 Initially exiled to Babylon, upon the defeat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire by the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great (538 BCE), many of the Jewish elite returned to Jerusalem, building the Second Temple.In 332 BCE the Macedonian Greeks under Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire, which included Yehud (Judea), starting a long religious struggle that split the Jewish population into traditional and Hellenized components.In 165 BCE, after the religion-driven Maccabean Revolt, the independent Hasmonean Kingdom was established.