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 ROME 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 earthquake 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 law 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 may 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 Roman law
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 Italy 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
252