Ancient Greece Timeline

Agamemnon

1750 BCE

Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae and leader of the Greek army in the Trojan War of Homer's Illiad. He is presented as a great warrior but selfish ruler, famously upsetting his invincible champion Achilles and so prolonging the war and suffering of his men.

Homer

800 BCE

The Greek poet Homer was born sometime between the 12th and 8th centuries BC, possibly somewhere on the coast of Asia Minor. Homer is the presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are the central works of ancient Greek literature.

First Olympic Games

776 BCE

The first recorded Olympic Games were held at Olympia in the Greek city-state of Elis. The ancient Olympics, held every four years, occurred during a religious festival honoring the Greek god Zeus.

Rise of the Tyrants

650 BCE

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.

Draco's Code of Law

620 BCE

The draconian law was created by king Draco for the Athenian people. This rudimentary law-code of which we know only the provisions regarding homicide were written, according to tradition and myth in blood because of their perceived cruelty.

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. Darius attempted several times to conquer Greece; his fleet was destroyed by a storm in 492, and the Athenians defeated his army at Marathon in 490.

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

The Athenian leader Cleisthenes introduced a system of political reforms that he called demokratia, or “rule by the people” (from demos, “the people,” and kratos, or “power”). It was the first known democracy in the world.

First Persian War

492 BCE

The Persian Wars refers to the conflict between Greece and Persia which involved two invasions. The first Persian invasion of Greece, during the Persian Wars, began in 492 BC, and ended with the decisive Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.

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.

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

Battle of Thermopylae, battle in central Greece at the mountain pass of Thermopylae during the Persian Wars. It 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.

Socrates

469 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 philosopher Socrates remains, as he was in his lifetime an enigma, an inscrutable individual who, despite having written nothing, is considered one of the handful of philosophers who forever changed how philosophy itself was to be conceived.

Parthenon Completed

432 BCE

Parthenon, temple that dominates the hill of the Acropolis at Athens. It was built, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena Parthenos (“Athena the Virgin”).

Peloponnesian Wars

431 BCE

It was an ancient Greek war fought by the Delian League led by Athens against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Under Pericles, Athens flourished and Sparta grew jealous and distrustful of Athens.

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.

Plato

428 BCE

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

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.

The Academy in Athens

387 BCE

At the site there had been an olive grove, a park, and a gymnasium sacred to the legendary Attic hero Academus (or Hecademus). Legally, the school was a corporate body organized for worship of the Muses.

Aristotle

385 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.

Philip II

359 BCE

Philip II of Macedon was the king of the kingdom of Macedon from 359 BC until his assassination in 336 BC. He was a member of the Argead dynasty of Macedonian kings, the third son of King Amyntas III of Macedon, and father of Alexander the Great and Philip III.

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 and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of 20.

Battle of Chaeronea

338 BCE

The Battle of Chaeronea was fought 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. The victory, partly credited to Philip’s 18-year-old son Alexander the Great, cemented the Macedonian hegemony in Greece and ended effective military resistance to Philip in the region.

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 after the Battle of Chaeronea. It was succeeded by Alexander the Great, to facilitate the use of military forces in the war of Greece against Persia.