Acient Greece timeline

Agamemnon

1750 BCE

In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was a king of Mycenae, the son, or grandson, of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra and the father of Iphigenia, Electra or Laodike, Orestes and Chrysothemis.

First Olympic Games

776 BCE

The first recorded Olympic Games were held at Olympia in the Greek city-state of Elis in 776 B.C., but it is generally accepted that the Olympics were at least 500 years old at that time. The ancient Olympics, held every four years, occurred during a religious festival honoring the Greek god Zeus.

Homer

750 BCE

Homer is the presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are the central works of ancient Greek literature. The Iliad is set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek kingdoms.

Draco’s Code of Law

620 BCE

The Draconian constitution, or Draco's code, was a written law code created by Draco near the end of the 7th century BC in response to the unjust interpretation and modification of oral law by Athenian aristocrats. ... This enactment of a rule of law was an early manifestation of Athenian democracy.

Darius I

550 BCE

Darius I, commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third Persian King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE.

Rise of the Tyrants

546 BCE

Tyrant. Tyrant, Greek tyrannos, a cruel and oppressive ruler or, in ancient Greece, a ruler who seized power unconstitutionally or inherited such power.Thus, the opportunity arose for ambitious men to seize power in the name of the oppressed.

Xerxes

519 BCE

Xerxes I, commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, ruling from 486 to 465 BC. He was the son and successor of Darius the Great and his mother was Atossa, a daughter of Cyrus the Great, the first Achaemenid king.

Democracy

507 BCE

Athenian democracy developed around the sixth century BC in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica. Athenian democracy is often described as the first known democracy in the world.

First Persian War

499 BCE

The first Persian invasion of Greece. The Persian Wars began in 499 BCE, when Greeks in the Persian-controlled territory rose in the Ionian Revolt. Athens, and other Greek cities, sent aid, but were quickly forced to back down after defeat in 494 BCE. Subsequently, the Persians suffered many defeats at the hands of the Greeks, led by the Athenians.

Battle of Marathon

490 BCE

The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. The battle was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate Greece.

Second Persian War

482 BCE

The second Persian invasion of Greece occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars, as King Xerxes I of Persia sought to conquer all of Greece. The invasion was a direct, if delayed, response to the defeat of the first Persian invasion of Greece at the Battle of Marathon, which ended Darius I's attempts to subjugate Greece.

Battle of Thermopylae

480 BCE

The Battle of Thermopylae was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by King Leonidas I of Sparta, and the Achaemenid Empire of Xerxes I over the course of three days, during the second Persian invasion of Greece.

Parthenon completed

432 BCE

A pantheon is the particular set of all gods of any individual polytheistic religion, mythology, or tradition.

Pericles

429 BCE

Pericles was a prominent and influential Greek statesman, orator and general of Athens during its golden age, specifically the time between the Persian and the Peloponnesian Wars. He was descended, through his mother, from the powerful and historically-influential Alcmaeonid family.

Peloponnesian War

404 BCE

The Peloponnesian War was an ancient Greek war fought by the Delian League led by Athens against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases.

Greek catapult

400 BCE

The catapult was an ancient siege machine that could hurl heavy objects or shoot arrows with great force and for considerable distances.The Greek Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse, who was looking to develop a new type of weapon, invented the catapult about 400 BCE.

Socrates

399 BCE

Socrates was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and as being the first moral philosopher of the Western ethical tradition of thought.

The Academy in Athens

387 BCE

The Academy was founded by Plato in c. 387 BC in Athens. Aristotle studied there for twenty years before founding his own school, the Lyceum. The Academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a skeptical school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC.

Philip II

359 BCE

Philip II was King of Spain, King of Portugal, King of Naples and Sicily, and jure uxoris King of England and Ireland. He was also Duke of Milan From 1555 he was also lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands.

Alexander the Great

356 BCE

Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of 20.

Plato

347 BCE

Plato was an Athenian philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, founder of the Platonist school of thought, and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.

Battle of Chaeronea

338 BCE

The Battle of Chaeronea was fought in 338 BC, near the city of Chaeronea in Boeotia, between the Macedonians led by Philip II of Macedon and an alliance of some of the Greek city-states led by Athens and Thebes.

League of Corinth

337 BCE

The League of Corinth, also referred to as the Hellenic League, was a confederation of Greek states created by Philip II during the winter of 338 BC/337 BC after the Battle of Chaeronea and succeeded by Alexander the Great at 336 BC, to facilitate the use of military forces in the war of Greece against Persia.

Aristotle

322 BCE

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Lyceum, the Peripatetic school of philosophy, and the Aristotelian tradition.