Conquering leaders paid lip service to the religious cultural preferences of the local people in the areas they conquered. Conquerors need to conform to the local preferences in order to effectively rule. This was pretty common in a lot of ancient and even medieval conquests for example the assimilation of native gods into the Catholic Pantheon, but it was also true in [[Babylon]] and [[Assyria]] in [[Mesopotamia]] around the time of [[Cyrus the Great of Persia]]. ## References - [Cyrus used Marduk in his propaganda after his conquest of Babylon](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/lnbymk/do_historiansarcheologists_think_that_cyrus/)