonian Empire, the last great Mesopotamian empire to be ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia itself and the final and most spectacular era in Babylonian history, was ended through the Persian Achaemenid conquest of Babylon under Cyrus the Great in 539 BC. After its conquest, Babylon would never again rise to become the single capital of an independent kingdom, much less a great empire. The city, owing to its prestigious and ancient history, continued to be an important site, however, with a large population, defensible walls and a functioning local cult for centuries. The Babylonians worshipped the gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon and the citizens of Babylon above all others revered the god Marduk, the patron deity of the city. Though worship of Marduk never meant the denial of the existence of the other gods, it has sometimes been compared to monotheism.

Though Babylon did become one of the Achaemenid Empire's capitals (alongside Pasargadae, Ecbatana and Susa), retaining some importance through not being relegated to just a provincial city, the Persian conquest introduced a ruling class which was not absorbed by the native Babylonian culture, instead maintaining their own additional political centers outside of Mesopotamia. Since the new rulers did not rely on Babylon's significance for their continued rule, the city's prestige had been irreversibly diminished.

Although the Persian kings continued to stress Babylon's importance through their titulature, using the royal title king of Babylon and king of the Lands, the Babylonians became less and less enthusiastic in regards to Persian rule as time went on. That the Persians were foreigners probably had very little to do with this resentment; none of the traditional duties and responsibilities of the Babylonian kings required them to be ethnically or even culturally Babylonian; many foreign rulers had enjoyed Babylonian support in the past and many native kings had been despised. More important than a king's origin was whether they fulfilled their royal duties in line with established Babylonian royal tradition. The Persian kings had capitals elsewhere in their empire, rarely partook in Babylon's traditional rituals (meaning that these rituals could not be celebrated in their traditional form since the presence of the king was typically required) and rarely performed their traditional duties to the Babylonian cults through the construction of temples and giving of cultic gifts to the city's gods. As such, the Babylonians might have interpreted them as failing in their duties as kings and thus not having the necessary divine endorsement to be considered true kings of Babylon.

Babylon revolted several times against Persian rule in an attempt to regain its independence and the revolts of 484 BC against Xerxes I were not the first time the city rebelled. Xerxes's father and predecessor Darius I (522–486 BC) faced the rebellions of Nebuchadnezzar III (522 BC) and Nebuchadnezzar IV (521 BC), both of whom claimed to be sons of Nabonidus, Babylon's last independent king.

Historical evidence and chronology

The Babylonian revolts against Darius are easily dated to 522 and 521 BC due to the number of contemporary sources. The revolts of Nebuchadnezzar III and Nebuchadnezzar IV were part of a wider series of uprisings throughout the Persian Empire due to unrest and dissent following the deaths of Persian rulers Cambyses II and Bardiya. The large number of uprisings were only suppressed by Darius with great difficulty and as a result his victory widely commemorated in texts and monuments.

Although there was contemporary dissent within the Persian Empire in the 480s BC as well, notably an ongoing revolt in Egypt, the resistance against Persian rule was not as widespread as it had been forty years earlier. Perhaps as a result of this, the Babylonian revolts against Xerxes were not as widely commemorated as those against Darius I. There are no known documents or monuments made by Xerxes that speak of his Babylonian victory and no contemporary Babylonian chroniclers recorded the events of the year. No known later Babylonian documents reflect on what transpired either and though a handful of later Greek historians, such as Herodotus, wrote of a Babylonian uprising against Xerxes, they appear to have lacked precise knowledge of the events that transpired and their dates.

In general, evidence in regards to the revolts is sparse and whether all of historical evidence traditionally associated with them is actually related and how it fits together is unclear. The most important evidence are contemporary Babylonian documents that date themselves to the reign of the rebel kings of 484 BC; Bel-shimanni and Shamash-eriba, confirming the existence of the rebels, their names, and their revolt against Persian rule. In addition to these documents, the Daiva inscription by Xerxes, which records the suppression of a religious revolt somewhere in his empire, could be a reference to the revolts, though the inscription does not specify where the revolt took place or who partook in it. Other evidence comes in the form of the works of later Greek and Roman historians. Herodotus wrote that Xerxes captured Babylon after an uprising and removed a statue from the Esagila (Babylon's main temple) as punishment. The Greek historian Ctesias (typically considered unreliable) wrote that Xerxes dealt with two different Babylonian revolts on two separate occasions, the first one being defeated by his general Megabyzus and the second one being defeated by Xerxes himself. The Greco-Roman historian Arrian wrote that Xerxes faced a Babylonian revolt on his way back from Greece in 479 BC and punished the Babylonians for their uprising by closing the Esagila.

As Babylonian tablets do not record years in relation to anything other than the first year of a king, the tablets dated to the reigns of Bel-shimanni and Shamash-eriba do not in of themselves provide enough evidence to determine when their revolts took place. As the tablets are dated to the summer months, one method to determine when the revolts took place would be to examine which of the regnal years of Xerxes are missing tablets dated to the summer. However, several different possibilities are then available as there are no known tablets dated to Xerxes's reign from the summers of 484 BC, 479 BC, 477 BC, 475 BC, 473 BC, 472 BC, 468 BC or 466 BC.

The first attempt to date Bel-shimanni and Shamash-eriba was made by Arthur Ungnad in 1907, who suggested that they had rebelled during the late reign of Darius I or early reign of Xerxes. He based this on the names of the people mentioned in the legal contracts dated to the two rebels, since these figures were also mentioned in legal contracts written during the reigns of Darius and Xerxes. Based on information contained in the tablets recognising Bel-shimanni, was in 1934 confidently able to pinpoint his reign to Xerxes's second year as king (484 BC).

In 1941, George Glenn Cameron suggested that Shamash-eriba's revolt had taken place in Xerxes's fourth year (482 BC), coinciding with Xerxes supposedly dropping the title king of Babylon. In 1992, Pierre Briant proposed that a better fit would be Xerxes's sixth year (480 BC), since a rebellion in Babylon could help explain why Xerxes mismanaged his ongoing war in Greece. Shamash-eriba's uprising also taking place in 484 BC was not suggested until 2004 by Caroline Waerzeggers, who partly based her date on the archival context of several of the contracts dated to his reign and evidence from previously unpublished cuneiform material. John Oelsner examined her evidence in 2007 and also agreed with 484 BC as the most probable date. Since 2007, 484 BC has been the near-universally accepted date for both revolts. Further evidence examined since then, such as an abrupt end to many Babylonian archives in 484 BC, makes it clear that something remarkable occurred during this year.

Reconstruction of events