{"id":810,"date":"2019-11-12T22:25:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T03:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/?page_id=810"},"modified":"2026-07-31T00:26:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:26:28","slug":"classical-age","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/illustrated-lectures\/greek-history\/classical-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Classical Age"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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A color-coded timeline of the Classical Age of Greece (all dates BC unless noted), covering war, literature\/culture, politics, and science\/philosophy. 499-494: Ionian Revolt is crushed by Darius, King of Persia 496: Birth of Sophocles 493: Phrynichus fined for reminding the Athenians of Persian infamy in his play Fall of Miletus. Themistocles serves as archon in Athens. 490: Battle of Marathon (winning general: Miltiades) 489: Trial and death of Miltiades 486: Comedy is introduced into the Great Dionysia 485: Death of Darius; Xerxes becomes King of Persia. Birth of the sophists Protagoras (Abdera) and Gorgias (Sicily). 484: Aeschylus’ first dramatic victory (the play is lost) 483: Athens strikes silver at the Laurion mines; Themistocles persuades Athenians to build a fleet with the proceeds 480: Battle of Thermopylae (losing general: Leonidas). Battle of Salamis (winning general: Themistocles). The cosmologist Anaxagoras settles in Athens. Approximate births of the historian Herodotus and of Euripides (on Salamis). 479: Battle of Plataea 477: Formation of the Delian League – Athens, with the strongest fleet, promises protection to remote colonies and islands under threat from Persia in exchange for contributions. What begins as a defensive alliance gradually becomes closer to a protection racket, as voluntary contributions become required. Named for the sacred, neutral isle of Delos, hub of the Cyclades. 476: Phrynichus wins the Great Dionysia with Phoenissae, on the Greek victory at Salamis (Themistocles serves as choregos) 472\/1: Aeschylus wins with Persians, also on Salamis (Pericles serves as choregos) 470\/469: Birth of Socrates 468: Sophocles wins his first victory over Aeschylus (with the lost Triptolemus) 467: Aeschylus wins with Seven Against Thebes (with Laius, Oedipus, and the satyr play Sphinx, all lost) c. 463: Aeschylus wins with the Danaid trilogy (only Suppliants survives) 462\/1: Ephialtes’ democratic reforms strip the Areopagus of much of its power; Athens allies with Argos 461: Pericles begins his 29-year tenure as strategos in Athens. The First Peloponnesian War begins between Athens and Sparta (ending 446 BC). Ephialtes is assassinated. 460: Births of the natural philosopher Democritus and the historian Thucydides 458: Aeschylus’ Oresteia wins first prize (the only surviving complete Greek trilogy) 457: The Athenian Long Walls are completed, defending the city against attack by land, “foreign or Hellenic aggressor” alike (Pericles) 456: Death of Aeschylus. Legend holds that an eagle mistook his bald head for a rock and dropped a tortoise on it to break its shell. 454: Athens moves the Delian League’s treasury to Athens itself – the moment the “Delian League” effectively becomes the “Athenian Empire” 450: Trial and departure of Anaxagoras on a charge of impiety 449: Peace with Persia. After the Battle of Plataea, the Greeks had agreed not to rebuild what the Persians had destroyed, to keep the memory of their impiety alive. Pericles argues the oath is void now that peace has been made, and – since Athens bore the brunt of the destruction defending Greece – uses the former Delian League treasury (already conveniently in Athens) to fund his Great Building Program. 447: Construction begins on the Parthenon, funded by the Delian League treasury 446: Thirty Years’ Peace between Athens and Sparta 445: Birth of the comic playwright Aristophanes. Sophocles’ Ajax. c. 444: Protagoras arrives in Athens 443: Pericles ostracizes the conservative Thucydides (not the historian). Sophocles is elected Treasurer of the Delian Confederacy. 442: Sophocles’ Antigone 441: First victory of Euripides. Sophocles is elected general, on the strength of Antigone’s popularity. 439\/8: Euripides’ Alcestis wins second prize 431: Outbreak of the Second Peloponnesian War (Sparta vs. Athens) – see Pericles’ Funeral Oration. First prize: the son of Aeschylus; second: Sophocles; third: Euripides’ Medea. 430: Plague strikes Athens 429: Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (Oedipus Tyrannus). Death of Pericles from the plague. Approximate birth of Plato. 428: Euripides’ Hippolytus 427: The sophist Gorgias arrives in Athens, sparking a craze for sophistic teaching 425: Athenian victory over Sparta at Sphacteria, though Cleon rejects a Spartan peace offer. Aristophanes’ Acharnians. 424: The historian Thucydides is exiled for poor military performance 423: Aristophanes’ Clouds unfairly caricatures Socrates as a sophist 422: Aristophanes’ Wasps 421: Aristophanes’ Peace. The Peace of Nicias between Athens and Sparta. 416: Athens brutally suppresses a revolt on Melos 415: The Sicilian Expedition begins (Alcibiades and Nicias in command). Alcibiades defects to Sparta. The Mutilation of the Herms (a shocking act of impiety) rocks Athens. Protagoras is tried in Athens for impiety. Euripides’ Trojan Women wins second prize. 414: Aristophanes’ Birds 413: The Athenian navy is destroyed at Sicily 411: An oligarchy takes power in Athens. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Thesmophoriazusae. 409: Sophocles’ Philoctetes 408: Euripides’ Orestes, and his departure from Athens 406: Athens is victorious in the sea-battle at Arginusae 405: Deaths of Sophocles and Euripides (in Macedon). Aristophanes’ Frogs mourns their loss. Posthumous first-prize win for Euripides’ Bacchae. Sparta destroys the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami. 404: Athens surrenders; Sparta wins the Peloponnesian War. The Thirty (another oligarchy) takes power in Athens. 403: Democracy is restored in Athens 401: Posthumous production of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, staged by his grandson 399: Trial and death of Socrates 395: Death of Thucydides 386: Death of Aristophanes 384: Births of Aristotle and Demosthenes 360: Plato founds his Academy 347: Death of Plato 338: Philip of Macedon conquers Greece at the decisive Battle of Chaeronea 322: Deaths of Demosthenes and Aristotle<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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A color-coded timeline of the Classical Age of Greece (all dates BC unless noted), covering war, literature\/culture, politics, and science\/philosophy. 499-494: Ionian Revolt is crushed by Darius, King of Persia 496: Birth of Sophocles 493: Phrynichus fined for reminding the Athenians of Persian infamy in his play Fall of Miletus. Themistocles serves as archon in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":802,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/page_fullwidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-810","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1322,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/810\/revisions\/1322"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}