Portrait
Sophocles’ ninety years were lived during the greatest of centuries for the Athenian republic. He was present at all the major events and knew all the most important players. Pericles was a personal friend. His plays dramatized the major crises of the republic and his masterpiece, Oedipus the King was considered by all his contemporaries as the greatest Greek play of the age.
Athens Photos
Greece
| 3000 | Origins of Minoan civilization on Crete. Time of Homer's "Golden Age," Older than his own Ionian Greek civilization. |
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| 1700 | Invention of Chariot Warfare. Invasion of Bronze Age Charioteers, come from Russia/Ukraine down into Greece |
| 1300 | Creation of Mycenaean civilization in mainland Greece. Agamemnon, Menelaus, Helen. |
| 1250 | Agamemnon at Mycenae, Theseus at Athens. Oedipus at Thebes, Minos at Cnossus (Daedalus and Icarus in Labyrinth). |
| 1200 | Troy flourishes.Age of Homeric Heroes, Achilles, Agamemnon. |
| 1198-1188 | Trojan War, Fall of Troy. (In 2008, scientists Marcelo O. Magnasco and Constantino Baikouzis at Rockefeller University used clues in the text and astronomical data to attempt to pinpoint the time of Odysseus's return from his journey after the Trojan War. The first clue is Odysseus' sighting of Venus just before dawn as he arrives on Ithaca. The second is a new moon on the night before the massacre of the Suitors. The final clue is a total eclipse, falling over Ithaca around noon, when Penelope's Suitors sit down for their noon meal. The seer Theoclymenus approaches the Suitors and foretells their death, saying, "The Sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world." The problem with this is that the 'eclipse' is only seen by Theoclymenus, and the Suitors toss him out, calling him mad. No one else sees the sky darken, and it is therefore not actually described as an eclipse within the story, merely a vision by Theoclymenus. Doctors Baikouzis and Magnasco state that "[t]he odds that purely fictional references to these phenomena (so hard to satisfy simultaneously) would coincide by accident with the only eclipse of the century are minute." They conclude that these three astronomical references "'cohere' in the sense that the astronomical phenomena pinpoint the date of 16 April 1178 BC" as the most likely date of Odysseus' return. This dating places the destruction of Troy, ten years before, to 1188 BC, which is close to the archaeologically dated destruction of Troy VIIa circa 1190 BC. |
| 1100 | Destruction of Mycenaean palaces & Minoan civ. New invaders(Dorians). Greek refugees from invasions leave central Greece. Move east across Aegean. Refugees establish colonies on the coast of Turkey (Ionia) .SUPREMACY OF TERRITORIALITY. Unique principle for political organization. Other organizing ideas: Egypt, Mesopotamia and India. |
| 1000 | Refugees fleeing Dorian invaders. Establish Ionian colonies.Miletus, Smyrna, Ephesus etc. |
| 776 | First Panhellenic games at Olympia. First Olympics. First definite date in Greek history. |
| 750 | Homer (writing in Ionia) memorializes Mycenaean civ. Agamemnon, Odysseus, Achilles, Paris, Helen, Hector. Battle of nearby Troy (north up the Ionian -Turkish- coast). |
| 594 | Solon's legal revolution.constitutional reform of Athens. |
| 585 | Thales of Miletus (Ionia), first scientist of natural world. |
| 550 | Miletus in Ionia on coast of Turkey richest Greek city of all. Ionia more advanced than mainland Greece(Athens). |
| 525 | Pythagoras of Samos (mathematics). Birth of Aeschylus. |
| 499 | Ionian Greek cities rebel against Persian overlord. Destroyed in ensuing war against powerful Persian empire. End of great Ionian Greek cultural centers.Mainland Greece(Athens)estab. new centers of Greek culture. |
