All dates are B.C. (B.C.E.)

490 First Persian expedition to the Greek mainland; battle of Marathon

484 First victory of Aeschylus

480 Persian overland expedition to Greece; battles of Artemision, Thermopylae, and Salamis

479 Greeks defeat Persians at Plataea and Mycale

478 Foundation of Delian League -- Athens undertakes to protect the "allies" against Persia

472 Aeschylus' Persians

471 Ostracism of Themistocles

468 First victory of Sophocles over Aeschylus

461 Reforms of Ephialtes, murder of Ephialtes; supremacy of Pericles

461-451 First Peloponnesian War

458 Aeschylus' Oresteia

458 Building of the Long Walls from Athens to Piraeus

456 Death of Aeschylus

456 Completion of temple of Zeus at Olympia

455 Euripides' first dramatic production

451 Five years truce between Athens and Sparta

Pericles' citizenship law

447 Building of Parthenon begins

441 [Approximate date of Antigone]

440 Revolt of Samos from the Athenian empire

438 Euripides' Alcestis

435 War between Corcyra and Corinth

431 Second Peloponnesian War begins

Euripides' Medea

Thucydides begins his history

430 Plague at Athens

430 Philosophers and professionals: Democritus, Hippocrates, and Protagoras active

429 Death of Pericles

428 Euripides' Hippolytus

427 Capture of Plataea by Spartans and of Mytilene by Athenians.

First Athenian expedition to Sicily

427 Gorgias of Leontini comes to Athens: formal study of rhetoric begins

424 Athenians defeated at battle of Delium

423 One year armistice between Sparta and Athens

423 Aristophanes' Clouds

421 Peace of Nicias

Peace of Aristophanes

418 Spartans defeat Athenian-Argive alliance at battle of Mantinea

416 Athenians attack Melos, kill and enslave its inhabitants

415 Euripides' Trojan Women

415 Mutilation of the herms, profanation of the mysteries

Athenian expedition to Sicily

Alcibiades exiled

413 Sparta establishes a fort in Attica at Decelea

Failure of Athenian expedition to Sicily

412 Euripides' Helen

412 Revolts of Athenian allies

Persia enters the war

411 Aristophanes' Lysistrata and Thesmophoriazusae

411 Oligarchic revolutions in Athens -- coup of Four Hundred

410 Restoration of democracy at Athens

409 Sophocles' Philoktetes

408 Euripides' Orestes

407-6 return of Alcibiades

406 Athenian defeat at Notium

Athenian victory at Arginusae

405 Battle of Arginusae; siege of Athens

405 Aristophanes' Frogs

405 Posthumous performance of Euripides' Bacchae and Iphigenia at Aulis

404 Athens surrenders: installation of the Thirty Tyrants

403 the downfall of the Thirty Tyrants; restoration of democracy at Athens

401 Posthumous production of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus.

399 Trial and death of Socrates