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440s BC

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This article concerns the period 449 BC – 440 BC.

Events

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449 BC

By place

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Greece
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  • The Greek city-states make peace with the Persian Empire through the Peace of Callias, named after Callias II, the chief Greek ambassador to the Persian Court, an Athenian who is a brother-in-law of Cimon. Athens agrees to end its support for the Egyptian rebels still holding out in parts of the Nile Delta, while the Persians agree not to send ships of war into the Aegean Sea. Athens now effectively controls all the Greek city states in Ionia.
  • Pericles begins a great building plan including the re-fortification of Athens main port Piraeus and its long walls extending to Athens main city.
  • Pericles proposes a "Congress Decree" allowing the use of 9,000 talents [citation needed] to finance the massive rebuilding program of Athenian temples. This leads to a meeting ("Congress") of all Greek states in order to consider the question of rebuilding the temples destroyed by the Persians. The Congress fails because of Sparta's opposition.
  • Pericles places the Athenian sculptor Phidias in charge of all the artistic aspects of his reconstruction program. Construction begins on the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, while the Athenian Senate commissions Callicrates to construct a temple to Athena Nike on the Acropolis.
  • The Second Sacred War erupts between Athens and Sparta, when Sparta forcefully detaches Delphi from Phocis and renders it independent.
Rome
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  • The Law of the Twelve Tables (developed by the Decemvirates) is formally promulgated in 450 B.C. The Twelve Tables are literally drawn up on twelve ivory tablets which are posted in the Forum Romanum so that all Romans can read and know them.
  • When the Decemvirate's term of office expires, the decemviri refuse to leave office or permit successors to take office. Appius Claudius Crassus is said to have made an unjust decision which would have forced a young woman named Verginia into prostitution, prompting her father to kill her. This leads to an uprising against the Decemvirate forcing the decemviri to resign their offices. The ordinary magistrates (magistratus ordinarii) are re-instituted. Appius Claudius is said to have committed suicide as a result of these events.

By topic

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Literature
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448 BC

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By place

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Greece
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Rome
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447 BC

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By place

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Greece
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By subject

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Literature
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Architecture
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446 BC

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By place

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Greece
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  • Achaea achieves its independence from Athens, while Euboea, crucial to Athenian control of the sea and food supplies, revolts against Athens. Pericles crosses over to Euboea with his troops.
  • Megara joins the revolt against Athens. The strategic importance of Megara is immediately demonstrated by the appearance, for the first time in 12 years, of a Spartan army under King Pleistoanax in Attica. The threat from the Spartan army leads Pericles to arrange, by bribery and by negotiation, that Athens will give up its mainland possessions and confine itself to a largely maritime empire.
  • The Spartan army retires, so Pericles crosses back to Euboea with 50 ships and 5,000 soldiers, cracking down any opposition. He punishes the landowners of Chalcis, who lose their properties, while the residents of Histiaea are uprooted and replaced by 2,000 Athenian settlers.
  • After hearing that the Spartan army had accepted bribes from Pericles, Pleistoanax, the King of Sparta, is impeached by the citizens of Sparta, but flees to exile in Arcadia. His military adviser, Cleandridas also flees and is condemned to death in his absence.
Sicily
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Roman Republic
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445 BC

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By place

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Greece
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  • Pericles, concerned over the draining effect of years of war on Athenian manpower, looks for peace with the support of the Assembly. Athenian diplomat, Callias, goes to Sparta and after much bargaining arranges a peace treaty with Sparta and her Peloponnesian allies, thus extending the 5 year truce of 451 BC for another 30 years. According to this treaty, Megara is to be returned to the Peloponnesian League, Troezen and Achaea become independent, Aegina is to become a tributary to Athens but autonomous, and disputes are to be settled by arbitration. Each party agrees to respect the alliances of the other.
  • The Temple of Poseidon is completed south of Athens at Cape Sunion.
Roman Republic
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  • A new law, the Lex Canuleia removes the ban on inter-marriage of the Roman classes, i.e. plebeian with patrician.
  • The Plebeians demand the right to stand for election as consul but the Roman senate refused to grant them this right. Ultimately, a compromise is reached, and consular command authority is granted to Consular Tribunes ("Military Tribunes with Consular powers" or tribuni militares consulari potestate).

444 BC

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By place

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Greece
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  • The conservative and democratic factions in Athens confront each other. The ambitious new leader of the conservatives, Thucydides, accuses the leader of the democratic faction, Pericles, of profligacy and criticises the way Pericles is spending money on his ambitious building plans for the city. Thucydides manages, initially, to gain the support of the ecclesia. Pericles responds by proposing to reimburse the city for all the expenses from his private property, on the condition that he would make the inscriptions of dedication in his own name. His stance is supported by the ecclesia, so Thucydides' efforts to dislodge Pericles from power are defeated.
Persian empire
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443 BC

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By place

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Roman Republic
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  • No consuls are elected in Rome, but rather military tribunes with consular power are appointed in their stead. While only patricians could be consuls, some military tribunes were plebeians. These positions had responsibility for the census, a vital function in the financial administration of Rome. So to stop the plebeians from possibly gaining control of the census, the patricians remove from the consuls and tribunes the right to take the census, and rather entrust it to two magistrates, called censores who were to be chosen exclusively from the patricians in Rome.
Italy
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442 BC

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By place

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Greece
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  • As a result of his failure to effectively challenge Pericles, the Athenian citizens ostracise Thucydides for 10 years and Pericles is once again unchallenged in Athenian politics.

By topic

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Literature
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441 BC

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By place

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China
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By topic

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Literature
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440 BC

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By place

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Greece
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  • Samos, an autonomous member of the Delian League and one of Athens' principal allies with a substantial fleet of its own, quarrels with Miletus. Miletus, also a member of the Delian League, appeals to Athens for assistance. Pericles decides in favour of Miletus, so Samos revolts. Pericles then sails to Samos with a fleet to overthrow its oligarchic government and install a democratic one. Sparta threatens to interfere. However, at a congress of the Peloponnesian League, its members vote not to intervene on behalf of Samos against Athens.

The Histories by Herodotus was written that contain the knowledge of the Greco Persian wars.[8]

Roman Republic
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China
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By topic

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Physics
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  • Democritus proposes the existence of indivisible particles, which he calls atoms.
Art
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Births

448 BC

446 BC

445 BC

440 BC

Deaths

449 BC

444 BC

443 BC

442 BC

441 BC

440 BC

References

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  1. ^ Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Pericles 19.1-2
  2. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.27.5
  3. ^ J. M. Hurwit, The Acropolis in the Age of Pericles, 87 etc.
  4. ^ Nehemiah 2:5–8
  5. ^ "The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, TABERNAE (Lalla Djillalia) Morocco. , THIVERNY Oise, France. , THURII later COPIA, Apulia, Italy". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-10.
  6. ^ Slater, Niall W. (2013-10-24). Euripides: Alcestis. A&C Black. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-78093-475-4.
  7. ^ Markantonatos, Andreas (2015-03-20). Brill's Companion to Sophocles. BRILL. p. 118. ISBN 978-90-04-21762-1.
  8. ^ "Internet History Sourcebooks Project: Ancient History".