Era · c. 3000 BC – AD 500
The first cities, empires and written records, from the pyramids of Egypt to Greece and the Roman Empire.
Phidias created a seated chryselephantine statue of Zeus about 12 metres high, later counted among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; it was destroyed in the fifth century AD.
One of the richest Warring States tombs ever found; its set of 65 two-tone bronze bells transformed knowledge of early Chinese music and bronze-casting.
A celebrated speech honouring the first Athenian dead of the Peloponnesian War, which became a classic statement of democratic ideals.
Spartan victory; Athens surrendered in 404 BC, lost its empire, fleet and walls, and was briefly ruled by the Thirty Tyrants.
The Histories became the first great prose history in Western literature and earned Herodotus the title father of history.
An epidemic that killed an estimated quarter to a third of the population of Athens, including Pericles, and weakened the city in the Peloponnesian War.
Athenian victory; 292 Spartan and allied hoplites, about 120 of them full Spartan citizens, surrendered and were taken to Athens as hostages.
A uniquely shaped Ionic temple was completed on the Acropolis; its six Caryatid columns became one of the most copied motifs in Western architecture.
A fifty-year peace ended the Archidamian War, but key terms were never carried out and open war resumed by 414-413 BC.
Melos surrendered to Athens; its men of military age were killed, its women and children enslaved, and 500 Athenian settlers took over the island.
Total Athenian defeat: the army and fleet sent to Sicily were destroyed, and Athens never fully recovered its strength in the Peloponnesian War.
Athenian naval victory that relieved Mytilene, followed by the controversial execution of six victorious generals in Athens.
