Greek city-states

The independent Greek poleis (such as Athens, Sparta and Corinth) and the Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily, and their leagues.

Category: States

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c. 1180 BCE
The Greek Dark Ages
After the palaces fall, settlements shrink, Linear B vanishes, pottery simplifies and iron replaces bronze. Euboean Lefkandi prospers and Greeks begin settling the Anatolian coast. Recovery is well under way by the early 8th century BCE.
Greek city-states Writing
c. 1000 BCE
A Greek name on a bronze spit at Palaepaphos
A bronze spit from Tomb 49 at Palaepaphos-Skales, Cyprus, bears the Greek name Opheltas in the genitive, in a syllabic script. Its tomb dates to the late 11th or early 10th century BCE. Scholars disagree on whether the script is Cypro-Minoan or the Cypriot syllabary.
Writing Greek city-states Archaeology
c. 800 BCE
The earliest alphabetic graffiti at Eretria
About thirty inscriptions of the 8th century BCE are known from Eretria, 26 from the sanctuary of Apollo Daphnephoros, including a graffito in a Semitic script and a clumsy Greek ostrakon. Under 1% of the sanctuary's pottery is inscribed, so writing was still rare.
Writing Greek city-states Archaeology
c. 800 BCE
The Greeks adopt the alphabet
Around 800 BCE the Greeks adapt the Phoenician script, using some consonant signs for vowels: the first alphabet to write both. The oldest substantial inscriptions, such as the Dipylon vase and Nestor's Cup, date to about 740-730 BCE.
Greek city-states Literature Writing
c. 800 BCE
Lycurgus gives Sparta its laws (legendary)
Spartans credited the lawgiver Lycurgus with their constitution and way of life. Many historians doubt he existed, and ancient dates range from 885 to 776 BCE. Institutions such as the agoge probably developed later, from the 7th century.
Greek city-states Sparta
c. 776 BCE
First Olympic Games (traditional)
Tradition dates the first Olympics to 776 BCE, when Coroebus of Elis wins the stadion sprint at Olympia. The date rests on later reckoning; excavation suggests the games grew around 700. The last recorded games were held in 393 CE.
Greek city-states
c. 750 BCE
Greek colonisation
From the 8th century BCE Greek cities found colonies from Sicily and southern Italy to the Black Sea and North Africa, with a peak between 750 and 500. Motives include land shortage, civil strife and trade. Some foundations were private ventures.
Greek city-states
c. 750 BCE
The Iliad and the Odyssey take shape
The Iliad and Odyssey take form around the 8th to 7th century BCE, probably in oral tradition. Dates are disputed, from the 8th century (Janko) to no earlier than 660 (West). Whether a single Homer existed is unresolved.
Greek city-states Literature
c. 750 BCE
Euboeans settle Pithekoussai
In the 8th century BCE Greeks from Chalcis and Eretria set up a trading post at Pithekoussai on Ischia, with a mixed Greek, Etruscan and Phoenician population of 5,000-10,000 by 700. Nestor's Cup, c. 730, bears an early Greek inscription.
Greek city-states Etruscans
c. 743 BCE
First Messenian War (traditional dates)
Sparta conquers neighbouring Messenia. Pausanias dates the war 743-724 BCE, Coldstream about 730-710. Messenia loses its sovereignty and its people are reduced to helots, serfs who feed Sparta's citizens. Our sources are late and fragmentary.
Greek city-states Sparta
c. 740 BCE
The Dipylon inscription
An Athenian jug from the Dipylon cemetery, found in 1871 and dated c. 740 BCE, carries 46 letters scratched right to left, the first 35 forming a hexameter about the best dancer. Either it or Nestor's Cup is the oldest known Greek alphabetic inscription.
Writing Greek city-states Archaeology
c. 733 BCE
Corinthians found Syracuse
Colonists from Corinth led by Archias settle Ortygia and found Syracuse, in 733 BCE by Thucydides's reckoning. Later sources differ by a few years. The Sicels who lived there are expelled.
Greek city-states
c. 730 BCE
Early alphabetic graffiti at Methone
Graffiti and potters' marks from the northern Aegean port of Methone, mostly on pottery of about 730-700 BCE, are roughly contemporary with those of Pithekoussai. John Papadopoulos proposes Methone as a candidate for where the alphabet began, a claim others contest.
Writing Greek city-states Archaeology
c. 730 BCE
Nestor's Cup
Giorgio Buchner finds a cup in Tomb 168 at Pithekoussai in 1954, made c. 735-720 BCE on Rhodes or in northern Ionia. Its three-line inscription in the Chalcidian Euboean alphabet, with two hexameters, refers to Nestor's cup; the first line's restoration is disputed.
Writing Greek city-states Archaeology
c. 657 BCE
Cypselus becomes tyrant of Corinth
Around 657 BCE Cypselus, the army's polemarch, expels the ruling Bacchiad clan and rules Corinth as tyrant for thirty years. His son Periander succeeds him in 627.
