Ancient History Topics:

  • Battle of Marathon (490 BC) – Led by Miltiades, the vastly-outnumbered Athenians repelled Persian king Darius I’s invasion of Greece at the plains of Marathon. The Spartans, to whom Athens appealed for help against the invaders, were delayed by a religious festival, so the Athenians had only 1,000 men from Plataea to bolster their ranks. Despite being few in number, the Greeks won decisively, and according to legend, their messenger Pheidippides ran 26 miles to Athens with news of the victory, inspiring the modern ‘marathon’ race.
  • Start of the Peloponnesian War (431 BC) -The Peloponnesian War was fought between ancient Greece’s two most powerful city-states: Athens and Sparta. Prior to 431BC, tensions between the Delian League of city-states, led by Athens, and the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta, had seemingly been resolved by the Thirty Years’ Treaty. However, open war was triggered by Sparta-allied Thebes’ attack on Athens-allied Plataea. The Peloponnesian War led to the fall of Athens and the end of Greece’s Golden Age. The Peloponnesian War saw the death of Athenian leader Pericles to a plague, the violation of the Peace of Nicias, the takeover of Athens by the Five Thousand, and the creation of a highly-regarded history about it by contemporary author Thucydides. Important figures here include Athenian leaders Pericles and Cleon and Spartan general Lysander, and important battles include Aegospotami, Pylos, Syracuse, and Sybota.
  • Age of Pericles (461 BC) – Greek statesman and general Pericles developed democracy in Athens and helped propel it into its cultural and political golden age.  Athens flourished politically, economically, and culturally after the Persian Wars. Under Pericles, the Delian League, an alliance of city-states, was formed, which provided Athens with the influence and economic means for social and cultural innovation.  This included the construction of the Acropolis, the Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, Apollo at Delphi, and in politics, the implementation of the direct democracy, the Council of the Five Hundred, and the Ecclesia. Notable figures during this time include the sculptor Pheidias, mathematicians Euclid and Pythagoras, and philosophers Socrates and Plato.
  • Alexander the Great’s victory at Gaugamela (331 BC) – Alexander the Great, the son of King Philip II of Macedonia, established the ancient world’s largest empire alongside Bucephalus, his horse. He defeated the Sacred Band of Thebes, cut apart the Gordian Knot, killed his friend Cleitus while drunk, and died at age 33.  The Macedonian conquest of the Persian Empire was cemented at the Battle of Gaugamela, at which Persian king Darius III’s defeat allowed Alexander the Great to capture the Persian capital of Persepolis. At Gaugamela, or “The Camel’s House”, King Darius flattened the terrain to give his scythed chariots more of an advantage and kept his troops awake all night in anticipation of an attack, while Alexander rejected his general Parmenion’s counsel to attack at night but overslept on the day of the battle. An eagle flew towards Darius as the battle began, which Alexander took as an omen of his impending victory. Alexander’s expansion of Greek culture and political influence resulted in the Hellenistic Period in western Asia.
  • Third Punic War (149 BC) – The Third Punic War was the last in a series of conflicts between the Roman Republic and Carthaginian Empire, and resulted in the annihilation of Carthage and Roman dominion of the Western Mediterranean.  Military tension between Carthage and Roman ally Numidia, led by Masinissa, led such figures as Cato the Elder to call for war: he proclaimed, “Carthage must be destroyed”. Though Carthage attempted to make reparations by offering 300 noble children as hostages, Rome declared war. The siege of Carthage lasted three years, during which a mole was built to blockade the city’s inner cothon, a final stand was made in the temple of Eshmun, and the family of a Carthaginian general immolated themselves on a funeral pyre. Under Roman general Scipio Africanus the Younger, Carthage was sacked, its population was enslaved, and its land was apocryphally sown with salt to make it barren.
  • Assassination of Julius Caesar (44 BC) – Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman politician and general who defeated Vercingetorix and won the Gallic Wars, escaped and crucified the pirates who had captured him on his way to Rhodes, and along with Pompey and Crassus, formed the First Triumvirate.  On the Ides of March (March 15) in 44BC, Caesar was stabbed to death in the Theater of Pompey by Roman senators wielding pugio daggers. Though hugely popular among Roman citizens, Caesar’s appointment as dictator perpetuo caused worry in the old guard of the Roman Senate, the Optimates. This led to Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus planning his assassination, immediately before which omens were observed by the soothsayer Spurinna and Caesar’s wife Calpurnia. Caesar’s death marked his adoptive son Octavian’s ascension to power, who would begin the Roman Empire as Augustus Caesar and form the Second Triumvirate.
  • Augustus defeats Cleopatra and Marc Anthony at Actium (31BC) – In the political turmoil left by Julius Caesar’s death, Octavian (later Augustus Caesar), Mark Antony, and Lepidus, formed the Second Triumvirate and divided the empire among themselves. Egyptian ruler Cleopatra famously seduced Antony on a river barge while dressed as the goddess Venus, causing tension within the Triumvirate as Antony began supporting Cleopatra’s son Caesarion’s claim to the throne in opposition to Octavian. This escalated into the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra’s quinqueremes at Actium, near today’s Preveza, by Octavian’s fleet, which was led by Marcus Agrippina and made up of smaller Liburnian ships.
  • Nero becomes Roman Emperor (54) – Self-indulgent and violent Nero was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68AD, and is known for “fiddling while Rome burned”. His death was followed by the Year of the Four Emperors. He poisoned his stepbrother Britannicus, ordered his mother, Agrippina the Younger, stabbed to death in her villa following a failed assassination attempt in a collapsible boat, and killed his pregnant wife Poppaea with a kick to the stomach. After reviving the Roman Senate, Nero indulged himself in the arts and sports, playing the lyre and competing in public games as a charioteer, and depleted Roman coffers to build his Domus Aureus palace complex. He blamed the Great Fire of 64AD on Christians and brutally persecuted them until 68AD, when Roman governor Galba’s rise to power compelled Nero to commit suicide. Such was Nero’s cruelty and unjustness that his death led to citizens “[running] through the streets wearing caps of liberty as though they were freed slaves”.
  • Eruption of Mount Vesuvius (79) – Mount Vesuvius’ eruption buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in pumice and ash. Its eruption was preceded by an earthquake in 63AD, and Pliny the Younger and Pliny the Elder both bore eyewitness to the eruption; the latter died shortly after. The site of Pompeii was rediscovered in 1748.
  • First Council of Nicaea, organized by Constantine I (325) – Constantine I, or Constantine the Great, reunited the Roman Empire that his predecessor Diocletian had split, established the eastern capital of Constantinople, and was the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity. The son of Constantius Chlorus the Pale, he vied over political and military supremacy with Maxentius and defeated him at the Battle of Milvian Bridge; he then prevailed over his brother-in-law Licinius to win the east of the empire. Constantine the Great passed the Edict of Milan to grant religious tolerance to all religions, moved the capital to the eastern city of Byzantium (later Constantinople), and held the Council of Nicaea, which condemned Arianism.