What is the conquest of Babylon, 539 BC?

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How did Cyrus II the Great overthrow the Medes and conquer Lydia and Babylon to found the Achaemenid empire, and how do the surviving sources present his model of imperial rule?

Cyrus II the Great and the foundation of the Achaemenid empire c. 559 to 530 BC: the revolt against the Medes and the overthrow of Astyages c. 550 BC; the conquest of Lydia and the fall of Sardis c. 547 to 546 BC; the conquest of Babylon in 539 BC and the propaganda of liberation in the Cyrus Cylinder and the Nabonidus Chronicle; the return of the Jews; Cyrus' model of tolerant imperial rule; the foundation of Pasargadae; and his death campaigning against the Massagetae c. 530 BC

A focused HSC Ancient History answer on Cyrus II the Great and the foundation of the Achaemenid empire - the overthrow of Astyages c. 550 BC, the conquests of Lydia and Babylon, the Cyrus Cylinder and the propaganda of liberation, tolerant imperial rule, and his death against the Massagetae c. 530 BC.

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Quick answer

Cyrus II the Great (r. c. 559 to 530 BC) built the Achaemenid empire from the kingdom of Anshan by overthrowing the Median king Astyages c. 550 BC, defeating Croesus of Lydia and taking Sardis c. 547 to 546 BC, and capturing Babylon in 539 BC. The Babylonian conquest is the classic case of the "propaganda of liberation": the Cyrus Cylinder and the Nabonidus Chronicle present him as chosen by Marduk to restore order against the impious Nabonidus, and he confirmed local cults and returned displaced peoples, including the Jews (Ezra, Isaiah), building a distinctive model of ruling through local institutions. He founded Pasargadae, where his tomb still stands, and died c. 530 BC against the Massagetae (the Tomyris story is Greek legend), leaving the empire to Cambyses II. Read the Cylinder as conquest propaganda, not a "charter of human rights" (Kuhrt), and anchor the reign in the Babylonian record while treating Herodotus critically (Briant).

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How to read a source on this topic

What this dot point is asking

This is the opening slice of the Persia period option, and it asks you to explain how a minor king of Anshan built the largest empire the ancient world had yet seen, and how the sources present that achievement. You need the conquests in sequence and correctly dated: the overthrow of the Median king Astyages c. 550 BC, the defeat of Croesus and the fall of Sardis c. 547 to 546 BC, and the capture of Babylon in 539 BC. You need to understand the famous "propaganda of liberation" that surrounds the Babylonian conquest, above all the Cyrus Cylinder and the Nabonidus Chronicle, and Cyrus' distinctive model of ruling subject peoples through their own cults and elites, including the return of the Jews from exile. And you need to weigh the sources critically: the contemporary Babylonian record against the later, admiring Greek and Hebrew traditions, and to flag the legendary and propagandist elements rather than repeating them as fact.

In plain English

Think of a small regional franchise that suddenly buys out its own head office, then swallows two of the biggest corporations in the industry, all in about twenty years. That is Cyrus. He starts as a junior partner under the Medes, flips them, then takes over wealthy Lydia and then mighty Babylon. The clever part is his takeover style. Instead of firing everyone and bulldozing the old brands, he keeps the local staff, respects the local "company culture" (the gods and temples), and even sends home people the previous management had forcibly relocated. Then he writes the press release himself: the Cyrus Cylinder is basically his own glossy statement saying "the city's own god wanted me here, and everyone was delighted." So when you study Cyrus you have to do two jobs at once: get the takeovers and dates right, and read his press releases (and the grateful reviews from people he freed) as spin to be checked, not as neutral truth.

The answer

From Anshan to empire: the revolt against the Medes

Cyrus II (r. c. 559 to 530 BC) began not as an emperor but as king of Anshan in Persis, a subordinate ruler within the Median empire ruled from Ecbatana by Astyages. Some time around 550 BC Cyrus rebelled. In Herodotus' account (Book 1), the Median general Harpagus, nursing a grievance against Astyages, defected with part of the Median army, so that Astyages was defeated and captured by his own former subject. The near-contemporary Nabonidus Chronicle independently records the defeat of Astyages and the capture of Ecbatana, which is why historians accept the event even while treating Herodotus' colourful court intrigue with caution. At a stroke Persia ceased to be a Median vassal and became the ruling power of a large Near Eastern empire, inheriting Median territory that reached into Anatolia. This is the foundation event: everything else follows from the reversal of the Medo-Persian relationship.

