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The 230s BC

90 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 3rd century BC. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

239 BCE15 entries

  • Qin Prime Minister Lü Buwei publishes the "Spring and Autumn Annals of Lü Buwei" (Lüshi Chunqiu).
  • Concerned that Hamilcar Barca's leniency in pardoning those who he has captured who have participated in the Mercenary War will encourage others to defect, Mathos and Spendius order the mutilation and execution of "about seven hundred" Carthaginian prisoners, including Gesco. With the mercenaries jointly guilty of these atrocities, defectors dare not face Carthaginian justice under Hamilcar.
  • Diodotus of Bactria defeats an army of Parthians. He dies shortly thereafter and is succeeded by his son Diodotus II.

238 BCE22 entries

  • Arsaces, chief of an Iranian nomad tribe, the Parni, invades and conquers Parthia killing, in the process, the local ruler Andragoras.
  • Hamilcar Barca strikes at the supply lines of the mercenary army besieging Carthage, forcing them to cease the siege of the city. He then fights a series of running engagements with the mercenary armies, keeping them off balance. Hamilcar manages to force the mercenary armies into a box canyon in the Battle of "The Saw". The mercenaries are besieged in the canyon.
  • The Decree of Canopus, also called "Table of Tanis", is a memorial stone promulgated by an assemblage of priests in honour of Ptolemy III Euergetes and his consort Berenice. The decree, written in Greek, demotic, and hieroglyphs is an ancient bilingual Egyptian decree that provides a key for deciphering hieroglyphic and the simpler demotic scripts.

237 BCE4 entries

  • Hamilcar Barca's success in defeating the rebels results in a growth in his strength as leader of Carthage's popular party and support for his proposed invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. However, as spokesman for the landed nobility, Hanno opposes the policy of foreign conquest pursued by Hamilcar Barca.
  • Lü Buwei is deposed as the Prime Minister of Qin.
  • Nevertheless, Hamilcar Barca leads a Carthaginian army in an invasion of the Iberian Peninsula with the aim of building a base from which war with Rome can be renewed. By skillful generalship and able diplomacy, Hamilcar extends Carthaginian dominion over many Spanish tribes.

236 BCE5 entries

  • Buddhism is introduced to Sri Lanka by Mahinda, a monk acting on behalf of the late Ashoka.
  • Eratosthenes is appointed by King Ptolemy III Euergetes as head and third librarian of the Alexandrian library.
  • Antiochus Hierax, supported by his mother Laodice I, allies himself with the Galatians (Celts) and two other states that are traditional foes of the Seleucid kingdom. With the aid of these forces, he inflicts a crushing defeat on his older brother Seleucus II's army at Ancyra in Anatolia. Seleucus leaves the country beyond the Taurus Mountains to his brother and the other powers of the peninsula.

235 BCE10 entries

  • Under King Attalus I, Pergamum begins to build up its power and importance.
  • The ephor, Lysander, claims to have seen a sign from the gods against King Leonidas II of Sparta so Leonidas flees to avoid his trial. In his absence Leonidas is deposed from the throne and replaced by his son-in-law Cleomenes III.
  • In Rome, the consul Titus Manlius Torquatus presides over the first ever closing of the gates of the Temple of Janus, signifying peace.

234 BCE9 entries

  • The city of Pleuron is destroyed by Demetrius II of Macedon.
  • The Epirote Alliance is replaced by the Epirote League, which is a federal state with its own parliament (or synedrion).
  • After the resignation of Lydiadas, the city of Megalopolis joins the Achaean League.

233 BCE3 entries

  • The Zhao general Li Mu defeats the Qin army, led by Huan Yi, in the Battle of Fei.

232 BCE8 entries

  • The king of Qin, Ying Zheng, invites Prince Han Fei, a legalist philosopher and member of the Han royal family, to the Qin court. However, at the instigation of Li Si, he then has him imprisoned and executed as a threat to the state.
  • Following the death of his mentor, Cleanthes of Assos, Chrysippus of Soli succeeds him as the third head of the Stoic school. The many writings of Chrysippus, about the Stoic doctrines, will later earn him the title of Second Founder of Stoicism.
  • The Seleucid king Seleucus II Callinicus undertakes an expedition into the interior of Iran to try to regain Parthia, but his efforts come to nothing. According to some sources, he is even taken prisoner for several years by the Parthian king, Arsaces I. Other sources mention that he establishes a peace with Arsaces I by recognising his sovereignty over Parthia.

231 BCE5 entries

  • Demetrius II, king of Macedonia, seeks military help from Agron, king of Illyria, a loosely organized state on the Adriatic coast north of Epirus, against the advancing Aetolians. The Illyrian army routs the Aetolians and returns home as the victor.
  • The Romans send envoys to Massilia (modern Marseille, France) to negotiate with the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca who is based there.

230 BCE9 entries

  • With Roman merchants being killed by the Illyrian pirates, envoys are sent by Rome to Illyria. After the Roman ambassador Lucius Coruncanius and the Issaean ambassador Cleemporus are murdered at sea by Illyrian soldiers after causing offence to Queen Teuta, Roman forces occupy the island of Corcyra with the aim of humbling Teuta.
  • King Agron of Illyria dies. Pinnes, the son of Agron and Agron's first wife Triteuta, officially succeeds his father as king, but the kingdom is effectively ruled by Agron's second wife, Queen Teuta (Tefta), who expels the Greeks from the Illyrian coast and then launches Illyrian pirate ships into the Ionian Sea, preying on Roman shipping. She continues her husband's policy of attacking cities on the west coast of Greece and practising large-scale piracy in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas.
  • King Kubera rules Bhattiprolu in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.