Greece

Timeline

• 2300 BCE

  Bronze is used in the Aegean.
• 2000 BCE

  Early Greeks settle the Peloponnese.
• 2000 BCE - 1450 BCE

  Minoan civilization in Crete and the Aegean.
• 1500 BCE - 1200 BCE

  Mycenaean civilization in Greece and the Aegean.
• 1100 BCE

  Dorian peoples occupy Greece.
• c. 1000 BCE

  The first distinctive Greek pottery is produced, the Proto-geometric style.
• 900 BCE

  Sparta is founded.
• c. 900 BCE

  The Geometric style of Greek pottery is first produced.
• c. 800 BCE - c. 700 BCE

  Homer of Greece writes his Iliad and Odyssey.
• 800 BCE - 500 BCE

  Greek colonization of the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
• c. 800 BCE - 479 BCE

  Archaic period of Greece.
• c. 740 BCE - c. 433 BCE

  Greek city-states establish colonies in Magna Graecia.
• c. 734 BCE

  Corinth founds the colony of Syracuse in Sicily.
• 683 BCE - 682 BCE

  List of annual archons at Athens begins.
• c. 660 BCE

  Pheidon is tyrant in Argos.
• c. 657 BCE - 585 BCE

  The Kypselidai are tyrants of Corinth.
• c. 650 BCE

  Sparta crushes Messenian revolt.
• 650 BCE

  Earliest large scale Greek marble sculpture.
• 650 BCE - 600 BCE

  Age of law-givers in Greece.
• c. 625 BCE

  Black-figure pottery created in Corinth.
• c. 625 BCE - 600 BCE

  The orientalizing style of Greek pottery becomes popular in Corinth.
• 594 BCE - 593 BCE

  In Athens the archon Solon lays the foundations for democracy.
• 580 BCE - 376 BCE

  Carthage and Greece fight for dominance in Sicily.
• c. 560 BCE

  Pisistratos becomes tyrant in Athens for the first time.
• 546 BCE - 545 BCE

  Persian conquest of Ionian Greek city-states.
• 539 BCE

  Etruscan & Carthaginian alliance expels the Greeks from Corsica.
• c. 530 BCE

  Red-figure pottery style takes precedent over black-figure.
• 530 BCE

  The Andokides Painter invents red-figure pottery.
• 530 BCE - 522 BCE

  Polykrates is tyrant at Samos.
• c. 525 BCE - c. 456 BCE

  Life of Greek tragedy poet Aeschylus.
• 521 BCE

  Darius I (Darius the Great) succeeds to the throne of Persia after the death of Cambyses.
• 514 BCE

  Fall of the Peisistratid tyranny in Athens.
• 514 BCE

  The tyrant of Athens Hipparchos is killed by Harmodios and Aristogeiton - the 'tyrannicides'.
• c. 508 BCE

  Reforms by Cleisthenes establishes democracy in Athens.
• 507 BCE

  Cleisthenes establishes new form of government, Democracy, in Athens.
• 499 BCE - 494 BCE

  Ionian cities rebel against Persian rule.
• c. 498 BCE

  Ionians and Greek allies invade and burn Sardis (capital of Lydia).
• c. 496 BCE - c. 406 BCE

  Life of Greek tragedy poet Sophocles.
• c. 495 BCE

  Birth of Pericles.
• 492 BCE

  Darius I of Persia invades Greece.
• 11 Sep 490 BCE

  A combined force of Greek hoplites defeat the Persians at Marathon.
• 487 BCE - 486 BCE

  Archons begin to be appointed by lot in Athens.
• 486 BCE

  Xerxes succeeds to the throne of Persia after the death of Darius I.
• c. 484 BCE - 407 BCE

  Life of Greek tragedy poet Euripides.
• 482 BCE

  Themistocles persuades the Athenians to build a fleet, which saves them at Salamis and becomes their source of power.
• Jul 480 BCE

  Xerxes I makes extensive preparations to invade mainland Greece by building depots, canals and a boat bridge across the Hellespont.
• Aug 480 BCE

  Battle of Thermopylae. 300 Spartans under King Leonidas and other Greek allies hold back the Persians led by Xerxes I for three days but are defeated.
• Aug 480 BCE

  The indecisive battle of Artemision between the Greek and Persian fleets of Xerxes I. The Greeks withdraw to Salamis.
• Sep 480 BCE

  Battle of Salamis where the Greek naval fleet defeats the invading armada of Xerxes I of Persia.
• 479 BCE

  Xerxes' Persian forces are defeated by Greek forces at Plataea effectively ending Persia's imperial ambitions in Greece.
• 478 BCE

  Sparta withdraws from alliance against Persia.
• 478 BCE - 404 BCE

  The Delian League in Greece, led by Athens.
• c. 469 BCE - 399 BCE

  Life of Socrates.
• c. 462 BCE - 458 BCE

  Pericles introduces democratic institutions in Athens.
• c. 460 BCE - c. 380 BCE

  Life of Greek comic poet Aristophanes.
• 457 BCE

  Hegemony of Athens over central Greece.
• 457 BCE - 445 BCE

  First Peloponnesian War.
• 451 BCE

  Five years truce between Athens and Peloponnesians.
• 451 BCE

  Thirty years peace between Argos and Sparta.
• c. 451 BCE - c. 403 CE

  Life of Athenian statesman and general Alcibiades.
• 449 BCE - 448 BCE

  Peace between Greece and Persia.
• 448 BCE

  Ionian cities become independent from Persia.
• 448 BCE

  The Peace of Callias with Persia.
• 447 BCE - 432 BCE

  The construction of the Parthenon in Athens by the architects Iktinos and Kallikrates under the direction of Pheidias.
• 446 BCE - 445 BCE

  Thirty years peace between Athens and Peloponnesians.
• 431 BCE - 404 BCE

  The Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League) which involved all of Greece.
• 427 BCE - 347 BCE

  Life of Plato.
• 421 BCE

  Peace of Nicias, a truce between the Delian and Peloponnesian Leagues.
• 420 BCE

  Democritos develops an atomic theory of matter.
• c. 415 BCE

  The Histories of Herodotus is published. The work is divided into nine chapters, each dedicated to one of the Muses.
• 412 BCE

  Sparta allies with Persia.
• 404 BCE

  End of the Peloponnesian war, Athens defeated at Aigospotamoi, Rule of the Thirty Tyrants in Athens.
• 403 BCE

  Plato turns away from politics toward philosophy.
• 400 BCE

  Pepper is known in Greece.
• 399 BCE

  Trial and death of the philosopher Socrates, who taught in the court of the Agora.
• c. 398 BCE - c. 380 BCE

  Plato travels in Egypt, Cyrene, Italy, Syracuse and Sicily.
• 395 BCE - 386 BCE

  The Corinthian Wars between Sparta and an alliance of Athens, Corinth, Argos, Boeotia and Thebes.
• 384 BCE - 322 BCE

  Life of Aristotle.
• 380 BCE

  Plato founds his Academy outside of Athens.
• 371 BCE

  Thebes defeats Sparta in the Battle of Leuktra.
• 371 BCE - 362 BCE

  Thebes is the dominant city state in Greece.
• 359 BCE - 336 BCE

  Reign of Philip II of Macedon.
• 21 Jul 356 BCE - 11 Jun 323 BCE

  Life of Alexander the Great.
• 350 BCE

  The Scythians have absorbed a lot of Greek culture, Scythian artefacts show Greek-style depictions.
• 347 BCE

  Plato dies at his Academy.
• 343 BCE

  Aristotle becomes tutor of young Alexander.
• 336 BCE - 323 BCE

  Reign of Alexander the Great.
• 334 BCE

  Alexander the Great invades the Persian empire.
• 331 BCE

  Egypt is conquered by Alexander the Great without resistance.
• 323 BCE - 31 BCE

  Hellenistic civilization in Greece, the Mediterranean and Asia.
• 320 BCE

  Last recorded examples of Attic Red-Figure Pottery.
• 307 BCE

  Democracy is restored in Athens.
• 270 BCE

  Aristarchos of Samos proposes a heliocentric world view.
• 146 BCE

  Rome sacks Corinth and dissolves the Achaean league. Greece is ruled by Rome.
• 146 BCE

  Roman influence over Greece begins to rise.
• 140 BCE

  Venus of Milo is completed.
• 88 BCE - 63 BCE

  Mithridates of Pontus fights three wars to free Greece from Rome.
• 86 BCE

  The Roman general Sulla sacks Athens.
• 42 CE - 62 CE

  St. Paul goes on missionary journeys across Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome.
• 257 CE - 263 CE

  The Goths raid Greece.
• 267 CE

  The Goths sack Athens, Corinth, Sparta, and Argos.