The conquest of Lydia and Croesus, c. 547 to 546 BC

Cyrus next turned west against Lydia, the wealthy Anatolian kingdom of Croesus, whose capital was Sardis. In Herodotus' famous telling, Croesus consulted the Delphic oracle and was told that if he attacked Persia he would destroy a great empire; he did, and the empire destroyed was his own. After an indecisive battle at Pteria, Croesus withdrew for the winter, but Cyrus pursued him unexpectedly and stormed Sardis around 547 to 546 BC. The exact date rests on a damaged entry in the Nabonidus Chronicle whose reading is disputed, so treat "c. 547 to 546" as an approximation rather than a fixed point. The dramatic story of Croesus placed on a pyre and saved by the god Apollo is Greek moralising literature and should be flagged as such. What matters historically is the outcome: Lydia and its Ionian Greek dependencies on the Aegean coast passed to Persia, bringing Cyrus to the edge of the Greek world and setting up the tensions that would erupt in the Ionian Revolt and the Persian Wars.

The conquest of Babylon, 539 BC

Cyrus' greatest prize was Babylon, the ancient metropolis of Mesopotamia, in 539 BC. Its king, Nabonidus, had spent years at the oasis of Teima in Arabia and had promoted the moon-god Sin over Marduk, the city's chief god, alienating the powerful Marduk priesthood and dividing the elite. Cyrus exploited this. According to the Nabonidus Chronicle, the Persians defeated the Babylonians at Opis on the Tigris, then Sippar fell without a fight, and Babylon itself was taken by Cyrus' commander (named Ugbaru, often identified with the Gobryas of Greek tradition) in October 539 BC, again without a battle; Cyrus entered the city shortly afterwards to public acclaim. The speed and near-bloodlessness of the conquest owed as much to Nabonidus' unpopularity as to Persian arms.

The Cyrus Cylinder and the propaganda of liberation

The conquest of Babylon is the classic case study in ancient imperial propaganda. The Cyrus Cylinder, a clay foundation document in Akkadian discovered at Babylon in 1879, presents Cyrus entirely in Babylonian terms: Marduk, angered by the impiety of Nabonidus, searched for a righteous ruler, chose Cyrus, took him "by the hand" and led him into Babylon in peace, without battle, to the joy of its people. Cyrus in turn claims to have restored the city's cults, repaired its sanctuaries, and returned displaced gods and peoples to their homes. The message is that this was not a foreign conquest but a divinely sanctioned liberation and restoration of order.

Two cautions are essential. First, the Cylinder is conquest advertising written for a Babylonian audience in the conventional language of Mesopotamian royal inscriptions, not a neutral account; earlier Assyrian and Babylonian kings had made almost identical claims. Second, and importantly, the popular modern description of the Cylinder as "the first charter of human rights" is an anachronism with no basis in the text. The historian Amelie Kuhrt demonstrated that it is a standard building-and-conquest inscription, and this correction is now the scholarly consensus. Used properly, the Cylinder is superb evidence for how Cyrus legitimised his rule; used naively, it becomes myth.

The return of the Jews and the model of tolerant rule

The clearest example of Cyrus' method, and the reason he has such a positive reputation, is his treatment of the Judaean exiles. The Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar had deported the elite of Judah to Babylon; after taking the city, Cyrus permitted them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple, restoring its sacred vessels, as recorded in the Old Testament books of Ezra and Second Chronicles. The book of Isaiah goes so far as to call Cyrus the Lord's "anointed" (messiah) and "shepherd", an extraordinary title for a foreign, non-Jewish king, showing how a subject people experienced Persian policy as divine deliverance.

This was one instance of a general strategy. Rather than rule by terror and mass deportation in the Assyrian style, Cyrus governed through existing local institutions: he restored temples and cults, confirmed local elites, adopted local royal styles, and returned displaced gods and peoples. This conciliatory, decentralised model made a huge multi-ethnic empire governable and became the Achaemenid template that Darius I later systematised into the satrapy system. It should be understood as intelligent imperial pragmatism, tolerance as a technique of control, rather than as a modern ideal of religious freedom.

