Home / Ancient Greece 3000 B.C. – 323 B.C. (page 2)

Ancient Greece 3000 B.C. – 323 B.C.

Important events in the early civilization of Ancient Greece 400,000 B. C. to 323 B. C.

3000 B. C.
Soldiers from Asia Minor land on Greece and settle there.

2200-1400 B. C.
Crete at the height of power at Knossos and Phaestus built.

1500 B. C.
Achaean kings build stronghold at Mycenae.

1400 B. C
Destruction of palaces at Knossos and Phaestus, probably by Greek raiders from the Peloponnesus. Decline of Cretan civilization.

1400-1200 B C.
Age of Mycenae.

1185 B. C.
Troy destroyed by Achaeans.

1100 B. C.
Dorian invasion of Achaean cities. Mycenae destroyed.

1000 B. C.
Dark ages of Greece. Durians invade Peloponnesus, Crete and Rhodes; Aeolians invade Thessaly and Boeotia; Ionians from Attica cross to Western shore of Asia Minor.

800 B. C.-700 B. C.
Formation of the city states and rise of aristocrats.

800-600 B. C.
Colonization begins as Greece becomes overpopulated.

776 B. C.
First Olympic games said to be held.

750 B.C.
Homer writes The Illiad and The Odyssey.

621 B. C.
Draco writes a code of harsh laws for Athens.

594 B. C.
Solon is chosen to lead Athenians and replaces Draco’s laws with a code of his own.

561 B. C.
Pisistratus becomes tyrant of Athens.

544 B. C.
After being exiled, Pisistratus returns and is tyrant again.

528 B. C.
Death of Pisistratus.

507 B. C.
Sparta invades Attica and brings about the fall of the tyrant sons of Pisistratus. Cleisthenes leads Athens towards democracy.

499 B. C.
Athens and Eretria send help to Ionians resisting Darius of Persia.

492 B. C.
First attack by Darius against Athens and Eretria.

490 B. C.
Eretria is burned in Darius’ second attack. The Athenians win the Battle of Marathon.

485 B. C.
Darius dies and is succeeded by Xerxes.

480 B. C.
Themistocles becomes leader of Athens, Xerxes defeats Greek army under Leonidas at Thermopylae. Athenians flee to Salamis. The Persian fleet is defeated at the battle of Salamis.

479 B. C.
Persians retreat after losing Battle of Plataea to Spartans.

461 B. C.
Pericles becomes leader of Athens and the Golden Age of Athens begins.

431 B. C.
Beginning of Peloponnesian Wars. Thebans attack Plataea, Athens’ ally. Attica invaded.

430 B. C.
Plague in Athens. Athenians depose Pericles and then reappoint him. Attica invaded again.

429 B. C.
Pericles dies. Siege of Plataea.

428 B. C.
Cleon, leader of pro-war group, opposes Nicias.

425 B. C.
Thucydides begins to write history of the war.

422 B. C.
Cleon killed in Thrace.

421 B. C.
Peace of Nicias signed by Athens and Sparta.

415 B. C.
Alcibiades, Lamachus and Nicias command expedition to Sicily. Alcibiades recalled, flees to Sparta.

413 B. C.
Athenian forces in Sicily wiped out.

411 B. C.
Sparta and Persia sign treaty.

405 B. C.
10,000 Greeks join Cyrus of Persia’s army. After death of Cyrus, the Athenian Xenophon leads the Greeks home.

399 B. C.
Death of Socrates.

347 B. C.
Death of Plato.

343 B. C.
Aristotle tutors the young Alexander, son of King Philip of Macedonia.

338 B. C.
Philip invades Greece and wins Battle of Chaeronea.

336 B. C.
Philip is assassinated and is succeeded by Alexander, who is elected general of the Greeks.

333 B. C.
At battle of Issus, Alexander defeats Darius of Persia.

331 B. C.
Alexander conquers Egypt and defeats Persian army at Gaugamela.

330 B. C.
Darius dies. Alexander subdues Iran.

323 B. C.
After Alexander’s death, his empire is divided into three parts. Antigonus claims Greece.

The Greek Way of Life 700 B. C. – 343 B. C.

Ancient Greece 3000 B.C. - 323 B.C. 229

In the first years of Spartan peace, Greece was filled with wandering soldiers. Their little cities needed them no more. The new governments, which Spartans appointed, looked on them as men who might make trouble and were quick to get rid of them. Homeless and with no way to earn a living, the old campaigners roamed from place to place. They became soldiers of fortune, men who fought for any general or city that offered pay and three meals a day. In 401 B. C., ten thousand of them hired themselves out to Cyrus, a prince of Persia, who hoped …

The Conquerors 343 B. C. – 323 B. C.

Ancient Greece 3000 B.C. - 323 B.C. 360

In 343 B. C., the philosopher Aristotle left the quiet of his study and journeyed to Macedonia, a country in the mountain wilderness north of Greece. He had been hired to tutor the rowdy young son of a king. The boy, Alexander, was a yellow-haired thirteen-year-old. His manners were polite and he seemed to be clever enough, but he was wild. It was hard for him to pay attention to his studies. He much preferred galloping across the fields on his huge horse. He proudly told his new tutor that he had tamed the horse himself. When he did come …

Greece and the World 323 B. C. – 250 B. C.

Ancient Greece 3000 B.C. - 323 B.C. 341

In the last years of the fourth century B. C., Greek citizens going about their business in the stoas or the shops sometimes stopped and wondered what was wrong. Everything seems strange. They themselves had not changed and their cities looked the same as before, but the world around them was so different that they could hardly recognize themselves. The little poleis on the mainland looked out at an enormous empire, which stretched across Asia and Egypt. They shipped their olive oil and pottery across the Mediterranean. Their corn came from fields beside the Black Sea and the Nile. Merchants …

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