530s BC

Millennium:	1st millennium BC
Centuries:	7th century BC – 6th century BC – 5th century BC
Decades:	560s BC 550s BC 540s BC – 530s BC – 520s BC 510s BC 500s BC
Years:	539 BC 538 BC 537 BC 536 BC 535 BC 534 BC 533 BC 532 BC 531 BC 530 BC
Categories:	Births – Deaths – Architecture Establishments – Disestablishments

Events and trends

538 BC—Babylon is conquered by Cyrus, defeating Nabonidus; noted in such documents as that of Africanus, Ptolemy, Eusebius, and Diodorus.
537 BC^[1]^[2]—Seventy years of Babylonian captivity were over for the Jews. Babylonian conqueror Cyrus, king of Persia, was letting the Jews return home. But once back in the Promised Land (537 BCE ^[3]), their hope of enjoying self-determination as a free nation went unrealized. They had no king, and the political authority of their governors was soon eclipsed by the religious authority of the high priest, who came to be viewed as head of the nation. The Jews begin rebuilding the Second Temple seventy years after the destruction of the First Temple, from 520–516 BC; This account is noted in the Old Testament of the Bible at 2 Chronicles 36:20–23 and Ezra 1:1–5. Also in 538 BC begins the reign of the Medo-Persian King Cyrus the Great, according to Biblical writer of 2 Chronicles 36:22.
536 BC—According to tradition, the Biblical prophet Daniel receives an angelic visitor. see Daniel 10:4;
535 BC—Phocaean Greek colonists clash at sea with Carthaginians and Etruscans in Battle of Alalia (Corsica).
534 BC
- Lucius Tarquinius Superbus becomes seventh King of Rome, after murdering the sixth king Servius Tullius.
- Competitions for tragedy are instituted at the City Dionysia festival in Athens.
530 BC
- Cyrus II is killed in war against obscure tribes.
- Cambyses starts to rule in Persia.
- Royal Arch Masons take this year as the epoch for dating their documents Anno Inventionis after the beginning of the Second Temple by Zerubbabel.
c. 530 BC—Temple of Apollo at Delphi is built.
c. 530 BC—Peplos Kore, from the Acropolis, Athens, is made. It is now at Acropolis Museum, Athens.
c. 530 BC—Kroisos(?) Kuoros, from a cemetery at Anavysos, near Athens is made. It is now at National Archaeological Museum, Athens.
c. 530 BC—525 BC—Siphnian Treasury, Delphi, is built.
c. 530 BC—525 BC—Battle between the Gods and the Giants, fragments of the north frieze of the Siphnian Treasury, from the Sanctuary of Apollo, Delphi, is made. It is now at the Delphi Archaeological Museum.

Significant people

539 BC/538 BC—Death of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon
c. 535 BC—Birth of Heraclitus of Ephesus, Greek philosopher
c. 531 BC—Death of Laozi, founder of Taoism (traditional date)

530s BC

Events and trends

Significant people

References