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The Ancient World

Timeline

TEXTS   CONTEXTS
  2200–1450 B.C.E.
Minoan civilization flourishes on Crete
  ca. 1450
Mycenaeans from mainland Greece occupy Crete
  ca. 1250
Troy destroyed by the Achaeans
  776
Olympic Games founded in Greece
late 8th century B.C.E.
Greek alphabetic scripts		  
ca. 700
Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey; Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days		  
600
Sappho writing her lyrics on the island of Lesbos		  
  594
Solon reforms laws at Athens, which becomes the world’s first democracy (508) and defeats a Persian invasion at Marathon (490)
  480–479
Greece turns back a massive Persian invasion by sea at Salamis and by land at Plataea
472
Aeschylus, The Persians		  
458
Aeschylus’s dramatic trilogy, The Oresteia, produced in Athens		  
ca. 441
Sophocles, Antigone		  
431
Euripides, Medea		 431–404
Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta; Athens surrenders (404)
ca. 430
Herodotus, The Histories 		 
429–347
Plato, author of The Apology of Socrates, Phaedo, and The Republic		  
426?
Sophocles, Oedipus the King		  
424–404
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War		  
411
Aristophanes, Lysistrata		  
  399
Trial and execution of Socrates
  ca. 385
Plato founds the Academy
384–322
Aristotle, author of Poetics		  
  ca. 350
Greek amphitheater built at Epidauros
  338
United Greeks defeated by Philip II of Macedon at Chaeronea
  335
Aristocle founds Peripatetic school of philosophy and lectures in the Lyceum
 

334
Alexander of Macedon, Philip’s son, conquers Persian empire
 

323
Euclid writes Elements, the first work of geometry
 

307
Library and museum established at Alexandria, Egypt

ca. 254–184
Plautus, author of Pseudolus

  
 

148
Macedonia becomes a Roman province

ca. 94–55
Lucretius, author of On the
Nature of Things

  

ca. 84–54
Catullus

  

70–19
Virgil, author of the Aeneid

  
 

47
Julius Caesar dictator; murdered in 44

43 B.C.E.–ca. 17 C.E.
Ovid, author of Metamorphoses

31
At Actium, Octavian (later called
Augustus Caesar) defeats Antony and Cleopatra
 

ca. 6
Birth of Jesus
 

ca. 33C.E.
Crucifixion of Jesus
  ca. 35
Conversion of Paul
 

47–58
Paul’s missionary journeys
 

64
Persecution of Christians under Nero

65
Seneca, author of moral epistles and essays (including On Anger), dies

  
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66
Petronius, author of the Satyricon, dies

 66–70
Jewish revolt against Roman rule; Roman emperor Titus captures Jerusalem

ca. 75
Luke, Gospels and Acts of the
Apostles

  

ca. 80
Matthew, Gospels

  

ca. 120–90
Lucian, author of A True Story

  

ca. 125–after 170
Apuleius, author of The Golden Ass

  

354–430
Augustine, author of Confessions