Babylonia was an ancient state and cultural area based in central-southern Mesopotamia and roughly coterminous with the present day sovereign state of Iraq.
The successor of Sumer, it was a major regional power throughout the second and first millennia BCE and a persistent rival of Assyria to the north. The Neo-Babylonian Empire ultimately prevailed against the collapsing Neo-Assyrian Empire at the end of the 7th century, seizing control of virtually the whole of Western Asia. Shortly afterwards, it succumbed to the rising Achaemenid Empire in turn, whereupon it was annexed and extinguished as a state.
Babylonia was home to a shadow organization. A precursor to the Assassin Brotherhood, it was retrospectively named the Babylonian Brotherhood and persisted for centuries after Babylonia had ceased to exist. One of its agents, Iltani, was responsible for the assassination of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE.
History[]
In the 6th century BCE, Pythagoras and his protege, Kyros of Zarax, travelled through the ancient cities of Babylonia in Pythagoras' quest for knowledge.[1]
By the 5th century BCE, Babylonia had been absorbed into the Achaemenid Empire. Emperor Xerxes I, with the aid of the Order of the Ancients[2], suppressed revolts in the city of Babylon.[3]
In the 4th century BCE, the region of Babylonia was annexed by Alexander the Great, who used a Staff of Eden given to him by the proto-Templars to create one of the largest empires in history.[4] In 323 BCE, the Babylonian proto-Assassin Iltani, realizing that she would not be able to take Alexander out through force, set out to find an Achaemenid alchemist, hoping to expand her knowledge of poisons. After a perilous journey, she arrived in Babylon, where she found the alchemist and learned his secrets.[5]
On 13 June 323 BCE, Iltani infiltrated the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon, where Alexander was residing, poisoned him and retrieved the Staff. Soon afterwards, Alexander's empire began to crumble.[6]