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The 40s BC

213 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 1st century BC. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

49 BCE22 entries

  • June – Caesar arrives in Spain; seizes the Pyrenees passes against the Pompeians L. Afranius and Marcus Petreius.
  • August 24 – Caesar's general Gaius Scribonius Curio is defeated in North Africa by the Pompeians under Attius Varus and King Juba I of Numidia (whom he defeated earlier in the Battle of Utica) in the Battle of the Bagradas, after which he commits suicide.
  • September – Brutus defeats the combined Pompeian-Massilian naval forces of the siege of Massilia, while the Caesarian fleet in the Adriatic Sea is defeated near Curicta (Krk).

48 BCE27 entries

  • January 4 – Julius Caesar lands at Dyrrhachium (Durazzo).
  • May – Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus, co-consul with Julius Caesar, destroys Caelius's magistrate's chair on his tribunal.
  • August – Battle of Pharsalus: Julius Caesar decisively defeats Pompey at Pharsalus, who flees to Egypt. Pompey's army by and large is pardoned.

47 BCE15 entries

  • February – Caesar and his ally Cleopatra VII of Egypt defeat the forces of the rival Egyptian Queen Arsinoe IV in the Battle of the Nile. Ptolemy is killed; Caesar, with the aid of Mithridates I of the Bosporus, then relieves his besieged forces in Alexandria.
  • August 2 – Caesar defeats Pharnaces II of Pontus, king of the Bosphorus, in the Battle of Zela (the war Caesar tersely describes as veni, vidi, vici).
  • October – Caesar's invasion of Africa, against Metellus Scipio and Labienus, Caesar's former lieutenant in Gaul.

46 BCE26 entries

45 BCE16 entries

  • January 1 – The Julian calendar takes effect as the civil calendar of the Roman Empire, establishing a solar calendar that is based on the Egyptian calendar of the day.
  • March 17 – Civil War: In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the younger in the Battle of Munda. Labienus dies in battle, Pompey the younger is executed, but Sextus Pompey escapes to take command of the remnants of the Pompeian fleet.
  • The veterans of Julius Caesar's Legions Legio XIII Gemina and Legio X Equestris demobilize. The veterans of the 10th legion are settled in Narbo, while those of the 13th are given somewhat better lands in Italia itself.

44 BCE18 entries

  • February – Rome celebrates the festival of the Lupercal. Mark Antony twice presents Caesar with a royal diadem, urging him to take it and declare himself king. He refuses this offer and orders the crown to be placed in the Temple of Jupiter.
  • March 15 (the Ides of March) – Julius Caesar, dictator of Rome, is assassinated by a group of senators, amongst them Gaius Cassius Longinus, Marcus Junius Brutus, and Caesar's Massilian naval commander, Decimus Brutus.
  • December – Antony besieges Brutus Albinus in Mutina (Modena), with Octavian, an ally of Decimus, who is one of his uncle's assassins, close by.

43 BCE36 entries

  • March – Vibius Pansa set out to link up with Hirtius and Octavian, bringing four legions of recruits, having left one, the legio urbana, to defend Rome.
  • November – The triumvirs introduce proscriptions in which allegedly 130 senators and 2,000 equites are branded as outlaws and deprived of their property.
  • December 7 – The orator Cicero is killed in Formiae in a litter going to the seaside, by a party led by Herennius (a centurion) and Popilius (a military tribune). His head and hands are displayed on the Rostra in the Forum Romanum.

42 BCE21 entries

  • January – Publius Vatinius, governor of Illyricum, seizes Dyrrachium and is forced to surrender his army (three legions) to Marcus Junius Brutus.
  • July – Mark Antony lands with an army (28 legions) in Illyria, leaving Octavian ill at Dyrrachium, and marches to Amphipolis. Admiral Ahenobarbus, with the Republican fleet (130 warships), blockades the Adriatic Sea.
  • August – Lucius Decidius Saxa and Gaius Norbanus Flaccus are appointed by Mark Antony, to lead an advanced force of eight legions to Macedonia along the Via Egnatia into Thrace.

41 BCE8 entries

  • Mark Antony meets Cleopatra VII in Tarsus (Cilicia) and forms an alliance. He returns to Alexandria with her and they become lovers in the winter of 41–40 BC. To safeguard herself and Caesarion, she has Antony order the execution of her (half) sister Arsinoe IV, who is living at the temple of Artemis in Ephesus.
  • Perusine War: An armed resistance breaks out across Italy; the Umbrian city of Sentinum is captured and destroyed by Quintus Salvidienus Rufus.
  • Lucius Antonius occupies Perusia. He accepts the appeal of the local population. Lucius and Fulvia are defeated by Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian in the Battle of Perugia.

40 BCE24 entries

  • May – Gaius Claudius Marcellus, a distinguished member of the Claudii, dies. He leaves Octavia the Younger (the elder sister of Octavian) widowed. She will later marry Mark Antony.
  • Sextus Pompey dispatches Menas with four legions and captures Sardinia, driving out Octavian's governor Marcus Lurius. He seizes the capital, Caralis and occupies Corsica. Sextus besieges Cosenza in Bruttium and Thurii in Lucania, ravaging the territory with his cavalry.
  • The Ji Jiu Pian dictionary, published about this year during the Han dynasty, is the earliest known reference to the hydraulic-powered trip hammer device.