| 496 | Birth of Sophocles.(d. 406) |
| 495 | Birth of Pericles. (d. 429) |
| 484 | Birth of Herodotus. (d. 430?) |
| 490 | Battle of Marathon. (How far from Athens?). War Against Persia. |
| 480 | Xerxes of Persia prepares another invasion of mainland Greece. Crosses the Hellespont with troops, animals on bridge of boats. New upstart democratic Athens the target. Army=2 million men(Herodotus). |
| 480 | Battle of Salamis on Sept 23, in front of Athens. 1200 Persian ships to 300 Greek. Athens wins. Birth of Euripedes. |
| 468 | Sophocles wins prize for tragedy. Defeats older dramatist Aeschylus. |
| 458 | Aeschylus, The Oresteia trilogy. |
| 456 | Death of Aeschylus. (b. 525) |
| 460-429 | Age of Pericles , Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Sophocles. |
| 447 | Pericles rebuilds the Acropolis. The Parthenon. |
| 441 | First performance of Sophocles'Antigone . Sophocles general in war against rebellious Samos. |
| 431-404 | PELOPONNESIAN WAR.Athens attempts impose supremacy. Sparta opposes. |
| 430 | First performance of Oedipus. Death of Herodotus. |
| 425 | Historian Thucydides. A general in Peloponnesian War. |
| 415 | Athen's ill-fated expedition to conquer Sicily. Euripede's anti-war The Trojan Women. |
| 411 | Defeat of Athens in Sicily. Athens in decline. |
| 406 | Death of Euripedes. Sophocles speaks at funeral, commemorates his great rival, and death of Sophocles months later. |
| 404 | Final confrontation: Athens vs. Sparta. Athens surrenders. End of the great Golden Age of Athenian democracy. All the great men of the 5th Century Golden Age now dead. |
| 400 | Plato student of Socrates . Death of Thucydides. |
| 399 | Execution of Socrates. Hemlock. |
| 384 | Birth of Aristotle. (Stagira in the north). |
| 364 | Aristotle comes to Athens. Student of Plato. |
| 359 | Philip II King of Macedon. |
| 350s | Rise of Macedon in the north. Transfer power out of hands of fractious democracies. Rise of well-organized monarchy. |
| 356 | Birth of Alexander. (d. 323) |
| 347 | Death of Plato. (b. 429) |
| 344 | Aristotle marries niece of wealthy Hermias. |
| 343 | Aristotle becomes tutor to Alexander. |
| 338 | King Philip of Macedonia defeats Athens-Thebes at Chaeronea. Young Alexander present. Distinguishes self as brilliant warrior. Alex & Hephaestion to Athens with Athenian dead. Only time Alex ever in Athens. Statues of Philip &Alexander erected on Acropolis. |
| 336 | Assassination of King Philip.Alexander King of Macedonia. Birth of Zeno (in Cyprus) Stoicism, the Stoa=porch. End of heroic age of Greek philosophy. |
| 334 | Aristotle returns to Athens.Establishes own school in the Lyceum. |
| 333 | Battle of Issus: Alex defeats Darius. Darius flees, leaves wife, mother. Sisygambis, in hands of Alexander. |
| 332 | Alexander conquers all Egypt. Almost no opposition. |
| 331 | Battle of Gaugamela: Alex defeats Persians. Darius dies in the oxcart by the river, a Greek soldier finds him.The soldier brings water to the dying Emperor. Alex arrive son scene and weeps. |
| 330 | Alexander adopts Persian dress, Greeks angry.Birth of Euclid, studies in Athens then to Alexandria. New exciting cultural center of Alexandria. |
| 329 | Alexander marries Sogdian princess Roxanne. A new life as "husband." |
| 323 | DEATH OF ALEXANDER (June 13) .Ptolemy brings body to Alexandria. Aristotle leaves Athens. Wont allow Athens to sin against philolosophy twice. |
| 322 | DEATH OF ARISTOTLE. The philosopher is gone one year after his student. |
| 322 | Ptolemies rule in Egypt 300 years. Cleopatra the last of the Ptolemies in Egypt. Flowering of Alexandria. |
| 315 | Zeno comes to Athens. |
| 300 | Euclid comes to Alexandria, new center of science. Library of Alexandria, greatest in world. |
| 146 | Rome conquers all of Greece. |