there is apparently some suggestion in the classical literature that the persian achaemenids (cyrus, darius, xerxes, etc) took particular exception to the existence of child sacrifice in semitic religion and ordered it ended by force.

so, while modern historians need to take anything classical very carefully (any statements by classical historians need to be treated as hypotheses to be proven using archaeology, rather than accepted at face value), there is at least some consistency in deriving this story - which does not appear to be more ancient than the hebrews - from the babylonian captivity, which is where judaism as we understand it was actually invented, under heavy influence from zoroastrianism.