450s BC

This article concerns the period 459 BC – 450 BC.

Events

459 BC

By place

Persian Empire
Greece
  • Athens allied itself with the city state of Megara which was under pressure from Corinth. This alliance leads to war between Corinth and Athens. The first battle of the war, at Haliesis in the Gulf of Argolis, resulted in a Corinthian victory, but the next battle, the battle of Cecryphalea (modern Angistrion), went Athens' way.
Roman Republic
  • The Aequi occupied Tusculum. In response to the threat, the Roman Senate decided to send an army to help the allied city, under the command of consul Lucius Cornelius Maluginensis. In addition, the consul Fabius Vibulanus, who was at that point besieging Antium, moved his forces to attack Tusculum. The Tusculans were able to recapture their city. A truce was then arranged with the Aequi.
Sicily

458 BC

By place

Greece
Roman Republic

By topic

Literature

457 BC

By place

Greece
  • Athens, the leader of the Delian League, comes into conflict with Corinth and its ally Sparta (leader of the Peloponnesian League) over Megara. Nicomedes of Sparta, regent for King Pleistoanax, leads an army of 11,500 hoplites into Boeotia to help Thebes put down a rebellion by Phocis.
  • Athenian forces block the routes back to the Peloponnese, so the Spartans decide to remain in Boeotia and await the Athenian attack. The Athenians and their allies, with 14,000 men under the command of Myronides, meet the Spartans at Battle of Tanagra. The Spartans win the battle, but they lose many men and so are unable to follow up on their victory.
  • The Athenians regroup after the battle and march into Boeotia. Led by Myronides, the Athenians defeat the Boeotians in the Battle of Oenophyta, and then destroy the walls of Tanagra and ravage Locris and Phocis.
  • Athens goes on to defeat Aegina later in the year, and to finish the construction of the Long Walls to the Athenian port of Piraeus (an action opposed by Sparta).
  • Boeotia, Phocis and Opuntian Locris become members of the Delian League. Athens now has enrolled in the Delian League all the Boeotian cities except Thebes. Aegina is forced to become a member of the League. It is assessed, with Thasos, for a yearly contribution to the League of 30 talents.
  • The Zeus Temple at Olympia is completed. The forty-foot statue of Zeus inside it becomes one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

456 BC

By place

Greece

455 BC

By place

Greece
  • Athens, under Athenian general Tolmides, sends 100 ships around the Peloponnesus and they set fire to the Spartan naval base at Gythion. As a result, Athens gains the agreement of the Achaean cities to join the Delian League. Athenian forces then go on to attack the Spartan allies on the Corinthian Gulf. Athens is now able to confine Sparta to the southern Peloponnesus.
  • The Athenians suffer a severe defeat in Egypt at the hands of the Persians. After being cut off in the Nile Delta, the Athenian fleet is defeated, and the Athenian army retreats across the Sinai Desert to Byblos before its remnants are rescued. The Egyptian rebel Inaros is crucified by the Persians. The Athenians decide against any further military activity in Egypt.
China

By topic

Literature

454 BC

By place

Persian Empire
  • Persian rule in Egypt is finally restored by Megabyzus, satrap of Syria, after a prolonged struggle which has included dealing with a military intervention by Athens. The leader of the revolt, Inaros, is crucified by the Persians.
India
Greece
  • Pericles leads a naval expedition in the Corinthian Gulf, in which Athens defeats Achaea. He then attacks Sicyon and Acarnania, after which he unsuccessfully tries to take Oeniadea on the Corinthian Gulf, before returning to Athens.
  • Pericles declares that the Delian League's considerable treasury at Delos is not safe from the Persian navy and has the treasury transferred to Athens, thus strengthening Athens' power over the League.
Roman Republic
  • The Roman Plebs, suffering from a number of economic and financial ills, force the city’s patricians to begin the reform and codification of the law. As a first act, a three-man commission is sent to Athens to study that city's laws.
Sicily

453 BC

By place

Greece
  • Pericles, the ruler of Athens, bestows generous wages on all Athens' citizens who serve as jurymen on the Heliaia (the supreme court of Athens).
  • Achaea, on the southern shore of the Corinthian Gulf, becomes part of what is effectively now the Athenian Empire. The Delian League had changed from an alliance into an empire clearly under the control of Athens.
China

452 BC


451 BC

By place

Greece
  • The Persian fleet moves against a rebellious Cyprus to restore order. Kimon, who returns to favour, though not to power, in Athens, plans an expedition to help Cyprus. He gains Pericles' support.
  • An Athenian law sponsored by Pericles is passed giving citizenship only to those born of Athenian parents. This marks an end to the policy where residents who were from other cities could be given an honourable status.
  • Hostilities among the Greek states come to a formal end with the agreement to the Five Years' Truce. Kimon negotiates a five year truce with Sparta, in which Athens agrees to abandon its alliance with Argos, while Sparta promises to give up its alliance with Thebes. During the same year Argos signs the first "Thirty-Years Peace" with Sparta.
Roman Republic

450 BC

By place

Greece
  • Athenian general Cimon sails to Cyprus with two hundred triremes of the Delian League. From there, he sends sixty ships to Egypt to help the Egyptians under Amyrtaeus, who are fighting the Persians in the Nile Delta. Cimon uses the remaining ships to aid an uprising of the Cypriot Greek city-states against Persian control of the island. He lays siege to the Persian stronghold of Citium on the southern west coast of Cyprus. However, the siege fails and Cyprus remains under Phoenician (and Persian) control.
  • During the siege Cimon dies and command of the fleet is given to Anaxicrates, who leaves Citium to engage the Phoenician fleet in the Battle of Salamis in Cyprus. The Greek fleet is victorious against the Persians and their allies and then returns to Athens.
  • The Athenians reduce the tribute due from their subject city-states (i.e. members of the Delian League), and each city is allowed to issue its own coinage.
  • 5,000 talents are transferred to the treasury of the Delian League in Athens.
Macedonia
Roman Republic
  • The success of the first Decemvirate prompts the appointment of a second Decemvirate which also includes plebeians amongst its members. This second decemviri adds two more headings to their predecessor's ten, completing the Law of the Twelve Tables (Lex Duodecim Tabularum), which will form the centrepiece of Roman law for the next several centuries. Nevertheless, this Decemvirate's rule becomes increasingly violent and tyrannical.
Sicily
  • After minor preliminary successes (including the capture of Inessa from its Greek colonists), Ducetius, a Hellenised leader of the Siculi, an ancient people of Sicily, is decisively defeated by the combined forces of Syracuse and Acragas. Ducetius flees to exile in Corinth.

By topic

Arts

Births

456 BC

450 BC

Deaths

458 BC

456 BC

454 BC

450 BC

References

  1. Livy. From the Founding of the City.
  2. Hall, Edith; Macintosh, Fiona; Wrigley, Amanda (2004-01-08). Dionysus Since 69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. p. 344. ISBN 978-0-19-155541-1.
  3. Baker, Rosalie F.; III, Charles F. Baker (1997). Ancient Greeks: Creating the Classical Tradition. Oxford University Press, US. p. 108. ISBN 9780195099409.
  4. "Ancient History in depth: Ancient Greek Olympics Gallery". BBC History. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  5. Xu, Guobin; Chen, Yanhui; Xu, Lianhua (2018). Understanding Western Culture: Philosophy, Religion, Literature and Organizational Culture. Springer. p. 150. ISBN 9789811081507.
  6. "Alcibiades - Athenian politician and general". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
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