Luiza Nawrot HON 300
Ancient Greece Timeline
Date / Event / Notes7000-3000BC / Agricultural/ Neolithic / Evidence of food producing economy, simple hut construction, and seafaring in mainland Greece and the Aegean
2900-1600BC / Bronze Age / The Bronze age began when ancient civilizations learned how to produce bronze by smelting together copper with tin. This created a metal which was harder and more durable than other metals known at the time. This new discovery allowed technological advances which pushed society further.
2000-1450BC / Minoan Civilization / This civilization occurred during the Bronze Age and refers to the mythical King Minos. The period is distinct due to its pottery styles noted during the time. The Minoan civilization had advances in technology such as plumbing. There were methods for providing and distributing water, as well as relocating sewage and stormwater.
1800-1000BC / Mycenaean Greece / They Mycenaean built a rich and vital civilization. The cities were fortresses mainly built upon hills, surrounded by farmed lowlands. Core crops were grains and fruit whose trees grow well in rocky, sandy soil. A warrior elite ruled each city, with a king and court of advisers and soldier-commanders at the helm. Mycenaeans built extensive roads, to connect all city-states of Greek mainland. There was frequent war and preparation for war. A period of decay began around 1250 BC and most cities were burned and abandoned by 1000 BC for unknown reasons.
13th-9th BC / Dark Ages / During this period of time, the collapse of the Bronze Age civilization occurred. Mycenaean cities and palaces were destroyed and abandoned. There were fewer civilizations and smaller settlements, which suggests that famine occurred, wiping out large portions of populations.
900 - 700 Bc / Geometric Period / Following a period of sporadic incursions and large movements of people, demographic and economic changes in the eighth century B.C. lead to overseas colonization, spreading the Greek language and culture across the Mediterranean and Black seas. Communities throughout the Greek world evolve into city-states, laying the foundations for democracy. Literature, science, and the arts flourish for several centuries, and new genres of artistic and intellectual expression evolve.
~850 BC / Homer / Homer, the famous poet of the Greek antiquity, is known all over the world for his two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Historians believe that Homer was blind, as shown by his name, which in Greek means "he who can't see". Many cities claim to be the birthplace of Homer, while it is believed that he died in Ios, the homeland of his mother. He lived in the 8th century BC and didn't actually write his poems, but narrated them and scholars wrote them down.
Iliad is a story of the Trojan War
700 - 480 BC / Archaic Period / The Archaic period saw developments in Greek politics, economics, international relations, warfare, and culture. It began with a massive increase in the Greek population and a series of significant changes which rendered the Greek world at the end of the eighth century as entirely unrecognizable as compared to its beginning. According to Anthony Snodgrass, the Archaic period in ancient Greece was bounded by two revolutions in the Greek world. It began with a "structural revolution" which "drew the political map of the Greek world" and established the poleis, the distinctively Greek city-states, and ended with the intellectual revolution of the Classical period.
~776 BC / First Olympic Games / Held once every four years, the games honor Olympian Zeus. A list of victors from this year to 217 A.D., drawn up by the historian Julius Africanus, has been preserved for us by Eusebius. The earliest games are held in one day and consist of running and wrestling. In the seventh century B.C., they are reorganized to include chariot races and single horse races.
~740 BC / Greek alphabet created from the Phoenician script / The Phoenicians lived in the area of modern Lebanon. They traded with many people around the Mediterranean, including the Greeks. During the eighth century, the Greeks adapted the Phoenician writing system to create their own alphabet. This alphabet is the basis of the writing system we use today.
~630 BC / Draconian Law Code / Draco issued the first written law code in Athens in 621/620 BC. These laws have become famous for being very harsh, hence our modern term, 'draconian.' Draco's punishment for almost all crimes was death.
624-546 BC / Thales of Miletus / He is a scientist we only have second hand information about. Famous authors like Herodotus, Aristotle, and Plato credit him with a number of discoveries such as the forecast of a solar eclipse of 585 BC, and the view that water defines the fundamental substance of all matter. Thales was strongly influenced by Egyptian and Babylonian science.
~610 BC / Sappho from Lesbos / The poetess Sappho flourishes on Lesbos. Her poems are personal, reflecting her reverence for Aphrodite and the Muses and her affection for her friends.
610-547 BC / Anaximander / The philosopher, astronomer and cartographer invented the use of models and maps in a scientific mindset. He was a student of Thales. Most of his philosophy was inspired by Thales’ ideas. He was also concerned with the origin of man, believing that humans evolved from a different, hardier species. Anaximander also worked with cosmological ideas such as “rings of fire” and eclipses.
~594 BC / Solon, an Athenian statesman / The Athenian archon Solon replaces the Draconian law code and lays the foundation for democracy in Athens. By canceling all debts, he releases the peasants from serfdom and redeems those sold into slavery. He also introduces coinage to Athens and a corresponding system of weights and measures, and grants citizenship to immigrant artisans, all in an attempt to stimulate trade and industry.