Greek city-states Politics
c. 631 BCE
Cyrene is founded (traditional)
Settlers from Thera led by Battus found Cyrene in Libya in 631 BCE, at the prompting of the Delphic oracle, according to Greek tradition. Pottery shows Greek settlement by the mid-7th century. Sources differ on the motive and the mother city.
Greek city-states
c. 621 BCE
Draco's laws at Athens (traditional)
Athens's first written laws are attributed to Draco in 621/620 BCE. They distinguish murder from involuntary homicide but punish most crimes harshly, hence "draconian". Solon later repeals all but the homicide law. Some scholars doubt Draco was real.
Greek city-states Athens Politics
c. 600 BCE
Phocaeans found Massalia
Greeks from Phocaea in Ionia found Massalia, today's Marseille, around 600 BCE. After Persia captures Phocaea in 545, more settlers arrive. Marseille is often called the oldest city in France.
Greek city-states
c. 600 BCE
Sappho writes on Lesbos
The lyric poet Sappho is active on Lesbos around 600 BCE. About 650 lines survive of the roughly 10,000 she is thought to have composed, and the Ode to Aphrodite is the only complete poem. She gives her name to the Sapphic stanza.
Greek city-states Literature
594 BCE
Solon's reforms at Athens
Archon in 594 BCE, Solon repeals Draco's laws except the homicide law. Tradition says he cancelled debts, freed enslaved Athenians and divided citizens into four classes by wealth. Modern historians stress that the sources are late and debate the details.
Greek city-states Athens Politics
c. 585 BCE
Thales and the eclipse of 585 BCE (traditional)
Herodotus says Thales of Miletus predicted the eclipse that halted a battle between Lydians and Medes in 585 BCE. Many scholars reject the story. Aristotle calls Thales the first natural philosopher and says he held that everything comes from water.
Greek city-states Greek philosophy Science
561 BCE
Pisistratus seizes power in Athens
After a staged injury wins him a bodyguard, Pisistratus takes the Acropolis in 561 BCE and becomes tyrant of Athens. Rival factions drive him out twice over the following years.
Greek city-states Athens Politics
c. 550 BCE
Anaximander writes on nature
Around 550 BCE Anaximander of Miletus is credited with the first Greek prose work on nature, of which one fragment survives. He proposes the apeiron, an unlimited source of all things, and is said to have published the first world map.
Greek city-states Greek philosophy Science
546 BCE
Pisistratus wins Athens for good
In 546 BCE Pisistratus returns from exile with Eretrian cavalry and mercenaries, lands at Marathon and defeats the Athenians at Pallene. He rules until his death in 528 or 527, and his sons Hippias and Hipparchus follow.
Greek city-states Athens Politics
545 BCE
Persia captures Phocaea
In 545 BCE Persia captures the Ionian Greek city of Phocaea. Many Phocaeans flee to colonies in the west, including Massalia.
Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states
c. 540 BCE
Battle of Alalia
Etruscan and Carthaginian fleets fight Phocaean Greeks off Corsica, c. 540-535 BCE. The Greeks win but lose most of their ships and leave Corsica; Corsica goes to the Etruscans and Carthage keeps Sardinia.
Etruscans Carthage Greek city-states
c. 534 BCE
Thespis wins the first tragedy contest (traditional)
Tradition says that in 534 BCE tragedy competitions begin at Athens's City Dionysia and Thespis wins the first. Ancient writers make him the first actor. The works attributed to him are considered forgeries.
Greek city-states Athens Literature
c. 530 BCE
Pythagoras settles in Croton
About 530 BCE Pythagoras of Samos moves to Croton in southern Italy and founds a communal, ascetic school. He left no writings, and all biographies are centuries later; the theorem that bears his name is not clearly his.
Greek city-states Greek philosophy
514 BCE
Hipparchus is assassinated
In 514 BCE Harmodius and Aristogeiton kill Hipparchus, brother of the tyrant Hippias. The plot fails to end the tyranny, and Hippias's rule turns harsher.
Greek city-states Athens
510 BCE
Hippias is expelled from Athens
In 510 BCE Spartan hoplites help the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippias. The Spartan king Cleomenes I then backs Isagoras in the struggle for power that follows.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Politics
508 BCE
Cleisthenes's reforms: the birth of Athenian democracy
In 508 BCE, after Isagoras fails, Cleisthenes replaces the four kinship tribes with ten tribes based on residence, expands the council to 500 and introduces sortition. He is called the father of Athenian democracy, though he called it isonomia.
Greek city-states Athens Politics
c. 500 BCE
Heraclitus of Ephesus
Around 500 BCE, Heraclitus of Ephesus teaches that everything changes and that opposites are united. Tradition places him in 504-501 BCE. His book is lost, and over a hundred fragments survive in quotations.
Greek city-states Greek philosophy
499 BCE
Ionian Revolt
Led by Aristagoras of Miletus, the Greek cities of Ionia revolt against Persian rule in 499 BCE, backed by ships from Athens and Eretria. Persia crushes the revolt by 493, and its aftermath leads to the invasions of Greece.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states
498 BCE
Sardis is burned
In 498 BCE Ionian and allied forces burn Sardis, the satrapal capital. Persian cavalry catches them at Ephesus, and Athens and Eretria withdraw.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states Athens
494 BCE
Battle of Lade
In 494 BCE Persia defeats the Ionian fleet off Lade, near Miletus, after Samian ships defect during the battle. Miletus is besieged and captured and the revolt is effectively over.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states
492 BCE
Mardonius's campaign in Thrace and Macedon
In 492 BCE Mardonius retakes Thrace and makes Macedon a fully subordinate part of the Persian empire. A storm off Mount Athos wrecks his fleet and he returns to Asia.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Macedon Greek city-states
490 BCE
Battle of Marathon
An Athenian army of about 9,000 under Miltiades, with 1,000 Plataeans, defeats the Persian landing at Marathon in 490 BCE, conventionally dated 12 September. Herodotus counts 192 Athenian dead and 6,400 Persian; modern estimates of Persian dead are lower.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states Athens
490 BCE
Persians burn Naxos and raze Eretria
In 490 BCE a Persian fleet under Datis and Artaphernes burns Naxos and takes the Cyclades. Eretria falls after a six-day siege when two citizens open its gates; the city is razed and its people enslaved.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states
481 BCE
The Hellenic League is formed
In late autumn 481 BCE a congress at Corinth unites the Greek states resisting Persia, Athens and Sparta among them. The Spartan Eurybiades is given command of the fleet.
Persian Wars Greek city-states Athens Sparta Achaemenid Persia
480 BCE
Battle of Artemisium
While Thermopylae is fought, the Greek fleet under Eurybiades and Themistocles fights an inconclusive three-day battle with Persia off Artemisium. Storms wreck much of the Persian fleet. News of Thermopylae forces the Greeks to withdraw to Salamis.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states Athens
480 BCE
Battle of Himera
In 480 BCE Gelon of Syracuse and Theron of Akragas defeat a Carthaginian army under Hamilcar at Himera in Sicily. Carthage loses about half its army and most of its fleet, and Syracuse gains hegemony in Sicily. A later tradition links it to Salamis, which modern scholars reject.
Greek city-states Carthage
480 BCE
Battle of Thermopylae
A Greek force of about 7,000 under the Spartan king Leonidas holds the pass at Thermopylae for three days of fighting until a mountain path reveals their rear. Leonidas stays with his 300 Spartans and Thespians and dies. Sources differ on the date, from July to September 480.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states Sparta
480 BCE
Persians sack Athens
In 480 BCE the Persians take Boeotia and Attica and burn Athens. Mardonius retakes and destroys it again in 479.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Athens Greek city-states
April 480 BCE
Xerxes invades Greece
In April 480 BCE Xerxes's army crosses the Hellespont on bridges and marches through Thrace and Macedon into Thessaly, after Persia has dug a canal across the Athos peninsula. Herodotus's figures of millions of men are rejected; modern estimates are 100,000-300,000 and more.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states
September 480 BCE
Battle of Salamis
On 26 or 27 September 480 BCE, Themistocles lures the Persian fleet into the narrow strait off Salamis, where its numbers count for less. The Greeks win decisively and Xerxes withdraws to Asia, leaving Mardonius in Greece.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states Athens Sparta
479 BCE
Greeks take Sestos and Byzantium
The Greek counterattack takes Sestos in 479 BCE and Byzantium in 478, pushing Persia out of Europe.
Persian Wars Greek city-states Achaemenid Persia
August 479 BCE
Battle of Mycale
Herodotus places the Greek victory at Mycale, in Ionia, on the same day as Plataea. The Greeks land and rout the Persians, then burn their camp. Ionia rises again and Samos, Chios and Lesbos join the Hellenic alliance.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states
August 479 BCE
Battle of Plataea
On 27 or 28 August 479 BCE a Greek army under the Spartan regent Pausanias defeats Mardonius at Plataea, and Mardonius is killed. The Persians lose control of Attica and Boeotia and withdraw from Greece. Herodotus's casualty figures are not credited.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states Sparta Athens
478 BCE
The Delian League is founded
In 478 BCE Athens leads a new alliance of Greek states against Persia after Sparta withdraws, with its treasury on Delos. Members provide ships or pay a tax, and most pay. It gradually becomes an Athenian empire.
Persian Wars Greek city-states Athens Achaemenid Persia
c. 475 BCE
The Gortyn Code
A law code of the first half of the 5th century BCE is cut in 12 columns of about 600 lines at Gortyn, Crete, in the Dorian dialect and in boustrophedon. First fragment found 1857, more in 1884. It is the longest surviving Greek inscription apart from Diogenes of Oenoanda's.
Writing Greek city-states Archaeology
474 BCE
Battle of Cumae: Etruscan sea power broken
A fleet from Syracuse, led by the tyrant Hiero I, and Cumae defeats the Etruscans in the Bay of Naples in 474 BCE. Etruscan naval strength and influence in Italy decline; Pindar celebrated the victory.
