Summary
Hovhannes G. Khorikyan
Key words – Herodotus, Xenophon, the city of Babylon, Babylonia, Darius I, Satrapy, politics, Assyria,data, Mesopotamia, «the rest of Assyria»,the BehistunInscription.
Ancient greek author Herodotus writes about the IX Satrapy that Babylon and the rest of Assyria rendered to Darius a thousand talents of silver and five hundred boys to be eunuchs.
The Babylonian or IX satrapy was the richest province and the economic center of Achaemenid Empire. The IX satrapy consisted of two subdistricts: the city of Babylon with its suburbs and «the rest of Assyria» toward the north. In other words, this province of Achaemenid Persia included the Lower Mesopotamia: the province of Babylon and the territory of ancient Assur. Moreover, the northwestern vast part of Assyria was within Armenian satrapy. The article concludes that IX satrapy was not a stable administrative unit and its borders were subject to change.
Many important and wrinkled issues on the administrative policy and historical geography of IX Satrapy were examined in the article, the elucidation of which is of great importance for the study of the history of Achaemenid Persia.