Pasargadae, the death of Cyrus, and the succession

Cyrus built his ceremonial capital at Pasargadae in the Persian heartland, a site associated in tradition with his victory over Astyages; it housed his palaces and, most famously, his stepped tomb, which still stands and became a revered monument (Alexander the Great later ordered its restoration). Around 530 BC Cyrus died campaigning on the empire's north-eastern frontier against the Massagetae, a nomadic people of Central Asia. Herodotus tells a memorable story in which their queen, Tomyris, defeated and killed Cyrus and dipped his head in a skin of blood to sate his thirst for blood, after he had tricked and destroyed her son's force. This is dramatic Greek narrative, and other traditions report Cyrus' death quite differently (Xenophon's Cyropaedia gives him a peaceful death in bed), so the manner of his death should be flagged as uncertain and story-laden. What is secure is that he died c. 530 BC and was succeeded by his son Cambyses II, who went on to conquer Egypt in 525 BC, extending the empire Cyrus had founded.

How to read a source on this topic

Section IV of the Persia period rewards handling a very particular mix of sources, so build three habits.

First, place each source in its tradition and type. Is it contemporary Babylonian (the Cyrus Cylinder, the Nabonidus Chronicle), later Greek narrative (Herodotus, Xenophon, Ctesias), or Hebrew scripture (Ezra, Isaiah)? The Babylonian material is close in time but ideological; the Greek is fuller but a century later and moralising; the Hebrew is theological and written by a grateful subject people.

Second, distinguish propaganda from record. The Cyrus Cylinder and the biblical "anointed" language both present Cyrus as a divinely chosen liberator, and both need reading as interested self-presentation. The Nabonidus Chronicle, a dry annalistic record, is the closest thing to a neutral spine and is what you cross-check the others against.

Third, always move from content to reliability to usefulness to perspective, and reach a judgement. On this topic that especially means refusing to repeat the "human rights charter" myth and instead assessing what the Cylinder actually is.

Model exam responses

1. Source-analysis response (using a Cyrus-Cylinder-style inscription). "A Babylonian foundation inscription in the style of the Cyrus Cylinder, in which Marduk is said to choose the conqueror and lead him peacefully into the city against an impious predecessor, is highly useful evidence for how Cyrus legitimised his conquest of Babylon in 539 BC. It shows him speaking in the city's own religious language, presenting himself as Marduk's chosen restorer rather than a foreign aggressor. Its usefulness is limited, however, by the fact that it is official propaganda in a conventional Mesopotamian form, written for a Babylonian audience; as Kuhrt argues, it advertises how Cyrus wished to be seen, not a neutral record of events, and certainly not a declaration of rights. Checked against the Nabonidus Chronicle, it is best used as evidence of imperial strategy and image."

Marker's note: markers reward reading the inscription as legitimising propaganda, splitting usefulness from limitation, and correcting the human-rights misreading.

2. Essay paragraph (Cyrus' tolerant rule as strategy). "Cyrus' celebrated tolerance is better understood as brilliant imperial pragmatism than as principle. In Babylon he did not raze the city or carry off its gods; he entered as Marduk's chosen one, confirmed the priesthood, and returned exiles and cult statues, and the same policy let the Judaeans return to rebuild their Temple, which is why Isaiah could hail a Persian king as the Lord's anointed. But as Kuhrt insists, the Cyrus Cylinder is a Mesopotamian conquest text, not a charter of rights, and the purpose of the policy was control: a subject people worshipping in its own restored temple under Persian oversight is cheaper and safer to rule than a resentful deported one. The tolerance is real in its effects and genuinely distinctive for its age, yet it is a technique of empire, and reading it as modern humanitarianism misuses the evidence."

Marker's note: this paragraph scores because it defines "tolerance" precisely, ties it to specific evidence, and uses a named historian to qualify the argument rather than to decorate it.

Command words and how to use a source

Outline/describe wants a few clearly separated points; explain wants point, evidence and why it matters; assess/evaluate/to what extent wants a sustained argument reaching a supported judgement.

Using a source properly means four moves every time: (1) content, what it shows or says; (2) reliability, who produced it, when and why; (3) usefulness, what question it can help answer and how far; (4) perspective, whose viewpoint it represents and what it leaves out. For Cyrus, the decisive first move is almost always to say whether a source is contemporary Babylonian (Cylinder, Chronicle), later Greek (Herodotus, Xenophon), or Hebrew scripture (Ezra, Isaiah), because that placement usually decides its reliability.