570-490 BC / Pythagoras / Travelled widely as a young man (Egypt + India). Developed his own school of thought, believed in numbers being fundamental in the natural phenomena in the world.
He was a philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the Pythagorean brotherhood that, although religious in nature, formulated principles that influenced the thought of Plato and Aristotle and contributed to the development of mathematics and Western rational philosophy. Pythagoras concluded that all things in the universe were the manifestations of numbers and could be so expressed. We have seen this same belief in Vedic astronomy of India.
570-478 BC / Xenophanes / Xenophanes was a philosopher who wrote about the physical universe. His writings influence later scholars, such as Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas. He was also a poet and wrote to make fun at the Pythagorean school because of their idea of transmigration of souls.
~510 BC / Cleisthenes introduces democracy to Athens / In 508 BC Cleisthenes introduced a number of changes to Athens. He organized society into ten groups called tribes. All participation in Athenian public life was arranged through these tribes. He also invented ostracism. Ostracism meant that if one person was becoming too powerful in the city, people could vote to have him banished for 10 years.
600 - 323 BC / Classical Period / The term “classical Greece” refers to the period between the Persian Wars at the beginning of the fifth century B.C. and the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. The classical period was an era of war and conflict—first between the Greeks and the Persians, then between the Athenians and the Spartans—but it was also an era of unprecedented political and cultural achievement. Besides the Parthenon and Greek tragedy, classical Greece brought us the historian Herodotus, the physician Hippocrates and the philosopher Socrates. It also brought us the political reforms that are ancient Greece’s most enduring contribution to the modern world: the system known as demokratia, or “rule by the people.”
480 BC / Greco- Persian Wars / This refers to a series of conflicts which occurred between Persia and Greece. These wars were conflicts over political tyranny. The Greece city-states wanted to maintain independent mindsets as opposed to having Persian control over them.
469-399 BC / Socrates / Socrates is considered today as the founder of Western philosophy. His notions of ethics, virtue and truth passed through centuries. Although we have no manuscripts of Socrates himself, his life and ideology are vividly presented in the works of Plato and Xenophon, his direct students, while some accounts are also found in Aristotle and Aristophanes. Socrates believed that the real truth is hidden in every man and all he has to do is to discover it. Because of his philosophical teachings, he was accused of corrupting the youth and was sentenced to death by the Athenian politicians. He died in prison drinking poison. Source:
461-441 BC / First Peloponnesian War / Hostilities flared between Sparta and Athens for many decades, notably between 460 and 446 BC, and later, between 431 and 404 BC. At the end of the first Peloponnesian War, Sparta and Athens agreed a truce called the Thirty Years' Treaty, but hostilities broke out again 433 BC when Athens violated the terms.
460-377 BC / Hippocrates / Hippocrates is the most famous physician of ancient Greece. Developing very innovative theories and practices for his time, he combined medical observation and philosophy to cure illnesses. Hippocrates believed that the human body has the power to heal itself. He said that all is a matter of balance between the four elements of the body: blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm. People get ill in case this balance is interrupted. To restore this balance, he didn't use drugs, except for natural extracts and soothing balms. Hippocrates appears the first Greek to take a rational but also holistic view, including consideration of such factors as diet, exercise, and mental condition, as well as environmental aspects. The medical profession has modernized him by adopting his ancient oath, with today’s medical students required or requested to swear allegiance by it.
~446 BC / Herodotus / Herodotus credited Thales of Miletus with predicting a solar eclipse (May 28th 585 BC).
He wrote “Histories” in which te tells us that the Greeks adopted their gods from Egypt and accepted refugees from there who “thought many things”. He was believed to have traveled wide throughout the Middle East.
431-404 BC / Second Peloponnesian War / After two decades of earlier fighting between Athens and Sparta and an eventual truce, hostilities broke out again in 431 BC. After ten years of further fighting (431 - 421 BC), a fifty-year truce was agreed which lasted only a few years. War broke out fully in 413 BC after an Athenian invasion of Sicily. The war finally ended with the defeat of Athens in 404 BC.
428-358 BC / Plato / Plato is one of the three most famous Athenian philosophers. Student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, Plato is the most vague of the classical thinkers. His theories were much innovative for his time. Plato introduced a new political system, where philosophers, as the holders of real truth and knowledge, would rule. An opponent of democracy, Plato thinks that ruling a state must not be based on persuasion but on wisdom. Giving his theories a metaphysical aspect, Plato believed that two parallel worlds exist, the real world and the world we live in, which is a reflection of the real world.
384-322 BC / Aristotle / Aristotle wrote that Thales thought that water was fundamental substance in all matter.
