Location:
Greece
Coordinates:
37.9838, 23.7275
Events at Athens (48)
1200 BC
ID: 5410
Dionysus cult spreads in Greece - wine becomes sacred, symposium culture develops, wine mixed with water as civilized practice
ID: 5410
800 BC
ID: 5412
Homer describes wine culture - 'wine-dark sea,' proper mixing ratios, wine as civilized marker versus barbarism
ID: 5412
700 BC
ID: 5413
Hesiod's Works and Days - first wine-making manual, describes pruning, harvest timing, fermentation techniques
ID: 5413
534 BC
ID: 5949
First tragedy performed at Dionysia - Thespis wins contest, theater born from Dionysian worship, goat sacrifice gives 'tragedy' (goat-song)
ID: 5949
508 BC
ID: 225
Cleisthenes establishes Athenian democracy - creates 10 tribes, Council of 500, ostracism to prevent tyranny
ID: 225
500 BC
ID: 5319
Laurion silver strike saves Athens - rich vein discovered, Themistocles convinces assembly to build 200 warships instead of distributing windfall
ID: 5319
483 BC
ID: 5320
Laurion silver funds Athenian fleet - 100 talents annually from mines employing 20,000 slaves, decisive for Salamis victory
ID: 5320
480 BC
ID: 5351
Laurion silver victories - Athenian fleet built with mining profits defeats Persians at Salamis, saving Greek independence
ID: 5351
462 BC
ID: 267
Pay for jury service introduced in Athens - enables poor citizens to participate in democracy
ID: 267
461 BC
ID: 238
Pericles rises to power in Athens - begins Golden Age: democracy, building program, cultural flowering
ID: 238
460 BC
ID: 239
Democritus develops atomic theory - 'Nothing exists except atoms and empty space'
ID: 239
460 BC
ID: 240
Hippocrates begins medical practice - natural causes for disease, Hippocratic Oath established
ID: 240
458 BC
ID: 237
Aeschylus presents Oresteia trilogy - justice evolves from blood vengeance to law courts
ID: 237
450 BC
ID: 242
Protagoras teaches in Athens - 'Man is the measure of all things,' charges fees for wisdom
ID: 242
450 BC
ID: 5415
Hippocrates prescribes wine medicinally - different wines for different ailments, wine as antiseptic and digestive aid
ID: 5415
447 BC
ID: 241
Parthenon construction begins - Phidias oversees sculptures, pinnacle of Classical architecture
ID: 241
441 BC
ID: 244
Sophocles presents Antigone - divine law versus human law, individual versus state
ID: 244
440 BC
ID: 243
Herodotus completes Histories - first historical work, describes peoples from India to Africa
ID: 243
434 BC
ID: 245
Anaxagoras expelled from Athens for impiety - taught sun was hot stone, not god, Mind (Nous) orders cosmos
ID: 245
431 BC
ID: 246
Peloponnesian War begins - Athens versus Sparta, democracy versus oligarchy, sea versus land power
ID: 246
431 BC
ID: 252
Euripides presents Medea - psychological realism, woman's revenge, questions traditional values
ID: 252
430 BC
ID: 247
Great Plague of Athens - kills 1/3 of population, possibly typhoid, Pericles loses sons
ID: 247
430 BC
ID: 3694
Plague of Athens - kills 1/3 of population including Pericles, possibly typhoid fever
ID: 3694
429 BC
ID: 248
Death of Pericles from plague - Funeral Oration idealizes Athenian democracy
ID: 248
429 BC
ID: 253
Sophocles presents Oedipus Rex - perfect tragedy, fate versus free will, tragic irony
ID: 253
425 BC
ID: 254
Aristophanes' Knights wins first prize - savage satire of demagogue Cleon during wartime
ID: 254
420 BC
ID: 250
Socrates at height of influence - questioning youth in agora, 'unexamined life not worth living'
ID: 250
415 BC
ID: 5952
Alcibiades accused of profaning Mysteries - drunkenly mocks Eleusinian rites at party, flees Athens, sentenced to death in absentia
ID: 5952
411 BC
ID: 256
Oligarchic coup in Athens - Four Hundred seize power, democracy temporarily overthrown
ID: 256
404 BC
ID: 259
Athens surrenders to Sparta - Long Walls demolished, Athenian Empire ends, Thirty Tyrants installed
ID: 259
403 BC
ID: 278
Athenian democracy restored - Thirty Tyrants overthrown, general amnesty prevents cycle of vengeance
ID: 278
400 BC
ID: 5416
Athenian wine laws - symposiarch controls mixing ratios (usually 3:1 water to wine), unmixed wine considered barbaric
ID: 5416
399 BC
ID: 260
Trial and execution of Socrates - charged with impiety and corrupting youth, drinks hemlock
ID: 260
387 BC
ID: 275
Plato founds the Academy in Athens - first institution of higher learning in Western world, lasts 900 years
ID: 275
385 BC
ID: 5417
Plato's Symposium - philosophical dialogue at drinking party, wine enables truth but requires moderation
ID: 5417
380 BC
ID: 277
Plato writes Republic - ideal state ruled by philosopher-kings, allegory of the cave, theory of Forms
ID: 277
380 BC
ID: 280
Diogenes arrives in Athens - lives in barrel, mocks conventions, searches with lantern for honest man
ID: 280
380 BC
ID: 322
Athenian democracy increasingly dominated by demagogues - rhetoric over wisdom, Plato's critique vindicated
ID: 322
350 BC
ID: 360
Aristotle develops syllogistic logic in the Organon, establishing the first formal system of logic with rules of valid inference
ID: 360
350 BC
ID: 320
Aristotle proposes geocentric cosmos - crystalline spheres, four elements, quinta essentia
ID: 320
350 BC
ID: 5418
Aristotle studies wine - observes fermentation, notes wine's properties, discusses effect on body and mind
ID: 5418
335 BC
ID: 284
Aristotle founds Lyceum in Athens - systematic study of logic, biology, ethics, politics, poetics
ID: 284
322 BC
ID: 302
Death of Demosthenes - takes poison rather than capture, spent life warning against Macedon
ID: 302
321 BC
ID: 318
Menander's first comedy performed - New Comedy replaces political satire with domestic situations
ID: 318
306 BC
ID: 307
Epicurus founds Garden school - pleasure as absence of pain, atoms and void, death is nothing
ID: 307
301 BC
ID: 308
Zeno founds Stoicism in Athens - virtue only good, cosmic determinism, live according to nature
ID: 308
86 BC
ID: 2682
Sulla besieges Athens - massacres population, blood flows to city gates, cultural treasures looted
ID: 2682
720
ID: 4161
St. Giles born in Athens - becomes hermit in France, fed by doe's milk, wounded by arrow meant for doe
ID: 4161