Weaving in historiography means using a named position to build the argument, for example "as Kuhrt shows, the Cylinder is conventional conquest propaganda, so its 'liberation' language must be read as strategy," rather than dropping a name in unconnected.

Common exam traps

Calling the Cyrus Cylinder the first charter of human rights: This is a modern myth. The Cylinder is a conventional Mesopotamian conquest and building inscription; treating it as a rights charter is the single most common and most heavily penalised error on this topic.
Retelling Herodotus as fact: The exposed-infant story of Cyrus, the Delphic oracle and Croesus' pyre, and Tomyris dipping Cyrus' head in blood are Greek literary stories. Use them as evidence of the tradition, and flag them as legend rather than reporting them as what happened.
Getting the conquests out of order or overstating the dates: The sequence is Media (c. 550), Lydia (c. 547 to 546), Babylon (539). Only 539 is firmly fixed; the others take "c." Do not present the Lydian date as certain.
Describing Cyrus' tolerance without defining it: Markers reward the argument that his tolerance was pragmatic imperial strategy, evidenced by the restoration of cults and the return of the Jews, not a vague claim that Cyrus was "nice."

Practice questions

Original practice questions graded from foundation to exam level, each with a full worked solution. Try them before revealing the solution.

foundation3 marksSource A: an owned reconstructed extract, in the style of a Babylonian royal cylinder inscription, in which a conquering king declares that the great god Marduk, angered by the impiety of the previous ruler, searched the lands, took the king by the hand, and led him into the city so that he entered it in peace, without battle, to the rejoicing of its people. Using Source A, describe how the king in the source justifies his conquest.

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A 3-mark "describe" needs a clear reading of the source plus supporting detail.

What the source claims: The king says the city's own chief god, Marduk, was angered by the previous ruler's impiety and personally chose him, taking him "by the hand" and leading him in (1 mark).
How this justifies the conquest: It frames the takeover not as foreign aggression but as a divinely willed liberation: the god preferred the newcomer, so his entry "in peace, without battle" is presented as welcome and legitimate rather than as a violent seizure (1 mark).
Supporting detail: This mirrors the language of the Cyrus Cylinder, where Marduk chooses Cyrus against the neglectful Nabonidus, so Source A illustrates conquest recast as restoration of proper worship and order (1 mark).

Marker's note: markers reward reading the source as legitimising propaganda in Babylonian religious terms, not just retelling that the king walked in.

foundation4 marksOutline how Cyrus II overthrew the Medes and came to rule their empire c. 550 BC.

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A 4-mark "outline" needs the starting position, the revolt, the outcome and its significance.

Starting position: Cyrus II was king of Anshan in Persis, a subordinate of the Median king Astyages, so Persia began the reign as a junior power within the Median sphere (1 mark).
The revolt: Cyrus rebelled against Astyages; in Herodotus' account (Book 1) the Median general Harpagus defected and part of the Median army came over to Cyrus, and the Nabonidus Chronicle records the defeat of Astyages (1 mark).
The outcome: Cyrus defeated and captured Astyages and took the Median capital Ecbatana c. 550 BC, absorbing the Median empire and its territories (1 mark).
Significance: This transformed Persia from a Median vassal into the ruling power of a large Near Eastern empire and launched the Achaemenid expansion (1 mark).

Marker's note: markers reward using both Herodotus and the Nabonidus Chronicle and showing the shift from vassal to imperial ruler.

foundation4 marksOutline the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus in 539 BC.

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A 4-mark "outline" needs the target, the campaign, the fall and the aftermath.

The target: Babylon was ruled by Nabonidus, whose long absence at Teima and promotion of the moon-god Sin had alienated the Marduk priesthood, weakening him at home (1 mark).
The campaign: In 539 BC Cyrus' forces defeated the Babylonians at Opis on the Tigris; Sippar then fell, according to the Nabonidus Chronicle, without a fight (1 mark).
The fall of the city: Babylon itself was taken by Cyrus' commander (Ugbaru or Gobryas) in October 539 BC without a battle, and Cyrus entered the city soon after to public acclamation (1 mark).
The aftermath: Cyrus presented himself as chosen by Marduk to restore order, a claim broadcast in the Cyrus Cylinder, and confirmed local worship and elites (1 mark).

