European Kingdoms

Athens

Athens was under Minoan domination until around the fifteenth century BC, at which point the Mycenaeans gained independence and established a series of powerful city states of their own. At the end of this period, by the twelfth century BC, Athens became the bolt-hole for those Mycenaeans who remained in Greece as the rest of the country was invaded by the barbarian Dorians from the north. While Athens was thus cut-off, and the rest of Greece (and the Middle East) endured a dark age, Athens retained a local sphere of influence with only limited trade and an impoverished culture until the end of the dark age.

Once the recovery was underway in the eighth and seventh centuries, Athens was able to trade with the Phoenician city states, and with Syria as a whole, with papyrus being imported from there and locations being used in stories about the Greek gods. The Greeks imported the Phoenician alphabet and eastern artistic influences, and was firmly a part of the trade system of the region.

c.2600 BC

Pandion II

Father of Lycus of Lycia in Greek mythology.

fl c.1200 BC

Theseus

Raped Helen of Sparta at the age of 70 while she was a teenager.

1060 BC

Codros

Last king.

480 - 479 BC

Invading Greece in 480 BC, the Persians are swiftly engaged by Athens and Sparta in the Vale of Tempe, and then stymied by a mixed force of Greeks led by Sparta at Thermopylae. Athens then defeats the Persian navy at Salamis, and after the Persian king Xerxes returns home, his army is decisively defeated at the battle of Plataea and kicked out of Greece.

468 BC

Athens wrests Lycia from the Persians.

431 - 404 BC

The Second Peloponnesian War pitches Athens against Sparta in all-out war. Fortunes swing either way, but Athens' failure to take the Corinthian colony of Syracuse and the subsequent loss of thousands of troops almost brings the city and its empire to its knees. A year later and Sparta's acquisition of Persian gold sees the Athenian fleet starved of huge numbers of freelance rowers and soldiers, giving Sparta dominance both on land and, for the first time, at sea. Athens is defeated and Sparta is established as the greatest Greek power.

395 - 387 BC

At the start of the Corinthian War, Sparta fights against a coalition of four allied states; Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos; all initially backed by Persia. At the end of the war, Athens loses Lycia to the Persians.

338 BC

Philip II of Macedonia defeats the Greek states at the Battle of Chaeronea and gains overlordship over all of Greece, including Athens and Sparta.

307 BC

At the start of his reign as an Antigonid king, Demetrius I frees Athens from the rule of Cassander of Macedonia and Ptolemy of the Lysimachium empire, and restores the democratic system there.

267 - 261 BC

The Chremonidean War is fought between a coalition of Greek city states including Athens and Sparta for the restoration of their independence from Macedonian influence, aided by the Ptolemaic Egyptians.

148 BC

The Achaean League of Greek states rises up against the Romans establishing a permanent presence in Greece and is swiftly destroyed. Rome destroys Corinth as an object lesson and annexes Greece and Macedonia, incorporating them into the Roman province of Macedonia.