Etruscans Greek city-states
472 BCE
Aeschylus stages The Persians
In 472 BCE Aeschylus, who fought at Marathon and Salamis, stages The Persians, the earliest surviving play, about the Persian defeat. It wins first prize.
Greek city-states Athens Literature Achaemenid Persia
468 BCE
Sophocles defeats Aeschylus
In 468 BCE Sophocles wins first prize at the Dionysia over Aeschylus. Seven of his plays survive complete. According to Aristotle he adds a third actor according to Aristotle.
Greek city-states Athens Literature
c. 466 BCE
Battle of the Eurymedon
Cimon's Athenian-led fleet destroys a Persian fleet at the mouth of the Eurymedon in Pamphylia, then routs the Persian army on land. The date is 466 or 469 BCE. It keeps Persia out of the Aegean for years.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states Athens
465 BCE
Thasos revolts; the League becomes a hegemony
Thasos leaves the Delian League in 465 BCE over a dispute about its mines, and Sparta declines to help. After a long siege it surrenders, loses its walls, ships and mines, and pays tribute. Thucydides sees this as the League turning into a hegemony.
Greek city-states Athens
c. 461 BCE
Ephialtes curbs the Areopagus
Around 461 BCE Ephialtes strips the aristocratic Areopagus of most of its powers, and Cimon is ostracised. Ephialtes is killed the same year. Pericles emerges as the leading figure of the democracy.
Greek city-states Athens Pericles Politics
c. 460 BCE
Athens backs Inaros's revolt in Egypt
Around 460 BCE Athens sends ships to support the Egyptian rebel Inaros II against Persia. The expedition ends in a disastrous defeat and Inaros is executed.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Greek city-states Athens
460 BCE
First Peloponnesian War
Athens fights Sparta and its allies, mostly Corinth, from about 460 to 445 BCE. Sparta wins at Tanagra (458 or 457), and Athens wins at Oenophyta and takes most of Boeotia. A truce in 451 holds only a few years before the Thirty Years' Peace.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta
458 BCE
Aeschylus's Oresteia
In 458 BCE Aeschylus stages the Oresteia, the only complete tragic trilogy to survive: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides. He dies at Gela in Sicily in 456 or 455.
Greek city-states Athens Literature
c. 456 BCE
Anaxagoras brings philosophy to Athens
Around 456 BCE, or perhaps earlier, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae settles in Athens and becomes a friend of Pericles. He teaches that mind (nous) set the world in order, and leaves Athens for Lampsacus around 434.
Greek city-states Athens Greek philosophy Pericles
454 BCE
Delian League treasury moved to Athens
In 454 BCE Pericles moves the League's treasury from Delos to Athens, officially for safety from Persia. Plutarch reports that rivals accused him of diverting funds to building projects such as the Parthenon.
Greek city-states Athens Pericles
451 BCE
Pericles's citizenship law
In 451 BCE Pericles passes a law limiting Athenian citizenship to those with an Athenian father and an Athenian mother. Around this time he also supports pay for jurors in the Heliaia.
Greek city-states Athens Pericles Politics
c. 449 BCE
The Peace of Callias (disputed)
Around 449 BCE Athens and Persia reportedly make peace through Callias: Ionian cities autonomous, no Persian warships in the Aegean. Whether the treaty existed is disputed, since Thucydides never mentions it. The Greco-Persian Wars fade out around this time.
Persian Wars Achaemenid Persia Athens Greek city-states
447 BCE
The Parthenon is built
Begun in 447 BCE under Pericles, the Parthenon is substantially finished by 438, with its sculpture continuing to about 432. Ictinus and Callicrates design it and Phidias oversees the work and its gold-and-ivory Athena. It is paid for largely from Delian League funds.
Greek city-states Athens Pericles
c. 446 BCE
The Thirty Years' Peace
In winter 446-445 BCE Athens and Sparta make a peace meant to last thirty years. Athens keeps the sea and Sparta the land, Megara returns to the Peloponnesian League, and disputes are to go to arbitration. It lasts about fifteen.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta
440 BCE
Samian War
In 440 BCE Athens besieges Samos for about eight months and forces it to surrender.
Greek city-states Athens Pericles
c. 435 BCE
Phidias's statue of Zeus at Olympia
Around 435 BCE Phidias makes the seated statue of Zeus for his temple at Olympia, some 12 metres high, of ivory and gold on a wooden frame. It becomes one of the Seven Wonders. Its end is unknown, perhaps a fire in the 5th century CE.
Greek city-states Art
431 BCE
Euripides stages Medea
In 431 BCE Euripides presents Medea at the Dionysia, where it places third. He first wins a prize only in 441, and eighteen or nineteen of his plays survive. He dies in Macedon in 406.
Greek city-states Athens Literature
431 BCE
Peloponnesian War
Athens and Sparta and their allies fight from 431 to 404 BCE. Thucydides blames Athens's growth and Spartan fear. Persia's support for Sparta from 413 and Lysander's victory at Aegospotami end it. Athens surrenders in 404 and the Delian League is dissolved.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Peloponnesian War
April 4, 431 BCE
The Peloponnesian War breaks out
On 4 April 431 BCE Thebes attacks Plataea, an Athenian ally. Sparta then votes that Athens has broken the Thirty Years' Peace and King Archidamus II invades Attica, starting the Archidamian War. Athenians shelter inside their walls.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Peloponnesian War Thebes
c. 430 BCE
Herodotus writes the Histories
Herodotus of Halicarnassus writes his Histories, on the Greco-Persian Wars and the peoples around them, in the 430s-420s BCE. Cicero calls him the "Father of History", while critics called him a storyteller. Nothing in the text is dated after 430.
Greek city-states Literature Achaemenid Persia
c. 430 BCE
Pericles's Funeral Oration
In winter 431-430 BCE Pericles delivers the funeral oration for the first Athenian war dead, praising Athens's democracy. We know it only through Thucydides, and scholars debate how far the words are his own.
Greek city-states Athens Pericles Peloponnesian War Politics
430 BCE
Plague of Athens
A plague strikes crowded Athens in 430 BCE and returns in 429 and 427-426, killing an estimated quarter of the population. Its cause is unknown: typhus, typhoid and others have been proposed. It saps Athenian strength and morale.
Greek city-states Athens Peloponnesian War
429 BCE
Pericles dies
Removed as general and fined in 430 BCE, Pericles is re-elected in 429 but dies that year, reportedly of the plague, after losing two sons to it. Cleon leads a more aggressive Athenian policy afterwards.
Greek city-states Athens Pericles Peloponnesian War
c. 428 BCE
Plato is born
Plato is born in Athens in about 428-427 BCE, though sources put it anywhere between 428 and 423. A follower of Socrates, he writes philosophical dialogues and founds the Academy.
Greek city-states Athens Greek philosophy Plato
425 BCE
Pylos and Sphacteria
In 425 BCE Demosthenes fortifies Pylos, and Athens traps about 420 Spartan hoplites, 120 of them Spartiates, on Sphacteria and takes them to Athens. Cleon rejects Spartan peace offers. The capture shakes Sparta, whose elite class is small.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Peloponnesian War
423 BCE
Aristophanes stages The Clouds
In 423 BCE the comic playwright Aristophanes presents The Clouds, which caricatures Socrates, and it comes third. Only a revised version survives. Eleven of his forty plays remain, the only complete Old Comedy.
Greek city-states Athens Literature Socrates
422 BCE
Battle of Amphipolis
In 422 BCE the Spartan Brasidas, who had taken Amphipolis, and the Athenian Cleon, trying to retake it, both die in the fighting. Both sides are exhausted, and the Peace of Nicias follows.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Peloponnesian War
March 421 BCE
Peace of Nicias
In March 421 BCE Athens and Sparta end the first half of the war, restoring prewar conditions with exceptions. It is meant to last fifty years, but Sparta's allies reject it and militants take over in both cities. Thucydides counts about seven years.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Peloponnesian War
416 BCE
Athens takes Melos
In 416 BCE Athens besieges Melos and takes it that winter, executing the men and enslaving the women and children. Thucydides's Melian Dialogue, where Athenian envoys say the strong do what they can, is his reconstruction, not a transcript.
Greek city-states Athens Peloponnesian War
415 BCE
The Sicilian Expedition
From 415 to 413 BCE Athens sends a great force against Syracuse under Nicias, Alcibiades and Lamachus. Alcibiades is recalled and defects to Sparta. Spartan help under Gylippus turns the siege, and the Athenian army and fleet are destroyed.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Peloponnesian War
413 BCE
Sparta fortifies Decelea; Persia backs Sparta
In 413 BCE Sparta fortifies Decelea, a short march from Athens, and Persia begins supporting it. The Decelean (Ionian) War follows.
Greek city-states Sparta Peloponnesian War Achaemenid Persia
June 411 BCE
The oligarchic coup of 411 at Athens
In June 411 BCE an oligarchy of the Four Hundred overthrows Athenian democracy, after the Sicilian disaster and with Alcibiades promising Persian money. The fleet at Samos refuses to obey it. The Four Hundred give way within months to the Five Thousand.
Greek city-states Athens Peloponnesian War Politics
406 BCE
Arginusae and the trial of the generals
In 406 BCE Athens beats the Spartan fleet at Arginusae, but a storm prevents the rescue of drowning sailors. Six of the eight generals are tried together by the assembly and executed. Socrates, presiding, refuses to put the motion to a vote.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Peloponnesian War Socrates
405 BCE
Battle of Aegospotami
In 405 BCE the Spartan Lysander destroys or captures nearly the whole Athenian fleet on the Hellespont and has about 3,000 prisoners executed. Conon escapes with nine ships. Athens, cut off from its grain supply, is starved into surrender.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Peloponnesian War
405 BCE
Dionysius I becomes tyrant of Syracuse
Chosen top general in 406 BCE, Dionysius takes full control of Syracuse in 405 and rules until 367. He fights Carthage in 397-392, without driving it out of Sicily, and keeps writers and artists at his court.
