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The 130s BC

82 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 2nd century BC. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

139 BCE7 entries

  • Wei Zifu enters Emperor Wu's palace as a concubine and becomes pregnant. Enraged, Liu Piao, the mother of the childless Empress Chen Jiao (wife of Emperor Wu), kidnaps Zifu's brother Wei Qing, who is rescued by Gongsun Ao. Wu responds by advancing the careers of members of the Wei family.
  • Hipparchus makes a very precise determination of the length of the synodic month.
  • The Lusitanian War ends when the rebellion collapses after the assassination of Viriathus by a Roman agent.

138 BCE12 entries

  • Attalus III succeeds Attalus II as Attalid king of Pergamon
  • Valencia in Spain is founded as a Roman colony.
  • Hymn to Apollo is written and inscribed on stone in Delphi; it is the earliest surviving notated music, in a substantial and legible fragment, in the western world.

137 BCE4 entries

  • Numantine War begins, Quintus Pompeius and M. Popilius Laenas are defeated and disgraced by the Numantians in subsequent years.
  • Q. Pompeius is brought to trial by Q.Metellus and others, but acquitted.
  • Tiberius Gracchus, quaestor in Spain, observes that slave labor has displaced small freeheld farms.

136 BCE5 entries

  • The Romans hand Gaius Hostilius Mancinus over to the Numantians in order to repudiate his peace treaty with them.
  • Censorship of Appius Claudius Pulcher and Quintus Fulvius Nobilior.
  • Carneades retires as head of the Platonic Academy and is replaced by Polemarchus of Nicomedia.

135 BCE14 entries

  • Servius Fulvius Flaccus defeats an uprising of the Ardiaei in Illyria.
  • Menander I, king of the Indo-Greek Kingdom dies and is succeeded by Epander.
  • Minyue attacks Nanyue, which are both vassal states of the Han dynasty. The Han send two armies against Minyue under Wang Hui and Han Anguo, and Minyue's king Zou Ying is killed by his brother Zou Yushan, who then surrenders to the Han.

134 BCE10 entries

  • Hipparchus discovers the precession of the equinoxes.
  • John Hyrcanus becomes high priest and prince (ruler) of Judea, until 104 BC, following the murder of his father Simon Maccabaeus by Ptolemy the son of Abubus in 135 BC.
  • On the advice of philosopher Dong Zhongshu, Emperor Wu of Han promotes Confucianism as the official doctrine of the Han dynasty and assigns special merit to the Book of Rites, the Classic of Music, the Classic of Poetry, the Book of Documents, I Ching (the Book of Changes) and the Spring and Autumn Annals.

133 BCE8 entries

  • June – A large army of the Han dynasty, under the overall command of Han Anguo, attempts to ambush the Xiongnu leader Junchen Chanyu in the Battle of Mayi. By pretending to betray the city of Mayi, a Han official had lured Junchen onto Han soil. However, a captured Chinese officer tips off Junchen, and so he avoids the ambush. The episode abrogates the Xiongnu-Han treaty (called heqin 和親 or "harmonious kinship") and marks the beginning of Emperor Wu's Han-Xiongnu War.
  • Scipio Aemilianus captures Numantia, after a siege of eight months, suffering famine and pestilence. The remnant population of 4,000 citizens, surrender and set their city on fire. Thus ends the Numantine War.
  • Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi, as consul, is sent against the slaves in Italy. Gaius Marius serves under Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus at Numantia.

132 BCE4 entries

  • The Late Formative (or pre-Classic) period of the Maya civilization begins.
  • The First Servile War ends when Publius Rupilius quelled the rebellion.

131 BCE7 entries

  • The Roman censor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus attempts to remove the tribune Gaius Atinius Labeo Macerio from the Senate, the angry Atinius drags him to be thrown off the Tarpeian Rock, and Metellus is only saved by the intervention of other senators.
  • For the first time in Roman history, both censors are plebeians (Metellus and Quintus Pompeius).
  • During Aristonicus of Pergamon uprising against Rome, the consul Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianius is killed in the fighting.

130 BCE11 entries

  • Consul Marcus Perperna defeats Aristonicus in battle, besieges him at Stratonicea, dies at Pergamon.
  • King Ptolemy VIII murders Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator or Ptolemy Memphites, the puppet ruler of Cleopatra II.
  • Roman census carried out by Quintus Pompeius and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus.