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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. |
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c.2600 BC |
Pandion II |
Father of Lycus of
Lycia in Greek mythology. |
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fl c.1200 BC |
Theseus |
Raped Helen of
Sparta at the age of 70 while
she was a teenager. |
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1060 BC |
Codros |
Last king. |
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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. |
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468 BC |
Athens wrests
Lycia from the
Persians.
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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.
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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. |
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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. |
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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.
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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. |
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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. |
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