The
Macedonian King
Perdiccas III is killed while defending his country against an
Illyrian attack led by King Bardylis. He is succeeded by his infant son,
Amyntas IV. The child's uncle,
Philip II, assumes the regency.[1]
The Illyrians prepare to close in, the Paeonians
raid from the north and two claimants to the Macedonian throne are supported by foreign powers. Philip II buys off his dangerous neighbours and, with a treaty, cedes
Amphipolis to
Athens.
Artaxerxes III ("Ochus") succeeds
Artaxerxes II as King of
Persia and restores central authority over the Persian empire's
satraps. To secure his throne he puts to death most of his relatives.
Cersobleptes, in conjunction with his brothers,
Amadocus II and
Berisades, inherits the dominions of the
Thracian king,
Cotys I, following his murder. However, the overall management of Thracian affairs is assumed by the
Euboean adventurer,
Charidemus, who is connected by marriage with the royal family, and who plays the prominent part in the ensuing negotiations with
Athens for the possession of the
Thracian Chersonese.
The
Romans defeat the
Volsci, annex most of their territory, and settle it with Roman colonists. The Romans also force the
Latin League to renew its close alliance with Rome, an alliance which was weakened by Rome’s defeat at the hands of the
Gauls in
390 BC.
The
Macedonian general,
Parmenion, wins a great victory over the Illyrians. King
Philip II of Macedon, having disposed of an Illyrian threat, occupies the
Athenian city of
Amphipolis (which commands the gold mines of
Mount Pangaion). Philip II now has control of the strategic city which secures the eastern frontier of Macedonia and gives him access into
Thrace.
Philip II of Macedon marries
Olympias, the
Molossian princess of
Epirus thus helping to stabilize Macedonia's western frontier.
Having blamed the defeats by Philip II in
Thessaly and
Chalcidice on his colleagues,
Chares is left as sole Athenian commander. Chares is in need of money for his war effort, but frowns upon asking it from the Athenians so, partly compelled by his mercenaries, he enters the service of the insurgent Persian satrap
Artabazus of Phrygia who rewards Chares very generously.[citation needed]
Artabazus of Phrygia is also supported by the
Thebans, who send him 5,000 men under their general
Pammenes. With the assistance of these and other allies, Artabazus defeats his
Persian enemies in two great battles.[citation needed]
The
Persian King
Artaxerxes III orders all the
satraps (governors) of his empire to dismiss their mercenaries. The Athenians, who have originally approved their mercenaries' collaboration with Artabazus of Phrygia, order them to leave due to their fear of Persian support for the revolting states of
Chios,
Rhodes, and
Cos. Thebes follows suit and withdraws its mercenaries.
With King Artaxerxes III succeeding in depriving Artabazus of his Athenian and Theban allies, Artabazus is defeated by the Persian King's general,
Autophradates.[citation needed]
With Pydna and Potidaea occupied, Philip II decides to keep Amphipolis anyway. He also takes the city of
Crenides from the
Odrysae and renames it
Philippi.[citation needed]
The
Phocians capture and sack
Delphi in whose territory the famous temple and oracle stand.
A sacred war is declared against them by the other members of the Great
Amphictyonic League. The Phocians, led by two capable generals, Philomelus and Onomarchus, use Delphi's riches to hire a mercenary army to carry the war into
Boeotia and
Thessaly.[citation needed]
The Athenian generals
Chares and
Chabrias are given command of the Athenian fleet with the aim of defeating the rebellious cities. However, Chabrias' fleet is defeated and he is killed in its attack on the island of Chios, off the coast of
Ionia.[citation needed]
Chares is given complete command of the Athenian fleet and withdraws to the
Hellespont to move against Byzantium. The generals Timotheus, Iphicrates and his son
Menestheus are sent to help him when the enemy fleet is sighted on the Hellespont. Timotheus and Iphicrates refuse to engage due to a severe gale, but Chares does engage and lose many of his ships. Timotheus and Iphicrates are accused by Chares and put on trial, however only Timotheus is condemned to pay a fine.[citation needed]
July 21 (traditional date) – The
Temple of Artemis at
Ephesus is burned down by a madman named Herostratus, destroying one of the
Seven Wonders of the World. The great temple was built by
Croesus, king of
Lydia, in about
550 BC and was famous not only for its great size (110 metres by 55 metres), but also for the magnificent works of art that adorned it.[citation needed]
King
Artaxerxes III of
Persia forces
Athens to conclude a peace which requires the city to leave
Asia Minor and to acknowledge the independence of its rebellious allies.
