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Opis

Town on the Tigris, north of Babylon, site of a battle in 539 BCE

Opis was a town on the Tigris in Babylonia, in the region of the later Seleucia. In the month of Tashritu in 539 Cyrus's army fought the Babylonian forces there, according to the Nabonidus Chronicle, and Babylon was entered soon after. The battle opened the last stage of Cyrus's conquest of Babylonia.

In the game: The game has no level or mechanic for Opis. It is named only in the Encyclopedia's event articles, including the fall of Babylon, as the place where Cyrus beat Nabonidus's army.

The battle in the Nabonidus Chronicle

In the record

The Nabonidus Chronicle, a Babylonian text on clay, says that Cyrus fought the army of Akkad at Opis on the Tigris in the month of Tashritu. It says the people of Akkad withdrew and that Cyrus's forces killed the inhabitants. The Chronicle is a near-contemporary text, though it favours Cyrus, and it is the main evidence for the battle.

Nabonidus Chronicle (ABC 7), col. iii

Sippar and Babylon after the battle

In the record

The Chronicle says Sippar was taken without fighting a few days later, and that Nabonidus fled. Ugbaru, governor of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus then entered Babylon without a battle. Cyrus himself came into the city about two weeks afterwards. The text describes no fighting at Babylon.

Nabonidus Chronicle (ABC 7), col. iii

Who commanded the Babylonians

Disputed

The surviving Chronicle text does not say that Nabonidus led the army at Opis, and the game's note that he did goes beyond it. The Chronicle names him again only when he fled from Sippar. Other Babylonian texts show his son Belshazzar active in military affairs, so some historians think he or other commanders held the field.

Nabonidus Chronicle (ABC 7), col. iii

Herodotus on the Tigris campaign

Ancient account

Herodotus tells of Cyrus's move on Babylon and of a battle in the open before the city, after which the Babylonians were shut inside. He also tells of Cyrus dividing the Gyndes river into channels. He does not name Opis, and his story of Babylon being taken by diverting the Euphrates differs from the Chronicle's entry without a battle.

Herodotus 1.189-191

The later town

Ancient account

Opis stayed a known town. Xenophon places it on the Tigris in the march of the Ten Thousand, and Arrian describes Alexander holding an assembly and facing a mutiny there in 324. These later passages show the place but say nothing about 539.

Xenophon, Anabasis; Arrian, Anabasis 7.8