Ca. 1780 BCE Hammurabi 's law, the first known written law code.

Ca. 1700 Invention of alphabet by Canaanites, proto-Phoenicians/Israelites, inhabiting Sinai and Palestine

12th c. Israelites occupy hill country of Palestine

1050�950 Ionians colonize coast of Asia Minor (present-day Albania, Turkey, Syria)

Ca. 926 Israelites divide into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah. Book of J.

776 First Olympic Games

753 Traditional date for founding of Rome

By 750 Greek alphabet developed from Phoenician-Hebrew prototype

722/21 Kingdom of Israel destroyed by Shalmaneser V of Assyria and his successor Sargon II. 8th c. prophets Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, Micah.

By 700 Homeric Epics, Iliad, Odyssey

639-609 Reign of Josiah king of Judah. Book of Deuteronomy and Deuteronomistic History.

594 Solon archon of Athens; law code of Solon

586 Kingdom of Judah destroyed by Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon. Prophet Jeremiah.

561 Reign of Pisistratos in Athens, first tyrant

538 Cyrus of Persia conquers Babylon: beginning of Persian empire. Prophet Second Isaiah.

525 Cleisthenes archon of Athens

525 Cambyses of Persia conquers Egypt

507 Cleisthenes introduces democratic reforms in Athens

509 Rise of Roman republic

Late 6th c. Presocratics: Theognis of Megara, Xenophanes, Pythagoras

499�494 Ionian revolt against the Persians

494 Roman office of tribune established, wielding the veto to protect the interests of the plebeians against the patrician magistrates

490�479 Persian Wars

487 Athenian archons chosen by lot

478

top Delian league of Greek city states against Persia, Athenian leadership. Origins of Athenian empire.

476 Thrasybulus, tyrant of Syracuse, overthrown. Corax and Tisias. The first techne.

Ca.470 Great tragedians Aeschylus and Sophocles begin their careers

467�466 Athenians defeat Persians

465�464 Delian league breaks up when Spartans refuse Athenian assistance

463 Pericles begins public career in Athens. Beginning of Athenian Golden Age

461 Athenians institute radical democracy; First Peloponnesian War.

451 Recording of Twelve Tables of Roman law, perhaps as a result of Greek influence.

Ca.450 Periclean citizenship law; truce with Sparta; Early sophists Protagoras of Abdera; Empedocles; Zeno of Elea (the "Eleatic stranger")

447 Parthenon begun

443 Pericles general of Athenian forces

440s�430s Herodotus active, writes History of the Persian War

441-439 Ionian island of Samos revolts against Athens

Ca.441 Euripides, tragedian, begins career

Fl.440 Protagoras, Prodicus, Hippias of Elea, sophists

431 Second Peloponnesian War begins; Thucydides begins his History. See guide to Thucydides. Phase One: Archidamian War

430 Pericles' Funeral Oration

429 Death of Pericles; Cleon leads Athens

428�427 Revolt of Lesbos; Athenian expedition to Sicily

427 Gorgias of Leontini, sophist, arrives with embassy to Athens.

Ca.427 Birth of Plato

425 Aristophanes, comedian, begins career; Death of Herodotus

424 Boiotians defeat Athenians at Battle of Delion; Thucydides exiled

422 Nicias leads Athens

421 Peace of Nicias with Sparta ends Archidamian War (Peloponnesian War Phase One)

420 Alcibiades, student of Socrates, becomes general

423 Aristophanes writes The Clouds , a play lampooning sophists, including Socrates

416 Athenian expedition to Melos (The Melian dialogue)

415 Expedition to Sicily. Peloponnesian War, Phase Two. Alcibiades discredited over mutilation of Hermae at Athens.

412 War resumes with Sparta; Spartans deal with Persians

Theodorus of Byzantium, sophist

411 Oligarchic coup at Athens

410 Democracy restored , Alcibiades recalled

410�400 Athenian laws revised

407 Plato joins the circle of Socrates

404 Athens falls to Sparta

404�403 Oligarchic coup of Thirty Tyrants , led by Critias, a student of Socrates

403 Democracy restored

Lysias xii, Against Eratosthenes (Attic orator c.407-c.380, enemy of Thirty Tyrants, appears as author of first speech in Phaedrus)

401�399 Combined Greek forces under Cyrus mount new expedition against Persia

Ca.400 Other rhetoricians flourishing about this time: Evenus of Paros, Callippus, Pamphilus, Lycophron, Polus, Licymnius, author of Dissoi Logoi.

397

top Isocrates xvi (Isocrates active 390s-338).

394 Persians defeat Spartan fleet at Cnidus

393 Isocrates opens his school at Athens

391 Isocrates xiii, Against the Sophists

ca. 387 Lysias, Funeral Oration (commemorates Athenian casualties in Corinth) ian war)

386 Truce with Persia

Plato founds his Academy

385 Plato, Menexenus

384 Births of Demosthenes and Aristotle

380 Isocrates iv, Panegyricus

Plato, Gorgias

378�377 Second Athenian League

371�362 War between Thebes and Sparta; Sparta defeated

367 Aristotle joins Plato's Academy

First plebeian consul elected to assembly at Rome; plebeians become eligible to serve as magistrates and thus eventually to enter the Senate.