Chares' war party in Athens is replaced by one under
Eubulus which favours peace. Eubulus restores the economic position of Athens without increasing the burden of taxation and improves the Athenian fleet while its docks and fortifications are repaired.
Reflecting the growing level of discontent with his tyrannical conduct,
Dion is assassinated by Callippus, an Athenian who has accompanied him on his expedition to take over as
tyrant of
Syracuse.
Dionysius II remains in exile in
Italy.
Clearchus, the
tyrant of
Heraclea, a Greek city on the
Black Sea, is murdered by some of the city's citizens led by
Chion after a reign of twelve years. Most of the conspirators are killed by the tyrant's body-guards upon the spot, while others are captured and put to death. Within a short time, the city falls under the rule of the new tyrant Satyrus, Clearchus' brother.
After two initial efforts,
Philip II of Macedon drives the
Phocians south after a major victory over them in the
Battle of Crocus Field.
Athens and
Sparta come to the assistance of the Phocians and Philip is checked at
Thermopylae. Philip does not attempt to advance into central Greece with the Athenians occupying this pass. With this victory, Philip accrues great glory as the righteous avenger of
Apollo, since the Phocian general Onomarchos has plundered the sacred treasury of
Delphi to pay his mercenaries. Onomarchos' body is crucified, and the prisoners are drowned as ritual demanded for temple-robbers.
Philip then moves against
Thrace. He makes a successful expedition into Thrace, gaining a firm ascendancy in the country, and brings away a son of
Cersobleptes, the King of Thrace, as a hostage. Philip II's Thessalian victory earns him election as president (
archon) of the
Thessalian League.
Demosthenes tries to get the Athenians to cease depending on paid mercenaries and return to the old concept of a citizen army. He also delivers his
First Philippic, warning Athenians of the folly of believing that
Philip's ill health will save Athens from the Macedonians. In response, Athens' citizens vote for increased armaments.
Roman Republic
The
Etruscans are badly defeated by the
Romans and abandon their attacks on the city and sue for peace.
First use of the heavy throwing spear, the pilum, (according to
Livy) in battle against the
Gauls.
Sidon, the centre of the revolt against
Persia, seeks help from its sister city of
Tyre and from
Egypt but gets very little.
Idrieus, the second son of
Hecatomnus, succeeds to the
throne of
Caria on the death of
Artemisia II, the widow of his elder brother
Mausolus. Shortly after his accession, at the request of the Persian king,
Artaxerxes III, Idrieus equips a
fleet of 40
triremes and assembles an army of 8,000 mercenary troops and despatches them against
Cyprus, under the command of the
Athenian general
Phocion.
Plato proposes a geocentric model of the universe with the stars rotating on a fixed celestial sphere.
Art
Praxiteles makes the Aphrodite of Knidos (approximate date). A composite of two similar Roman copies after the original marble is now kept at
Musei Vaticani, Museo Pio Clementino, Gabinetto delle Maschere in
Rome.
^Orrieux, Claude; Schmitt Pantel, Pauline; Orrieux, Claude (1999). A history of ancient Greece. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. p. 256.
ISBN978-0-631-20309-4.
^ Hammond, N.G.L. (1994). Philip of Macedon. Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 46-48
^Roberts, John. The Oxford dictionary of the classical world. Oxford University Press. p. 689.
ISBN9780192801463.
^Ogden, Daniel, ed. (2024). The Cambridge Companion to Alexander the Great. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 29.
ISBN978-1-10884-099-6.
^Wasson, Donald L.
"Hephaestion". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
^"Chabrias". Encyclopædia Britannica. February 21, 2024. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
^David Sedley, "An Iconography of Xenocrates' Platonism", Michael Erler, Jan Erik Heßler, Federico M. Petrucci, Authority and Authoritative Texts in the Platonist Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2021, 9781108844000, 50
^David Deming, Science and Technology in World History, Volume 1: The Ancient World and Classical Civilization, McFarland, 2014, 9780786456574, 75