Greek city-states Carthage Politics
404 BCE
Athens surrenders to Sparta
Starved and without a fleet, Athens surrenders in spring 404 BCE: March by one source, 25 April by another. Sparta spares the city but the Delian League is dissolved and the city's walls are demolished.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Peloponnesian War
404 BCE
The Thirty Tyrants rule Athens
Installed by Sparta after the surrender, the Thirty rule Athens for about eight months in 404-403 BCE. Led by Critias, they execute some 1,500 people without trial by Aristotle's and Isocrates's count, and force Theramenes to drink hemlock.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Politics
403 BCE
Athenian democracy is restored
In 403 BCE Thrasybulus leads exiles against the Thirty, and Critias dies in the fighting. The Spartan king Pausanias brokers the Amnesty of 403, which restores democracy and pardons most citizens.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Politics
403 BCE
Athens adopts the Ionic alphabet
In the archonship of Eucleides (403/402 BCE) Athens officially adopts the Ionic alphabet, on a decree credited to Archinus. It had been used informally for years, and some later inscriptions still use the old Attic letters. It becomes the standard Greek alphabet.
Writing Greek city-states Athens
September 401 BCE
Battle of Cunaxa; the March of the Ten Thousand
In 401 BCE Cyrus the Younger challenges his brother Artaxerxes II at Cunaxa. His Greek mercenaries win their wing but Cyrus is killed, ending the revolt. Stranded, the Ten Thousand march north to the Black Sea, as Xenophon describes in the Anabasis.
Greek city-states Achaemenid Persia
c. 400 BCE
Democritus and atomism
Democritus of Abdera, building on Leucippus, teaches around 400 BCE that atoms and void are the only true realities. None of his works survive; we know him through fragments and reports, many from Aristotle.
Greek city-states Greek philosophy Science
c. 400 BCE
Hippocrates and Greek medicine
Hippocrates of Kos (c. 460-370 BCE), "the Father of Medicine", gives his name to the Hippocratic Corpus, some seventy early medical works by several authors. The Hippocratic Oath was probably written after his death.
Greek city-states Science
c. 400 BCE
Thucydides writes the History of the Peloponnesian War
Exiled from Athens after failing to save Amphipolis in 424, Thucydides writes a history of the war from 431 to 411, where it breaks off. He revises it after 404, relies on eyewitnesses and leaves the gods out. His speeches are reconstructions.
Greek city-states Athens Literature Peloponnesian War
399 BCE
The trial and death of Socrates
In 399 BCE an Athenian jury convicts Socrates of impiety and corrupting the youth and sentences him to death. He drinks hemlock. Our main accounts are by his followers Plato and Xenophon. Historians still debate the real motives.
Greek city-states Athens Socrates
396 BCE
Agesilaus campaigns against Persia
The Spartan king Agesilaus invades Persian Asia Minor in 396-394 BCE and beats Persian cavalry near Sardis in 395. Persian gold funds anti-Spartan Greek states, which forces his recall.
Greek city-states Sparta Achaemenid Persia
395 BCE
Corinthian War
From 395 to 387 BCE Thebes, Athens, Corinth and Argos, funded by Persian gold, fight Sparta. Sparta wins at Nemea and Coronea (394), but Persia's fleet destroys the Spartan navy at Cnidus. The war ends with the King's Peace.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Thebes Achaemenid Persia
394 BCE
Battle of Cnidus
In 394 BCE the Athenian Conon and the Persian satrap Pharnabazus destroy the Spartan fleet at Cnidus, ending Sparta's naval ambitions. Next year Conon, with Persian money and ships, helps Athens rebuild its Long Walls.
Greek city-states Athens Sparta Achaemenid Persia
387 BCE
The King's Peace
In 387 BCE Artaxerxes II imposes a peace negotiated by the Spartan Antalcidas. Persia gets the Greek cities of Asia and Cyprus, other Greek cities are declared autonomous, and Thebes must dissolve the Boeotian League. Sparta enforces it.
Greek city-states Sparta Thebes Achaemenid Persia
384 BCE
Aristotle is born
Aristotle is born at Stagira in 384 BCE, the son of a physician to the Macedonian king. At about 17 he joins Plato's Academy in Athens and stays about twenty years.
Greek city-states Greek philosophy Aristotle Macedon
c. 383 BCE
Plato founds the Academy
Around 383 BCE Plato founds the Academy in Athens, sometimes dated about 387, a school that lasts for centuries. The order of his dialogues cannot be fixed exactly. He visits Syracuse three times, in the 380s, 366 and 361.
Greek city-states Athens Greek philosophy Plato
382 BCE
Sparta seizes the Cadmea at Thebes
In 382 BCE the Spartan Phoebidas, passing through Boeotia, takes Thebes's citadel, the Cadmea, with the help of local oligarchs. Sparta backs a pro-Spartan regime there. Some sources date it to 383.
