阴木羊年 (female Wood-
Goat) −78 or −459 or −1231 — to — 阳火猴年 (male Fire-
Monkey) −77 or −458 or −1230
Year 205 BC was a year of the
pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Scipio and Dives (or, less frequently, year 549 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 205 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the
Anno Dominicalendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Antiochus III returns from his eastern campaigns, after having defeated the
Bactrians and subjugated the
Parthians and thus being able to partly restore
Seleucid power in these provinces by crushing the revolting
governors of
Media,
Persia and
Anatolia. Having established a system of
vassal states in the East, Antiochus now adopts the ancient
Achaemenid title of "great king", and the Greeks, comparing him to
Alexander the Great, surname him "the Great", that is to say Antiochus III Megas.
The Peace of Phoenice prohibits Philip from expanding westward into Illyria or the
Adriatic Sea, so the king turns his attentions eastwards to the
Aegean Sea, where he starts to build a large fleet. After concluding the
First Macedonian War, Philip of Macedon, seeing his chance to defeat
Rhodes, forms an alliance with
Aetolian and
Spartan pirates who begin raiding Rhodian ships. The
Cretan War begins between Philips' Macedonians, the
Aetolian League, several
Cretan cities (of which
Olous and Hierapytna are the most important) and Spartan pirates against the forces of Rhodes and later
Attalus I of
Pergamum,
Byzantium,
Cyzicus,
Athens and
Knossos.
With the Rhodian fleet and economy suffering from the depredations of the pirates, Philip begins attacking the lands of Rhodes' allies in
Thrace and around the
Sea of Marmara.
Roman Republic
Publius Cornelius Scipio boldly determines to disregard
Hannibal in
Italy and political opposition in the
Roman Senate and rather decides to strike at the
Carthaginian holdings in North Africa. Scipio crosses to
Sicily with an army consisting partly of volunteers as the Roman Senate would not provide him with an army.
The Roman
propraetorQuintus Pleminius captures the town of
Locri Epizephyrii from the Carthaginians. Hannibal's attempt to recapture the town is foiled by the appearance of Scipio's army.
Scipio sends the Roman general
Gaius Laelius to North Africa to prepare the way for his later invasion.
The Xiongnu leader,
Modu Chanyu, conquers the neighbouring nomadic
Yuezhi and
Donghu peoples, thereby establishing the
Xiongnu Empire. He appoints a
Tuqi King of the left (east) and a Tuqi King of the right (west) to prevent rebellions.[3]
^Walbank, Frank William (1940). Philip V of Macedon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 104.
OCLC491231292.
^Hung, Hing Ming (2011). The Road to the Throne: How Liu Bang Founded China's Han Dynasty. New York: Algora Publishing. pp. 111–131.
ISBN978-0-87586-838-7.
^Qian, Sima. Records of the Grand Historian, Section: Xiongnu.