Political history of Classical Greece  

Political history of Classical Greece

During the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, the Greek world was dominated by subsequent hegemonies of individual city states - Athens, Sparta, Thebes and Syracuse.

Add a comment | 479BC - 338BC

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Political history of Classical Greece

22 events | Add a comment | 479BC - 338BC

479BC

Greece after the Persian wars

From the time of their foundation, the Greek city-states (poleis) on the northern coasts of the Mediterranean seas had known the barbarians – foreigners whose languages sounded to the Greeks like “bar-bar”...

479BC

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478BC

Democracy, oligarchy, tyranny

Since the Greek forces in the Persian Wars included not only the wealthiest men that the armies of the Archaic Period had often relied on, but also thousands of poorer men who rowed the warships, the effort against the Persians cut across social and...

478BC

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477BC

The Delian League

Following its victories in 479 BCE, the Greek coalition decided to continue as a naval alliance aimed at driving out the Persian outposts that still existed in far northern Greece and western Anatolia...

477BC

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474BC

Rise and decline of Syracuse

In 480 BCE, Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, had defeated Carthage, the most potent empire and maritime power in the western Mediterranean, in the Battle of Himera. This defeat led to the crippling of Carthage's power in Sicily for many decades...

474BC

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469BC

Founding an Athenian Empire

The obvious choice for the commander the the newly-formed Delian League (as it came to be known after its birth-place of Delos) was Themistocles, victor of the naval battle of Salamis, but his fellow citizens feared that he aimed at tyranny and did not...

469BC

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465BC

The Peloponnese after the Persian Wars

By the beginning of the 5th century BCE, most of the Peloponnese Peninsula was linked to Sparta through a set of alliances which are usually referred to as the Peloponnesian League. Many of the poleis on the peninsula were also individually prestigious...

465BC

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462BC

Sparta after the Persian Wars

Sparta had increased its prestige and authority in the Peloponnese Peninsula by military means throughout the Archaic Period. By the end of the 8th century BCE it had conquered the whole of its own region – Laconia – and during the 7th century BCE it...

462BC

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461BC

Ephialtes’ democratic reform in Athens

In the democratically-ruled Athens, poorer men powered the Athenian fleet and in the decades following the Persian Wars both their military and their political importance grew. As these poorer citizens came to recognize that they provided the...

461BC

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460BC

The First Peloponnesian War

After the dismissal of Cimon, the Athenians broke off their alliance with Sparta that been active since the Persian Wars, and instead made alliances with enemies of Sparta: Argos in the Peloponnese and Thessaly in the north of Greece...

460BC

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443BC

The leadership of Pericles

The idea that democracy at Athens was best served by involving a cross-section of male citizenry, randomly determined by lot, received further backing in the 450s BCE when the newly-emerged statesman Pericles successfully proposed that state revenues...

443BC

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431BC

Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War

Athens in Attica and Syracuse in Sicily were exceptional places by the 430s BCE. Both were bustling, prosperous and powerful democracies where philosophical, literary and artistic breakthroughs were almost commonplace...

431BC

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429BC

The Archidamian War

The first phase of the Peloponnesian War is usually called the Archidamian War (431-421 BCE), after Archidamus, the Spartan king who invaded Attica each summer during that period. The initial fighting broke out because Sparta saw that Athens, left...

429BC

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421BC

The Peace of Nicias

The Peace of Nicias, named after the Athenian general who was instrumental in convincing the citizen’s assembly to agree to a treaty, stopped the fighting between Athenians and Sparta but left too many things unsettled to bring real peace to Greece...

421BC

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413BC

Ionian War

The scale of Athens’ losses in the Sicilian expedition was gigantic. In 412 BCE, Athens had barely a handful of hoplites, no ships in the docks, no crews to man them and no money to pay for more...

413BC

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404BC

Greece after the Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War had lasted for twenty-seven years and engulfed most of the Greek world at one time or another. This bitter conflict, extraordinary in Greek history for its protracted length, wreaked havoc on the social and political harmony of...

404BC

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393BC

Golden age of Syracuse

The democracy of Syracuse was divided after they had defeated the Athenian forces in 413 BCE. The Sicilian metropolis might have brought an end to Peloponnesian War even sooner, but the democracy was divided upon the matter and, furthermore, war...

393BC

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387BC

Spartan hegemony

The end of the Peloponnesian War did not bring an end to conflict among prominent Greek city-states contending for power over each other. Sparta had emerged as a dominant hegemon and even turned against Persia, its former ally, as Lysander – who had...

387BC

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371BC

Battle of Leuctra

When, in 371 BCE, all Greek states had to confirm the Common Peace, Thebes protested and refused to sign the treaty. Its representative Epaminondas walked out in protest because Sparta insisted that he could only sign for Thebes, not for the whole...

371BC

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362BC

Theban hegemony

Sparta was shattered after the Battle of Leuctra. Her allies immediately defected to Thebes and civil war seemed imminent. There was no chance an outbreak of such a conflict, however, because Epaminondas descended on Sparta with 40 000 hoplites...

362BC

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359BC

Emergence of Macedonia

In the middle of the 4th century BCE, Macedonia was a backwater. It covered a large area where different tribes of shepherds, not agriculturalists, like the Greeks, moved their herds in the southern lowlands in the winter, then retreated to the...

359BC

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357BC

Chaos in Sicily

Dionysius’ rule over Syracuse over the first decades of the 4th century BCE had been personal and his Sicilian state unraveled after his death. The tyrant had used bribes, threats and trickery to keep the Syracusans under control and resorted to...

357BC

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338BC

Philip's conquest of Greece

By the 350s BCE, the Greek poleis in Sicily and mainland Greece were bankrupt and exhausted of their conflicts. Meanwhile, Persia and Carthage were playing the warring city-states against each other and strong leaders on the northern frontiers of...

338BC

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