No single thinker in the history of science has had an influence equal to that of Aristotle. The textual community of Aristotle treats what we would recognize today as physics, astronomy, geology, biology, botany, zoology, meteorology, agriculture, music, linguistics, rhetoric, political theory, and philosophy. He qualifies as the first great encyclopedist, a teacher who tried to embrace the whole of human knowledge. For Aristotle, the world we perceive with our senses is the real world; what matters is to study its phenomena and discover their causes. There is no void; total emptiness is impossible, as nature “abhors a vacuum.” Today, we would agree, noting that space is filled with energy, dark matter, gravitational waves/particles, and so forth.
336 BC / Alexander becomes king of Macedonia / Philip II was murdered in 336 BC, Alexander was made king of Macedonia at the age of 20. He became one of the greatest army leaders the world has ever known. During his reign he conquered many territories. His empire reached from Greece in the west to India in the east,and went as far south as Egypt. On 13 June 323 BC, Alexander the Great died in Babylon.
323 - 150 BC / Death of Alexander the Great and the beginning of the Hellenistic Period / Finally reaching Babylon, Alexander began constructing a large fleet to take his army back to Egypt. However, in June 323 B.C., just as the work on his ships was reaching its conclusion, Alexander fell sick and died. Perhaps earnestly believing himself to be a god (as many of his subjects did), he had not selected a successor, and within a year of his death his army and his empire broke into a multitude of warring factions. His body was later returned to Alexandria, where it was laid to rest in a golden coffin.
323 - 146 BC / Hellenistic Civilization / During the Hellenistic period, Greek culture was at its peak of influence and power in the European world. There was significant progress made in many fields, such as philosophy, science and literature. Some of the scientific advances include math advances from people such as Euclid and Archimedes. The period ends with the Roman conquest of Greece.
-> 330 AD / ‘Roman Greece’ / This represents a period of time when Roman provinces affected Greek history. Athens was a blooming city at the time, where many young Roman men would come to get an education. The library of Alexandria held all the writings of the world, where many books were translated into Greek.
320 - 280 BC / Euclid / His book Elements was hugely innovative in how it organized its material, giving it a logical order and introducing the rigor of mathematical proof. So important was this last factor that it remains at the core of a great deal of mathematical effort and teaching today.
287-212 BC / Archimedes / Archimedes is famous as the greatest mathematician, engineer, inventor and astronomer of the ancient world, a Leonardo da Vinci of his times. He was born in the Greek colony of Syracuse in modern Italy. We don't know much about his life and he probably wasn't that famous in his era. However, when his manuscripts were found and translated in the Medieval times, he attracted the attention of many scientists. His most famous theory is the Principle of Archimedes, the center of hydrostatics, according to which when an object is immersed in liquid, the amount of liquid displaced is equal to the volume of that object. Archimedes is also famous for measuring the circle. Source:
285-205 BC / Eratosthenes of Cyrene / Eratosthenes was a scholar and inventor who helped contribute to making the Library of Alexandria the largest learning center in the Mediterranean world. He assumed director of the library, building it up to be a great place of knowledge.
146 BC -
330AD / Archean War and Roman Greece / Roman Greece is the period of Greek history following the Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC until the reestablishment of the city of Byzantium and the naming of the city by the Emperor Constantine as the capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD. In 146 BC the Roman army defeated and destroyed the city of Corinth. Rome had by now gained control of much of Greece.
146 AD / Ptolemy’s writing / Ptolemy's work remained the most important influence on astronomers until the 16th century AD. He believed that the Earth was the center of the universe and all the other stars and planets revolved around it. He also calculated the size of the Earth and designed a map of the world.
330 AD / Constantinople capital of Roman empire / Constantine was the first Christian Roman emperor. In AD 313 he made a law that allowed all religions within the empire. By AD 381/380, Christianity had been made the state religion by Roman Emperor Theodosius. Emperor Constantine changed the name of the Greek city of Byzantium to Constantinople. In AD 330 he made this the new capital of the Roman empire. Today the city is called Istanbul.
393 AD / Olympic games abolished / The Olympic games had been held every four years since 776 BC. They were abolished in 393 BC by Roman emperor Theodosius I. They were probably abolished because of their association with the Greek gods. The Greek gods were not approved of by the Christian rulers of the Roman empire.
References
●Abrams, L. P. (2013). Thales of Miletus. Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia.
●Britannica, T. E. (2018, February 08). Herodotus. Retrieved March 16, 2018, from
●Britannica, T. E. (2018, January 03). Migration period. Retrieved March 16, 2018, from
●Buller, J. L. (2013). Xenophanes. Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia.
●Cook, P. (2013). Anaximander. Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia.
●Daniels, N. M. (2016). Bronze Age. Salem Press Encyclopedia.
●Hornblower, S. (2018, March 16). Ancient Greek Civilization. Retrieved March 16, 2018, from
●Jayaswal, S. (2013). Hippocrates. Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia.
●Morris, I. (2013). Solon. Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia.
●Rankin, T. (2013). Pythagoras. Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia.
●Satris, S. (2013). Socrates. Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia.