Greek City-States

State · 800 BCE – 83 CE · at its largest around 164 BCE

Independent self-governing poleis of mainland Greece, the Aegean and colonies abroad, such as Athens, Corinth and Sparta, each with its own citizen body and laws.

Its battles, in Battle View

Battle of Marathon (490 BCE)
Battle of Thermopylae (480 BCE)

On its lands while it lasted

First Olympic Games (776 BCE): Traditional date of the first Olympic Games at Olympia, a festival for Zeus with athletic contests held every four years until the late 4th century CE.
Rome (753 BCE): According to tradition Rome was founded by Romulus in 753 BCE; it grew from a settlement on the Palatine Hill into the capital of a Mediterranean empire.
Iliad (c. 750 BCE): Epic poem attributed to Homer about the Trojan War, generally dated to the 8th century BCE; with the Odyssey, a foundational work of Western literature.
Cyrus the Great (c. 600 BCE – 530 BCE): Founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which he expanded from Anatolia to Central Asia by conquering Media, Lydia and Babylon.
Athenian democracy (508 BCE): The reforms of Cleisthenes in 508/507 BCE created a system in which male citizens voted directly on laws, the earliest well-documented democracy.
Socrates (c. 470 BCE – 399 BCE): Athenian philosopher who examined ethics through questioning dialogue; he was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock in 399 BCE.
Parthenon (447 BCE): Temple of Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, built 447–432 BCE under Pericles; the supreme monument of classical Greek architecture.
Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE): Philosopher and polymath, student of Plato and tutor of Alexander the Great, who founded the Lyceum and wrote on logic, biology, ethics and politics.
Alexander the Great (356 BCE – 323 BCE): King of Macedon who conquered the Persian Empire and reached India, spreading Greek culture across the Near East before dying in Babylon at 32.
Campaigns of Alexander the Great (334–323 BCE): Alexander of Macedon crossed into Asia in 334 BCE, defeated Darius III at Issus and Gaugamela, conquered Egypt and the Persian Empire, and campaigned as far as the Indus valley before dying in Babylon in 323 BCE.
Silk Road (c. 130 BCE – c. 1450 CE): A network of overland caravan routes linking China with Central Asia, Persia and the Mediterranean, along which silk, spices, horses, religions, technologies and diseases travelled for more than 1,500 years.
Julius Caesar (100 BCE – 44 BCE): Roman general and statesman who conquered Gaul, won a civil war and became dictator; his assassination led to the end of the Republic.
Cleopatra (69 BCE – 30 BCE): The last active ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, she allied with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony; her death after defeat by Octavian ended the dynasty and Egypt became a Roman province.
Augustus (63 BCE – 14 CE): First Roman emperor, who ended the civil wars and ushered in the Pax Romana, a long period of relative peace.
Beginning of the Roman Empire (27 BCE): The Senate granted Octavian the title Augustus, conventionally marking the start of the Roman Empire, which came to rule the whole Mediterranean.