Jerusalem Saga
The Second Saga
The Second Saga
Sarion of Judah became a Persian national hero for his actions during the conquest of Babylon.
His father was one of the Jewish captives deported by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in the Hebrew month of Tisha B'Av in 587 BC.
Coming from a family of horse breeders, he became an excellent horseman and breeder at an early age.
Before the exile, his grandfather supplied horses to the royal household in Jerusalem.
When Persia began to conquer the world, the territories that belonged to Babylon became Persian, and Sarion was born a Persian.
His father bred horses for the officers of the Persian cavalry, including the young son of King Cyrus, Cambyses, who was the same age as Sarion, and they became inseparable friends.
When the time came to conquer Babylon, the last great power not yet under Persian rule, Cambyses convinced Sarion to join the Persian cavalry and fight alongside him to take revenge on the Babylonian murderers of his family.
In September 539 BC, the Persian forces crossed the Tigris River and officially invaded the last independent power in the Middle East that they had not yet subjugated.
After taking the border citadels of Opis and Sippar, Cyrus' army prepared to take its capital, Babylon, in what would be its last great battle to conquer the entire Middle East, from India to Egypt, the largest empire of the time, home to half the world's population.
Sarion was sent by Cambyses to infiltrate Babylon and gather information from the captive Jewish community to determine the state of Babylonian defenses and morale before the coming battle.
Sarion returned with one of the leaders of the Jewish community, Zerubbabel, and presented the crown prince with a plan to conquer Babylon in a manner similar to the Greeks' conquest of Troy, by secretly entering with a small force through the swamp that supplies water to the city and opening the huge entrance gates for an invasion by the Persian army, which will be stationed nearby waiting for Sarion's signal to enter Babylon.
The plan was a resounding success, and the Persian army conquered Babylon, which surrendered without a fight when the Babylonians saw the Persian troops in the city while celebrating the Festival of the Moon.
Shortly thereafter, King Cyrus signed an edict freeing the Jewish population that had been held captive in Babylon since the destruction of Judea, allowing them to return to Judea and rebuild Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple.
Sarion was decorated for his actions and became the first military governor of Yehud Medinata, the Persian province of Judea, and together with Zerubbabel was responsible for leading the return of the Jewish captives to their homeland.
During his return to Zion and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, Sarion will have many other adventures.
When King Cyrus dies in a battle within the borders of his empire, Cambyses decides to expand the Achaemenid Empire into Africa.
In the conquest of Egypt, Sarion will lead not only the Judean cavalry, but the entire Persian cavalry in the Battle of Pelusium against the Egyptian forces of Pharaoh Psamtik III.
Cambyses dies after conquering Egypt, and Sarion must help Darius, Cambyses' standard bearer, put down a rebellion in Persia led by an impostor posing as Bardiya, Cambyses' half-brother who had died several years earlier.
Meanwhile, the Samaritans began legal proceedings in the Persian courts that halted the rebuilding of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem until the lost Edict of Cyrus was found, while the civil war in Persia determined who would succeed Cambyses, who died without leaving an heir.