Greek city-states Sparta Thebes
379 BCE
Thebes is liberated
In 379-378 BCE Pelopidas, Epaminondas and other exiles slip back into Thebes and free it from its Spartan garrison. Later Spartan expeditions fail, and Sparta suffers a symbolic defeat at Tegyra in 375.
Greek city-states Sparta Thebes
378 BCE
The Second Athenian League
Athens founds a new alliance against Sparta in 378-377 BCE. Unlike the Delian League, it has no tribute, no garrisons and one vote per city, and meets in Athens. It begins to dissolve after Leuctra.
Greek city-states Athens
July 6, 371 BCE
Battle of Leuctra
On 6 July 371 BCE Epaminondas defeats the Spartans under King Cleombrotus at Leuctra, massing his deepest force on the left. Cleombrotus dies and Sparta loses about a quarter of its full citizens. Aristotle calls it the blow that ended Spartan dominance.
Greek city-states Sparta Thebes
c. 370 BCE
Epaminondas invades the Peloponnese; Messenia freed
In 370-369 BCE Epaminondas leads Theban forces into Laconia and frees the Messenian helots and rebuilds Messene. He also encourages an Arcadian league and the founding of Megalopolis as a counterweight to Sparta.
Greek city-states Sparta Thebes
July 4, 362 BCE
Battle of Mantinea
On 4 July 362 BCE Thebes and its allies beat Sparta and its allies at Mantinea, but Epaminondas is mortally wounded and Thebes cannot follow up. Theban hegemony ends, and Greece is left open to Macedon.
Greek city-states Sparta Thebes
357 BCE
The Social War: Athens loses its allies
In 357-355 BCE Chios, Rhodes, Kos and Byzantium revolt against Athens and win. The Second Athenian League falls apart and most allied cities become independent.
Greek city-states Athens
357 BCE
Philip takes Amphipolis
In 357 BCE Philip besieges and captures Amphipolis, which Athens had long claimed. He keeps it, though he had agreed to lease it to Athens, along with Pydna.
Macedon Philip II of Macedon Greek city-states Athens
356 BCE
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus burns
Built about 550 BCE with funds from Croesus of Lydia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus is burned in 356 BCE. Tradition blames Herostratus and says it was the night Alexander was born. The Ephesians refuse Alexander's offer to pay for the rebuilding.
Greek city-states Art Alexander the Great
356 BCE
Third Sacred War
The Amphictyonic League, dominated by Thebes, fines Phocis for farming sacred land, and in 356 BCE the Phocians seize Delphi and use its treasure to hire armies. The war draws in Philip II, who ends it in 346 on his own terms and gains Phocis's seats in the Amphictyonic council.
Greek city-states Macedon Philip II of Macedon War Thebes
c. 353 BCE
Battle of the Crocus Field
Philip II defeats the Phocian general Onomarchos in Thessaly, most likely in 353 BCE, though some place it in 352. Onomarchos dies and about 6,000 Phocians fall. Philip is made archon of Thessaly.
Macedon Philip II of Macedon Greek city-states War
353 BCE
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
After the satrap Mausolus dies in 353 BCE, his sister-wife Artemisia II commissions his tomb at Halicarnassus, about 43-45 metres high, with sculpture by four Greek artists. It becomes a Wonder of the World and gives us the word "mausoleum".
Greek city-states Art Achaemenid Persia
c. 351 BCE
Demosthenes delivers the First Philippic
Around 351 BCE the Athenian orator Demosthenes urges Athens to prepare against Philip II. In 349 the Olynthiacs press Athens to help Olynthus.
Greek city-states Athens Macedon Philip II of Macedon
348 BCE
Philip destroys Olynthus
In 348 BCE Philip takes Olynthus, head of the Chalcidian League, after two leading citizens betray it. He razes the city and sells its people into slavery. Excavations of the abandoned houses have given a detailed picture of a Greek town.
Macedon Philip II of Macedon Greek city-states
346 BCE
Philip takes Thermopylae; peace with Athens
In 346 BCE Philip seizes Thermopylae, Phocis surrenders and its cities are broken up. Athens makes peace with him. Macedon takes the two Phocian seats in the Amphictyonic council.
Macedon Philip II of Macedon Greek city-states Athens
343 BCE
Aristotle tutors Alexander
About 343-342 BCE Aristotle goes to Macedon to teach the young Alexander. The two later become estranged. Claims that Aristotle had a hand in Alexander's death rest on weak evidence.
Greek city-states Greek philosophy Aristotle Alexander the Great Macedon
August 338 BCE
Battle of Chaeronea
In August 338 BCE Philip II defeats Athens and Thebes in Boeotia, with his 18-year-old son Alexander commanding the left wing. Thebes's Sacred Band is wiped out. Philip becomes master of Greece.
Macedon Philip II of Macedon Alexander the Great Greek city-states Athens Thebes War
337 BCE
League of Corinth
In late 338 or 337 BCE, after Chaeronea, Philip forms an alliance of Greek states, with garrisons as guarantors, that bars attacks and interference. The league declares war on Persia and makes Philip its leader (strategos). Sparta stays out.
Macedon Philip II of Macedon Greek city-states
335 BCE
Alexander destroys Thebes
In 335 BCE Thebes revolts and Alexander punishes it with his Greek allies. The city is razed and its people sold into slavery, except, by tradition, Pindar's house and the temples. Its territory is shared among other Boeotian cities.
Macedon Alexander the Great Greek city-states Thebes
335 BCE
Aristotle founds the Lyceum
Back in Athens about 335 BCE, Aristotle founds the Lyceum, where the Peripatetic school grows. Of his works about a third survive, mostly lecture notes: the Organon, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics and Poetics.
Greek city-states Athens Greek philosophy Aristotle
323 BCE
Lamian War
On news of Alexander's death, Athens and other Greek states revolt against Macedon in 323 BCE. Antipater is besieged at Lamia, but wins at Crannon in August 322. Athens gets a garrison and an oligarchy; its citizen body falls from about 21,000 to 9,000.
Greek city-states Athens Macedon Hellenistic kingdoms War Alexander the Great
322 BCE
Aristotle dies at Chalcis
In 322 BCE, charged with impiety after Alexander's death, Aristotle leaves Athens and dies that year at Chalcis in Euboea. His logic remains dominant until the 19th century.
Greek city-states Athens Greek philosophy Aristotle
322 BCE
Theophrastus succeeds Aristotle at the Lyceum
Aristotle's will names Theophrastus his successor and leaves him his library and the originals of his works. Theophrastus leads the Peripatetic school for some 35 years. A well-known tale that the books lay in a cellar in Scepsis is plausible but not established.
Aristotle Greek philosophy Greek city-states Athens
October 12, 322 BCE
Demosthenes dies
On 12 October 322 BCE, hunted by Antipater's agents after the Lamian War, Demosthenes takes poison at a sanctuary of Poseidon on Kalaureia (Poros) to avoid capture. He was about 62.
Greek city-states Athens Macedon
c. 306 BCE
Epicurus founds the Garden
About 306 BCE Epicurus, back in Athens, founds his school, the Garden. He teaches that the goal of life is freedom from pain and disturbance, that the world is atoms in void, and that the gods do not meddle in human affairs. He dies in 270.
Greek city-states Athens Greek philosophy
c. 300 BCE
Zeno of Citium founds Stoicism
About 300 BCE Zeno of Citium begins teaching in Athens at the Stoa Poikile, a painted colonnade, from which Stoicism takes its name. Cleanthes and Chrysippus carry the school on; Chrysippus is said to have written over 300 books on logic.
Greek city-states Athens Greek philosophy
c. 280 BCE
The Achaean League is revived
About 280 BCE the Achaean League is refounded by four Peloponnesian cities and grows as more join. It has an assembly, a council and an elected general. Under Aratus and Philopoemen it becomes a major power until Rome ends its independence in 146.
Hellenistic kingdoms Greek city-states
280 BCE
Pyrrhus lands in Italy and wins at Heraclea
Called by Tarentum, King Pyrrhus of Epirus crosses to Italy in 280 BCE and defeats a Roman army at Heraclea. Some Greek and Italian cities in Rome's sphere defect to him.
Roman Republic Hellenistic kingdoms Greek city-states
279 BCE
The Gauls invade Greece
Celtic armies kill the Macedonian king Ptolemy Keraunos and push into Greece. In 279 BCE they get past Thermopylae but are defeated at Delphi. Survivors settle in Thrace or cross into Asia Minor, where they found Galatia.
Hellenistic kingdoms Macedon Greek city-states War
272 BCE
Rome takes Tarentum; mastery of southern Italy
Rome captures Tarentum in 272 BCE, the last major power to resist, and Pyrrhus dies in Greece the same year. Rome now dominates the Italian peninsula and has gained prestige across the Mediterranean.
Roman Republic Greek city-states
212 BCE
Rome takes Syracuse; Archimedes killed
After a siege begun in 213 BCE, Marcellus takes Syracuse in 212 and sacks it. Archimedes, whose war machines had held the Romans off, is killed by a soldier despite orders to spare him.
Roman Republic Punic Wars Greek city-states
196 BCE
Flamininus proclaims the "freedom of the Greeks"
At the Isthmian Games of 196 BCE the Roman general Flamininus declares the Greek cities free of Macedonian rule. Rome nonetheless keeps garrisons in Corinth, Chalcis and Demetrias until 194.
Roman Republic Macedon Hellenistic kingdoms Greek city-states
146 BCE
Rome sacks Corinth; Achaean League dissolved
After defeating the Achaean League in 146 BCE, Lucius Mummius plunders and destroys Corinth. Greece is brought under the governor of Macedonia and Corinth stays in ruins until Caesar refounds it in 44 BCE.
Roman Republic Hellenistic kingdoms Greek city-states
86 BCE
Sulla takes and sacks Athens
In 86 BCE Sulla storms Athens, which had joined Mithridates, and the city is heavily damaged and looted. He then wins at Chaeronea and Orchomenus, ending Pontic control of Greece.
Roman Republic Sulla Mithridatic Wars Greek city-states Athens