Marker's note: markers reward the sequence Opis to Sippar to Babylon and the Cylinder's propaganda framing, not just "Cyrus took Babylon."

core6 marksExplain the 'propaganda of liberation' associated with Cyrus' conquest of Babylon.

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A 6-mark "explain" needs the message, the media that carried it, and why Cyrus used it.

The message: Cyrus was presented not as a foreign conqueror but as a liberator restoring proper order: Nabonidus was cast as impious and neglectful, and Cyrus as the ruler chosen by Babylon's own god Marduk to set things right (2 marks).
The media: The Cyrus Cylinder, a clay foundation document in Akkadian, has Marduk take Cyrus "by the hand" and lead him peacefully into Babylon; the Nabonidus Chronicle records the peaceful entry and Cyrus' proclamation of peace; and Cyrus claims to have returned displaced gods and peoples to their sanctuaries (2 marks).
Why he used it: By speaking in Babylonian religious language and courting the Marduk priesthood and local elites, Cyrus legitimised Persian rule cheaply, secured a rich province with minimal destruction, and set the pattern of ruling subject peoples through their own institutions and cults (2 marks).

Marker's note: markers reward showing this was a deliberate political strategy expressed in Babylonian terms, and naming the Cylinder and Chronicle, rather than describing Cyrus as simply "kind."

core6 marksSource B: an owned reconstructed extract, in the style of an Old Testament passage, in which the Lord is said to have stirred up the spirit of the Persian king so that he proclaimed throughout his realm that the exiled people might return to their city and rebuild the house of their God, and that the king would restore the sacred vessels taken from the temple. Using Source B and your own knowledge, explain what the Hebrew tradition reveals about Cyrus' imperial policy, and one limitation of using it.

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A 6-mark "explain" needs use of the source, what it reveals, and a limitation.

Use of the source: Source B presents the Persian king as prompted by God to end an exile, authorise a return, permit the rebuilding of a temple, and restore its sacred vessels (2 marks).
What it reveals: It reflects the tradition in Ezra and Second Chronicles that Cyrus, after taking Babylon in 539 BC, allowed the Judaean exiles to return and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, and it matches his wider policy of restoring local cults and returning displaced peoples and gods. Isaiah even calls Cyrus the Lord's "anointed" and "shepherd," showing how a subject people read Persian tolerance as divine favour to itself (2 marks).
Limitation: These are Hebrew religious texts written from the perspective of the returning community, edited later, and concerned to show God working through Cyrus; they present Persian policy through Judaean theology, not as a neutral record, so their emphasis and detail must be weighed against the Babylonian and administrative evidence (2 marks).

Marker's note: markers reward linking the source to Ezra and Isaiah and to Cyrus' general restoration policy, then evaluating it as an interested religious tradition rather than fact.

exam8 marksSource C: an owned reconstructed passage, in the manner of the Greek historical tradition, which recounts how the infant Cyrus was exposed on the orders of a fearful king who had dreamed of his overthrow, was secretly raised by a herdsman, was recognised through his kingly bearing in a children's game, and in time returned to fulfil the dream and seize the throne. Using Source C and your own knowledge, assess the usefulness and reliability of the Greek tradition as evidence for the rise of Cyrus.

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An 8-mark "assess usefulness and reliability" needs content, usefulness, reliability and a judgement.

Content from the source: Source C is a classic legendary birth-and-return story: prophetic dream, exposed royal infant, humble upbringing, recognition, and destined return, the shape of Herodotus' account of Cyrus and Astyages in Book 1 (2 marks).
Usefulness: The Greek tradition, above all Herodotus, is the fullest connected narrative of Cyrus' rise, supplying the sequence of the Median revolt, the roles of Astyages and Harpagus, and the campaigns against Croesus and Babylon that the Persian record does not narrate; without it the story of the foundation is only a skeleton of dates (2 marks).
Reliability and limitation: The exposure-and-return motif is a widespread folk-tale pattern also told of other founders, so it is legend, not documentary history; Herodotus wrote a century later, from oral sources, in a moralising Greek frame. Xenophon's Cyropaedia is openly a didactic idealisation, and Ctesias offers a different, unreliable version, so the Greek strand disagrees with itself (2 marks).
Judgement: The Greek tradition is highly useful as the only full narrative but unreliable in detail, most trustworthy where it can be checked against the Nabonidus Chronicle and the Cyrus Cylinder; historians such as Briant and Kuhrt therefore anchor the reign in the Babylonian evidence and treat the Herodotean romance as later Greek storytelling (2 marks).

