In the 6th century BC it became part of the Persian Achaemenian Empire, which fell to Alexander the Great in 330 BC. Seleucid rulers governed it (301–c. 164 BC); then Parthians and Nabataean Arabs divided the region. It flourished as a Roman province (64 BC–AD 300) and as part of the Byzantine Empire (300–634), until Arab Muslims invaded and established control. Thereafter the region was ruled by various Muslim dynasties. It came under the Ottoman Empire in 1516, which held it, except for brief periods, until the British invaded in World War I (1914–18). After the war it became a French mandate; it was fully independent by 1946. It united with Egypt in the United Arab Republic (1958–61). During the
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