Olympos was the home of the greatest of the Greek gods and goddesses. The ancient Olympic Games began in the year BC , when Koroibos, a cook from the nearby city of Elis, won the stadion race, a foot race feet long.
The stadion track at Olympia is shown here. According to some literary traditions, this was the only athletic event of the games for the first 13 Olympic festivals or until BC. From BC, the Games were held in Olympia every four years for almost 12 centuries. Contrary evidence, both literary and archaeological, suggests that the games may have existed at Olympia much earlier than this date, perhaps as early as the 10th or 9th century BC.
What's that, you ask? A series of bronze tripods have been found at Olympia, some of which may date to the 9th century BC, and it has been suggested that these tripods may in fact be prizes for some of the early events at Olympia.
Source: Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Athen. Did you know Additional athletic events were gradually added until, by the 5th century BC, the religious festival consisted of a five-day program. Darius I adopts Zoroastrianism as the religion of the Persian empire. The Magi, possibly converting from an earlier Iranian religion, become the priests of Zoroastrianism.
The new and more sophisticated fashion in Greek vases is the red-figure style. The Lapps, hunters of reindeer, have Scandinavia to themselves before the arrival of Germanic tribes. Parmenides is the first pure philosopher, using logic as a philosophical tool in his poem Nature.
The Celts, moving west from central Europe, settle in France and northern Spain. The Chinese philosophy of alternating opposites is expressed as yin and yang. Go to Taoism in World Encyclopedia 1 ed. Nok terracotta figures, found in modern Nigeria, stand at the beginning of the rich tradition of African sculpture. Go to Nok in Encyclopedia of Africa 1 ed.
The followers of Pythagoras discover the mathematical basis of the octave. Go to octave in World Encyclopedia 1 ed. Hockey, like polo, is a team game in the Persian empire. The Greeks add a third bank of oars to their war galleys, turning the bireme into a trireme. Go to trireme in A Dictionary of World History 2 ed. The Greek cities of Ionia rebel against Persian rule, with the partial support of Athens.
Pericles is born in Attica, the son of distinguished parents and the great-nephew of Cleisthenes. Go to Pericles c. After six years the Persians recover control of Ionia, but Athens is now identified as a target for invasion.
Darius sends a fleet across the Aegean, carrying a large army of infantry and cavalry for an attack on Athens. The Persian fleet secures the Greek island of Euboea before making the short crossing to Marathon on the mainland — where they await the Greeks. Pheidippides, given the task of running from Athens to Sparta to request help against the Persians, completes the journey in two days.
At Marathon the Athenian hoplites, heavily outnumbered, win a spectacular victory against the Persians — of whom the survivors escape in their ships. The Persian fleet moves south towards Athens, but then heads home across the Aegean without attempting an assault on the city.
Ostracism is introduced in Athens as a way of getting rid of unpopular politicians. Aeschylus wins the prize for tragedy at the City Dionysia in Athens. Go to Aeschylus ? Themistocles persuades the Athenians to build up their fleet against the expected renewal of the threat from Persia.
Go to Themistocles c. Xerxes I, renewing the campaign of his father Darius against the Greeks, leads a large army round the Aegean and through Thrace. The Greek city-states meet in Corinth to devise a joint strategy against the Persians. Kritios sculpts a naturalistic male nude, now the earliest surviving masterpiece in a central tradition of Greek art.
Athens, abandoned to the advancing Persians, is looted and destroyed. The Athenian fleet defeats a considerably larger Persian force in the narrow strait between Salamis and the mainland. A Spartan army, led by Pausanias, wins a victory at Plataea, completing the rout of the Persians on the Greek mainland. An Athenian force destroys at Mykale the remainder of the Persian fleet, ending the threat from them at sea.
In the last joint campaign by Sparta and Athens the strategically important city of Byzantium is liberated from Persian rule. Representatives of Athens and other Aegean city-states meet in Delos to form a coalition, later known as the Delian League. The Delian League is formed for mutual defence, but also to liberate the Greek cities of Ionia from Persian rule.
A life-size bronze of a racing chariot, with its driver and horses, is presented to Delphi to commemorate a victory in the games. The Olympic games are extended to five days, the first and last of which are taken up with religious ceremonies. Vardhamana, an Indian prince, leaves home to live as a beggar - at the start of the Jain religion. Sophocles wins the prize for tragedy in Athens, defeating Aeschylus in the competition. The Athenian general Cimon wins a spectacular victory over the Persians at the mouth of the Eurymedon River, in southwest Turkey.
Pericles is one of a radical group in Athens, eager to curb the reactionaries controlling the Areopagus, and hostile to Sparta. An earthquake in Sparta leads to an uprising by the helots, who take up a defensive position on Mount Ithome.
Sparta appeals to its allies for help against the helots, and Athens - against the wishes of Pericles and his group - sends an army. With the army away, Pericles introduces full democracy for all Athenian citizens, enabling them to vote and participate in the administration of the state. Sparta causes offence in Athens by dismissing the Athenian army without using them against the helots.
Athens makes provocative alliances with two city-states opposed to Sparta. Pericles is given the task of constructing Athens' two famous Long Walls, stretching from the city to either side of the harbour at Piraeus. Herodotus, the 'father of history', writes his account of the Greco-Persian Wars from a vantage point in Asia Minor.
Go to Herodotus c. Simmering hostilities between the allies of Sparta and Athens develop into endemic conflict among the Greek city states of the Peloponnese. Forces of the Delian League assist the Egyptians in a successful revolt against their Persian rulers. Athens completes its famous Long Walls, providing protected access between the city and its harbour, at Piraeus.
Greek-speaking city states in Asia Minor revolted against the crown, burning the city of Sardis and temples of the mother goddess in Persian leader Darius invaded Greece as retribution and to show muscle. The Greco-Persian wars comprised four major battles and saw an overall victory for the Greeks, but many casualties too.
The Greeks were significantly outnumbered by the Persian Army, but they fought ferociously. Xerxes brought a massive fleet, thought to have been between and ships, with each vessel carrying around men. It makes little sense that the Greeks won, as a small number of them fought and they had fewer ships, but one theory is that they triumphed because they were fighting for their way of life.
If Salamis had been lost, they knew they would never get it back, so they threw everything they had at the Persian invaders. Who knows how far a sense of Greek identity has coloured what we know about the Battle? Leading the Greeks was Themistocles who, it is believed, had to talk up the idea of fighting the Persians rather than retreating. The lines between Greeks and Persians were so blurred that Xerxes was being advised by a Greek woman, Artemisia, who warned him against rushing into the strait and whom he calamitously ignored.
Themistocles played on the sense of Greek nationality in a cunning fashion, and is thought to have erected huge billboards on the sides of cliffs telling Greeks in the Persian navy to turn coward and not fight against their fellow men. This tug of loyalty — often completely irrational — may have bolstered the Greek campaign. This tug is something many of us can relate to. I find myself rooting for Greeks under any almost any circumstances and even when listening to the In Our Time podcast I was delighted to hear about a Greek victory.
The tug is still there. What does objectivity mean, and what does identity mean? How are we swayed in different directions, and how are our interpretations coloured?
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