Marker's note: markers reward separating narrative value from legendary unreliability and cross-checking the Greek story against the contemporary Babylonian record.

exam25 marksTo what extent did Cyrus II the Great establish the foundations of a durable and distinctively tolerant empire? In your response, refer to relevant sources and historians' interpretations.

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A Band-6 response needs a clear thesis, argument lines tied to specific evidence, engagement with historiography, a model paragraph and a judgement answering "to what extent."

Thesis: Cyrus established both the territorial reach and the governing method of the empire that lasted two centuries, and his practice of ruling through local cults and elites was genuinely conciliatory by the standards of the age; but "tolerance" was a pragmatic imperial strategy broadcast as propaganda, not a modern doctrine of rights, so the foundations were durable and distinctive, yet the tolerance is real only when carefully defined.
Argument line 1: he founded the territorial empire: From a base in Persis, Cyrus overthrew Astyages c. 550 BC, took Lydia and Sardis c. 547 to 546 BC, and captured Babylon in 539 BC, absorbing the Median, Lydian and Babylonian realms into the largest empire yet seen and leaving Egypt for his son Cambyses. The Nabonidus Chronicle dates and confirms these conquests independently of the Greek narrative.
Argument line 2: he founded a distinctive governing method: Rather than deport and destroy in the Assyrian manner, Cyrus ruled through existing institutions: he restored local cults, confirmed local elites, and returned displaced gods and peoples, including, in the Hebrew tradition of Ezra and Isaiah, the Judaean exiles to rebuild their Temple. This became the Achaemenid template that Darius I later systematised into satrapies.
Argument line 3: but the tolerance was strategic propaganda: The Cyrus Cylinder speaks Babylonian religious language, casting Cyrus as Marduk's chosen restorer against the impious Nabonidus; it is conquest advertising, not a "charter of human rights," a modern myth that Amelie Kuhrt has forcefully corrected by showing the Cylinder is a conventional Mesopotamian building inscription.
Argument line 4: the durability is real but partly retrospective: Pasargadae, his capital and tomb, and the empire's survival to 330 BC show the foundations held; yet Cyrus died c. 530 BC campaigning against the Massagetae, and the smooth succession and true administrative machinery were the work of Cambyses and especially Darius I, so Cyrus laid foundations that others completed.
Historiography: Briant reads Cyrus from the Near Eastern evidence and sees continuity with earlier imperial practice; Kuhrt dismantles the human-rights reading of the Cylinder and stresses its propaganda function; the Greek and Hebrew traditions (Herodotus, Xenophon's idealising Cyropaedia, Ezra, Isaiah) supply the admiring image that must be weighed against the Babylonian record.
Model paragraph: Cyrus' tolerance is best understood as brilliant imperial pragmatism rather than principle. In Babylon he did not raze the city or deport its gods; he entered as Marduk's chosen one, confirmed the priesthood, and returned exiles and cult statues, and the Cyrus Cylinder broadcast this in the city's own theological language. The same policy let the Judaeans go home, which is why Isaiah could hail a foreign king as the Lord's anointed. But as Kuhrt insists, the Cylinder is a Mesopotamian conquest text, not a declaration of rights, and the policy's purpose was control: a conquered people worshipping in its own temple under Persian oversight is cheaper and safer to rule than a resentful deported one. The tolerance is real in effect and genuinely distinctive, yet it is a technique of empire, and reading it as modern humanitarianism misuses the evidence.
Judgement: To a great extent: Cyrus founded the empire's territory and its conciliatory governing method, and both proved durable and distinctive, but the "tolerance" was strategic propaganda later completed administratively by Darius, so the claim holds only once tolerance is defined as pragmatic policy rather than principle.

Marker's note: markers reward a sustained argument answering "to what extent," precise evidence with dates, the Cylinder read critically via Kuhrt, and a defined, qualified sense of "tolerant."