Timeline of the Ancient World
The events behind the books, games, readings and infographics on this site, from the pyramids to the fall of Rome. Each one links to what you can read or play about it here. Early dates are approximate, and the dates of legends are the ones ancient writers gave.
The Bronze Age
to c. 1100 BC
- c. 2560 BCEgypt and the Near East
The Great Pyramid of Giza
Built for the pharaoh Khufu, it stayed the tallest building in the world for almost four thousand years.
- c. 2600β2400 BCEgypt and the Near East
The Royal Game of Ur
Game boards are buried with the dead in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, in what is now southern Iraq. More than two thousand years later a Babylonian tablet still records how the game was played.
- c. 1700β1450 BCGreece
The palace of Knossos
The great palace of Minoan Crete. Its maze of rooms may lie behind the legend of the Labyrinth, where Theseus fought the Minotaur.
- c. 1200 BCGreece
The Trojan War, in legend
Ancient writers dated the fall of Troy to around 1184 BC. Troy itself was real, and was destroyed more than once; how much of Homer's war happened is still argued over.
- after the fall of TroyGreece
Odysseus's ten years at sea, in legend
The Lotus-Eaters, the Cyclops, Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, and at last the suitors waiting in his own house on Ithaca.
Early Greece and the Founding of Rome
c. 1100 to 500 BC
- 776 BCGreece
The first Olympic Games
The traditional date of the first games at Olympia, held every four years in honour of Zeus. Greeks later counted years in Olympiads.
- 753 BCRome
The founding of Rome
The traditional date when Romulus founded the city on the Palatine Hill. Close by, in legend, Hercules had once killed the fire-breathing Cacus.
- c. 750β700 BCGreece
Homer's poems take shape
The Iliad and the Odyssey, the oldest works of Greek literature, are composed in a mixed poetic dialect much older than Koine.
- 6th century BCGreece
Aesop tells his fables
Aesop was said to be a slave from Samos. The fables collected under his name were retold for centuries, in Greek prose and in Latin verse.
- 509 BCRome
Rome becomes a republic
The Romans drive out their last king, Tarquin the Proud, and are governed from now on by two consuls elected each year.
Classical Greece
500 to 323 BC
- 490 BCGreece
Marathon
The Athenians defeat the first Persian invasion on the plain of Marathon.
- 480 BCGreece
Thermopylae and Salamis
Leonidas and his Spartans hold the pass at Thermopylae for three days; weeks later the Greek fleet beats the Persians at Salamis.
- 431β404 BCGreece
The Peloponnesian War
Athens and Sparta, with their allies, fight for nearly thirty years. Sparta wins.
- c. 430 BCGreece
Herodotus writes his Histories
The story of the Persian Wars, and the first great work of history. Herodotus wrote in the Ionic dialect.
- 401β399 BCGreece
The march of the Ten Thousand
Greek soldiers hired by a Persian prince are stranded deep in Persia and fight their way home to the Black Sea. Xenophon, one of them, wrote it all down.
- 399 BCGreece
The death of Socrates
Socrates is tried in Athens and condemned to drink hemlock. His pupil Plato makes him the speaker of his dialogues.
- c. 375 BCGreece
Plato's Republic
What is justice, and what would a just city look like? Plato's answer includes philosopher-kings and the allegory of the cave.
- c. 340 BCGreece
Aristotle's Ethics
Aristotle, Plato's pupil and Alexander's tutor, asks what a good human life is, and answers: a life of virtue, lived in friendship.
- 334β323 BCGreece
Alexander the Great
Alexander conquers the Persian Empire as far as India. After him, Koine, the common Greek, becomes the language of the eastern Mediterranean.
Alexander's Heirs and the Roman Republic
323 to 27 BC
- 280β275 BCRome
Pyrrhus invades Italy
King Pyrrhus of Epirus beats the Romans twice, at such a cost that a costly win is still called a Pyrrhic victory.
- 3rdβ2nd century BCBible and Church
The Septuagint
Jewish scholars in Alexandria translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Koine Greek. It became the Old Testament of the early Church.
- 218 BCRome
Hannibal crosses the Alps
In the Second Punic War the Carthaginian general marches elephants over the Alps and beats Rome at Cannae, but Rome wins at Zama in 202 BC.
- 58β50 BCRome
Caesar conquers Gaul
Julius Caesar's own account, written in the third person, is still a first book for Latin students.
- 44 BCRome
The Ides of March
Caesar is murdered in the Senate. That same year Cicero writes On Duties for his son; he is killed the next year.
- 27 BCRome
Augustus, the first emperor
Caesar's adopted son Octavian wins the civil wars and takes the name Augustus. Suetonius tells how he liked to play knucklebones with friends at dinner.
The Early Roman Empire
27 BC to AD 180
- 29β19 BCRome
Virgil's Georgics and Aeneid
Virgil tells how Aeneas fled burning Troy to found the Roman people. He died before he could finish revising the Aeneid.
- AD 8Rome
Ovid's Metamorphoses, and his exile
Ovid finishes his poem of transformations and is banished by Augustus to the Black Sea. His poems mention the board games Romans played, including three-in-a-row and the game of soldiers.
- AD 9Rome
The Teutoburg Forest
Arminius leads the Germanic tribes in destroying three Roman legions under Varus. Rome gave up its plan to make Germany a province.
- early 1st century ADRome
Phaedrus puts Aesop into Latin verse
A freed slave of Augustus's household, Phaedrus retold the old fables, and added some of his own.
- c. AD 30Bible and Church
The ministry and death of Jesus
Jesus teaches in Galilee and Judea and is crucified in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate.
- c. AD 62β65Rome
Seneca's Moral Letters
Nero's former tutor writes 124 letters on how to live as a Stoic, shortly before Nero orders his death.
- c. AD 50β100Bible and Church
The New Testament is written
Paul's letters and then the four Gospels, all in Koine Greek.
- c. AD 100Greece
Plutarch's Parallel Lives
Plutarch pairs famous Greeks with famous Romans, and compares them. Shakespeare took the plots of his Roman plays from them.
- c. AD 170β180Rome
Marcus Aurelius's Meditations
The emperor writes notes to himself, in Greek, on campaign along the Danube. They were never meant to be published.
Late Antiquity
AD 180 to 500
- c. AD 382β405Bible and Church
Jerome's Vulgate
Jerome translates the Bible into Latin. His version became the Bible of the Western Church for a thousand years.
- AD 410β426Bible and Church
Rome is sacked, and Augustine answers
The Visigoths sack Rome in 410. Pagans blamed the Christians; Augustine replied with The City of God.
- AD 476Rome
The last Western emperor
The boy emperor Romulus Augustulus is deposed by Odoacer. The empire in the East went on for nearly a thousand years more.
- c. AD 480Rome
The emperor Zeno's unlucky throw
A Greek poem records one throw in a game of tabula played by the Eastern emperor Zeno, so bad that it left eight of his pieces standing alone, open to capture. It is the oldest backgammon position we know.
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