Ca. 360 Plato, Phaedrus . Introduction of the Roman praetorship, a civil and juridical office that freed the consuls for military affairs.

359 Philip II king of Macedon

357�356 Social War between Athens and its allies; war with Philip II over Amphipolis

Demosthenes, First Philippic

354 Athens defeated in Social War

353 Isocrates iv, Antidosis

349 Demosthenes, Second Olynthiac

347 Death of Plato

346 Peace of Philocrates between Philip and Athens.

Isocrates, Address to Philip

343 Trial and acquittal of Aeschines: Demosthenes xix and Aeschines ii (On the Embassy)

Aristotle leaves the Academy to become tutor of Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon

341 Demosthenes, Third Philippic

340 Letter of Philip to Athens

339 Isocrates xii, Panathenaicus

338 Philip defeats Athenians and Thebans at Chaeronea. Conventional end of Greek "liberty."

Death of Isocrates

337 Philip's Corinthian League declares war with Persia

Lycurgus controls Athenian finances

336

top Philip assassinated , Alexander becomes emperor

334 Alexander begins expedition to Persia

331 Alexandria founded in Egypt

325�324 Death of Lycurgus; Demosthenes exiled

323�322 Death of Alexander sets off Lamian War;

Athens defeated by Macedonians. Enkyklios paideia establishes Greek rhetorical education as center of Panhellenic culture from Sicily to India.

322 Athenian constitution altered; oligarchy imposed, enforced by Macedonian garrison

Death of Aristotle (384-322), Demosthenes (384-322) . Hyperides, Funeral Oration for Athenian dead in last battle against Macedon.

ca. 300 Theophrastus; On Characters.

264-241 First Punic War with Carthage, a Phoenician colony in Tunisia that developed a trans-Mediterranean empire

ca. 250 Demetrius, On Style. Translation of Hebrew Bible into Greek (Septuagint) in progress or complete? in Alexandria, Egypt.

253 Titus Coruncanius, first plebeian chief priest, begins teaching jurisprudence to lay students, initiating tradition of Roman jurists. The jurists did not practice law but were teachers and advisers to those who did. By recording, enlarging and interpreting traditional statutes they developed Roman legal precedent.

218 Second Punic War

ca. 150 Hermagoras of Temnos. Credited with introduction of stasis system of invention. Treatise does not survive.

149-146 Third Punic War results in destruction of Carthage. Roman aristocrats benefit while plebeians suffer cost of war. Prisoners of war increased the slave population.

133-123 Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, elected consuls, attempted agrarian reforms to grant land to citizens uprooted by war and to give equal citizenship to Italics (Italians not born in Rome). Reform fails.

106 Birth of Cicero

102 Caius Marius professionalizes army, defeats Germans in France and northern Italy.

91 Setting of Cicero's dialogue De Oratore: Crassus' villa in Tusculum.

88 Civil War breaks out between Sulla and Marius. Sulla occupies Rome; Marius recruits indigent citizens as mercenaries, irreversibly altering the relationship between civil and military power. Catilina participates in murder of Cicero's cousin and Marius' nephew, Praetor Marcus Marius Gratidianus (Everitt 89).

86 Cicero, De inventione.

81 Dictatorship of Sulla

79 Cicero leaves for tour of eastern Mediterranean: begins rhetorical studies at Rhodes.

73-71 Slave revolt of Spartacus

70 Consulship of Pompey and Crassus

63

top Consulship of Cicero. Catilinarian conspiracy.

60 First triumvirate of Pompey, Crassus and Julius Caesar.

59 Consulship of Caesar

55 Cicero, De oratore

53 Death of Crassus

49-45 Civil War

46 Cicero, Brutus, Orator

45 Cicero, De partitiones oratoriae

44 Dictatorship and assassination of J. Caesar. Cicero, Topica.

43 Second triumvirate of Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus. Death of Cicero.

30-8 Dionysius of Halicarnassus teaches in Rome. Critical Essays.

27 Octavian becomes Augustus Caesar. End of the Roman Republic.

14CE Emperor Tiberius. Traditional beginning of "second sophistic."

ca. 50 Longinus, On the Sublime.

54 Emperor Nero.

69 Emperor Vespasian.

70 Destruction of Second Jerusalem Temple by Romans. Gospel of Mark.

80-90 Gospel of Luke-Acts

87CE Quintilian appointed head of state school of oratory in Rome.

ca. 90 Gospel of Matthew

92-95 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria. Tacitus, Dialogue on Oratory.

ca. 100 Council of Jamnia fixes Jewish canon of Hebrew Bible, separating Christians from Judaism. Gospel of John.

ca. 175 Hermogenes of Tarsus, Techne, including On Staseis and On Qualities of Style.

330 Founding of Constantinople.

382 Jerome begins Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible, effectively fixing the Latin canon.

390 Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations (d. 390)

395 Division of Roman Empire into East (Constantinople = Byzantium) and West (Rome)

395-430 Augustine bishop of Hippo

ca. 400 Apthonius, Progymnasmata.

407 John Chrysostom, Orations (d. 407)