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The 310s BC

166 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 4th century BC. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

319 BCE11 entries

  • The Athenian orator and diplomat, Demades, is sent to the Macedonian court, but either the Macedonian regent Antipater or his son Cassander, learning that Demades has intrigued with the former regent Perdiccas, puts him to death.
  • Battle of Orkynia: Antigonus marches his army against Eumenes in Cappadocia and defeats him in battle at Orkynia.
  • Eumenes allies himself with the regent Polyperchon. He manages to escape from the siege of Nora, and his forces soon threaten Syria and Phoenicia. Polyperchon recognises Eumenes as the royal general in Asia Minor.

318 BCE9 entries

  • Cassander, who has allied himself with Ptolemy and Antigonus, declares war on the regent, Polyperchon. Most of the Greek states support him, including Athens. Cassander further effects an alliance with Eurydice, the ambitious wife of King Philip III Arrhidaeus of Macedon.
  • Aristoxenus, a Greek peripatetic philosopher, and writer on music and rhythm, and a pupil of Aristotle, writes a treatise on music called the "Elements of Harmony".
  • In a power struggle in Athens after the death of Antipater, Phocion is deposed as the ruler of Athens, convicted of treason, and executed by those Athenians hoping to restore democracy to the city. Shortly afterward, the Athenians decree a public burial and a statue in his honor.

317 BCE13 entries

  • Menander wins the first prize at the Lenaian festival with his play Dyskolos (The Grouch).
  • Battle of Paraitacene: The first battle of Western armies each with an elephant corps who fight for control over Alexander's empire. The armies of Antigonus and Eumenes fight each other near today's Isfahan in Persia with no clear victor.
  • After capturing Athens from Macedonia's regent Polyperchon, Cassander entrusts the government of Athens to the Athenian orator, statesman, and philosopher, Demetrius Phalereus.

316 BCE15 entries

  • The Romans, with an eye to capturing Apulia, send an army (led by dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus) to seize the town of Lucera from the Samnites. They are badly beaten in the Battle of Lautulae and the Samnites go on to reach within 32 kilometres of Rome.
  • Cassander marries Thessaloniki, half-sister of Alexander the Great. He has Alexander's widow, Roxana and son, Alexander IV of Macedon, imprisoned at Amphipolis in Thrace. They are never to be seen alive again.
  • King Hui of Qin decides, on the advice of General Sima Cuo, to invade and annex the ancient states of Ba and Shu in Sichuan, in order to increase Qin's agricultural output and obtain a strategic platform from which to defeat the state of Chu.

315 BCE18 entries

  • The Indian king Porus, ally of Alexander the Great, is killed by Eudemus, another general of Alexander. The son of Porus, Malayketu, seizes his territory back by killing Eudemus.
  • The Romans take Ferentum, a city of Apulia, and this pushes the citizens of Nuceria to end their friendship with Rome.
  • Antigonus drives out Cassander's Macedonian forces of occupation from the Greek islands and forms the island cities in the Aegean into the "League of the Islanders", preparatory to his invasion of Greece. His ally, the city of Rhodes, furnishes him with the necessary fleet.

314 BCE15 entries

  • The Aetolians enter into an alliance with Antigonus, and the League of the Islanders is established under Antigonus' hegemony. Cassander marches against them with his allies Lysimachus, Ptolemy and Seleucus and destroys the city of Agrinio.
  • The Roman consuls march their combined army to Tarracina and defeat a Samnite army there; killing 10,000 Samnites in the battle and the subsequent pursuit.
  • Zhou Nan Wang becomes King of the Zhou dynasty of China.

313 BCE20 entries

  • Aristodemus and his mercenary army (recruited the year prior) cross over to the Peloponnese and fight Alexander, the son of Polyperchon, at Cyllene, and liberate Patrae and Aegium from Cassander's garrisons. Aristodemus then returns to Aetolia, leaving a sizeable force in the Pelopponese who help the city of Dyme eject its garrison, despite a failed intervention by Alexander.
  • Philip marches into Acarnania to prevent Aeacides from linking up with the Aetolians. Philip defeats Aeacides in battle, killing many Epirotes and capturing 50 leading supporters of Aeacides, sending them as prisoners to Macedon. Aeacides, with the remnant of his forces, joins the Aetolians. Philip catches up to Aeacides and the Aetolians at Oeniadae and defeats them in battle. Aeacides, who was wounded in the Battle of Oeniadae, dies a few days later. The remaining Aetolian army takes refuge in the surrounding mountains.
  • The consul Gaius Junius Bubulcus Brutus is credited with the capture of Nola, Atina, and Calatia by some sources.

312 BCE32 entries

  • Cassander marches on Apollonia, which people had driven out his garrison with the help of the Illyrians, but the Appolonians and Illyrians defeat him in battle, driving him out of western Greece for the time being.
  • The Corcyraeans come to the aid of Apollonia and Epidamus and help the Apollonians and the people of Epidamus to remove the garrisons Cassander put there. They free Apollonia, but give the city of Epidamus to the Illyrian king Glaucias.
  • After putting down the revolt in Cyrene, Ptolemy sails to Cyprus with a great force. He arrests the rulers of Kition, Lapethus, Kyrenia, and Marion for being too friendly towards Antigonus and/or too hostile towards himself, he then establishes his friend Nicocreon of Salamis as strategos (governor-general) of Cyprus .

311 BCE19 entries

  • The Second Samnite War continues, the Roman consuls Gaius Junius Bubulcus Brutus and Quintus Aemilius Barbula divide their command.
  • Upon entering Mesopotamia Seleucus manages to persuade some of the Macedonian veterans settled at Carrhae to join his cause. He then marches on to his old satrapy (province) of Babylonia gathering additional force along the way.
  • The remaining Antigonid loyalists in Babylonia retreat to the citadel of Babylon. They also put Seleucus' remaining friends in Babylon there (under a strong guard). Seleucus besieges the citadel and manages to take it by storm.

310 BCE14 entries

  • The tyrant of Syracuse, Agathocles, escapes from the siege of the city by the Carthaginians with a fleet and carries the war with the Carthaginians back into his enemy's territory. He defeats the Carthaginians in the Battle of White Tunis.
  • Ptolemy attacks Cilicia, territory held by Antigonus, but is driven out by Demetrius.
  • Rome deals with renewed trouble from the Etruscans, who are persuaded by the Samnites to cease their alliance with the Romans. In the Battle of Lake Vadimo, the Romans under Fabius Maximus Rullianus defeat the Etruscans.