A TIMELINE OF PEOPLE AND IDEAS

th 6 Century bce = 500s bce Solon

th 5 Century bce = 400s bce Socrates

th th 5 –4 Century bce Plato HEYDAY OF OF HEYDAY GREEK DEMOCRACY GREEK th 4 Century bce = 300s bce Aristotle

th rd 4 –3 Century bce Zeno, Epicurus

nd 2 Century bce = 100s bce Polybius

st OF HEYDAY bce bce

1 Century = 99–1 Cicero REPUBLIC ROMAN

st 1 Century ce = 1–99 ce Seneca, Epictetus

st nd 1 –2 Century ce Plutarch

nd OF HEYDAY 2 Century ce = 100s ce Marcus Aurelius IMPERIAL

OVERVIEW OF PERSIAN WARS AND PELOPONNESIAN WAR

TH 5 CENTURY bce

499–494 Revolt of Ionian Greek cities against Persian rule

First Persian invasion of mainland Greece; 490 Athenians lead victory in battle of Marathon on land

Second Persian invasion: in 480, Spartans and others defeated in battle of Thermopylae, but Athenians lead Greek allies to victory in sea 480–479 battle of Salamis; in 479, Athenians, Spartans and others together win land battle of Plataea and defeat Persian fleet at Mycale

Major in Laconia kills many 465 Spartans; helots revolt

Military conflicts between Sparta and Athens 460–445 (and their allies)

Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens 431–404 (and their allies): in 404, Spartans win HIGHLIGHTS OF ATHENIAN HISTORY

TH 7 CENTURY bce

621 Draco’s written code

TH 6 CENTURY bce

Solon becomes archon and begins proto- 594 democratic reforms

Peisistratids rule as tyrants, overthrown in 510 c. 546–510 by Spartans who support establishment of an oligarchy

Restoration of democracy versus oligarchs; 508 Cleisthenes’ reforms

TH 5 CENTURY bce

Athens leads a defeat of Persia in battle of 490 Marathon (on land)

487 Archon selection by lot begins

Athens leads a defeat of Persia in battle of 480 Salamis (at sea)

462 Ephialtes’ democratic reforms Wars of the Athenian Delian League versus 460–445 Sparta and its allies

Peloponnesian War between Athenian- and 431–404 Spartan-led alliances

430 Plague in Athens

429 Death of Pericles

Surrender of Athens to Sparta: 404 Oligarchy of Thirty Tyrants

403 Democracy restored, Athenians pass amnesty

TH 4 CENTURY bce

Trial and execution of Socrates; 399 Plato leaves Athens

Plato turns forty; returns to Athens and 384 founds Academy

Plato write the Republic; further wars 370s between Sparta and Athens

Athens loses battle of Chaeronea; 338 Macedonian domination

Athenian democracy extinguished by 322–321 Macedonian-imposed property qualification for citizenship (though later briefly revived)

HIGHLIGHTS OF ROMAN HISTORY DISCUSSED IN THIS CHAPTER

753 bce Legendary founding of Rome by Romulus

509 bce Founding of the republic: overthrow of last king, replaced by two annually elected consuls

TH 5 CENTURY bce

494 bce Tribunes of the plebeians established

451–449 bce Twelve Tables – basis of

RD ND 3 – 2 CENTURIES bce

c. 200–c. 118 bce Lifespan of Polybius

146 bce Roman conquests of Carthage and of Corinth

133 bce Tribune Tiberius Gracchus attempts land reform

123, 122 bce Tribune Gaius Gracchus attempts similar reforms ND ST 2 – 1 CENTURIES bce

106–43 bce Lifespan of Cicero

63 bce Cicero becomes consul; exposes Catilina

44 bce Julius Caesar assassinated (‘Ides of March’)

43 bce Cicero assassinated

27 bce Octavian made Augustus Caesar

the ‘less than fifty-three years’ from 220, when the Romans had annexed the Po region of in the course of their rivalry with Carthage (today Tunis, in Tunisia), to Rome’s smashing of the kingdom of Macedon in 168 bce. That was the timespan that he originally set out to document in his Histories; he would eventually carry the narrative on through 146, the year in which Roman armies sacked both Carthage and Corinth, doing away in a single year with its greatest rival (the Carthaginian general Hannibal had inflicted a shocking defeat on Rome in 216 at Cannae) and with the independence of the cities of mainland Greece. The expansion of Rome had actually begun well before, with the conquest of the other inhabitants of the Italian peninsula below the Po valley; the

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