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The 410s BC

51 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 5th century BC. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

419 BCE3 entries

  • Sophocles' play Electra is performed. The play takes its theme from The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus.
  • Euripides' play Andromache is performed.
  • Despite the Peace of Nicias still being in effect, Sparta's King Agis II gathers a strong army at Philus and descends upon Argos by marching at night from the north. His allied Boeotian forces fail him, but he is able to conclude a treaty with Argos. In 419 BC, the Argives, at the instigation of Alcibiades, attacked Epidaurus; and Agis with a large force from Lacedaemon set out and marched to the frontier city of Leuctra. No one, Thucydides tells us, knew the purpose of this expedition. It was probably to make a diversion in favour of Epidaurus.

418 BCE7 entries

  • King Agis II of Sparta escapes being fined 10,000 drachmae and having his house razed for his failure to press his advantage by promising more successful outcomes in the future.
  • The Battle of Mantinea is the largest land battle of the Peloponnesian War (with as many as 10,000 troops on each side). Sparta under King Agis II has a major victory over Argos (and its allies Athens, Ellis and Mantinea), which has broken its treaty with Sparta's King Agis II at the insistence of Alcibiades. Agis II's major victory makes amends with the Spartans for his earlier truce with Argos. The commander of the Athenian forces, Laches, is killed in the battle.
  • Impressed with the Spartan victory, the inhabitants of Argos change their government from democracy to oligarchy and end their support for Athens in favour of an alliance with Sparta. Many of Argos' allies do the same. Athens becomes increasingly isolated.

417 BCE2 entries

  • The second battle of Hysiae is fought between the armies of Sparta and Argos during the Peloponnesian War. The Spartan King Agis II was seeking to restore the pro-Spartan faction evicted from Argos by Alcibiades. While he failed to take the city of Argos, he did capture and subsequently destroy the town of Hysiae, killing all its male inhabitants.
  • Following the loss by Athens and its allies in the Battle of Mantinea, a political "tug of war" takes place in Athens. Alcibiades joins forces with Nicias against Hyperbolus, the successor of the demagogue politician Cleon as champion of the common people. Hyperbolus tries to bring about the ostracism of either Nicias or Alcibiades, but the two men combine their influence and induce the Athenian people to expel Hyperbolus instead.

416 BCE4 entries

  • According to Plato's Symposium, the tragedian Agathon wins first prize at the Lenaia.
  • With the encouragement of Alcibiades, the Athenians take the island of Melos (which has remained neutral during the Peloponnesian War). Its inhabitants are treated with great cruelty by the Athenians, with captured adult men being killed and the women and children made slaves.
  • In Sicily, the Ionian city of Segesta asks for Athenian help from the Dorian city of Selinus (which is supported by the powerful Sicilian city of Syracuse). The people of Syracuse are ethnically Dorian (as are the Spartans), while the Athenians, and their allies in Sicily, are Ionian. The Athenians feel obliged to assist their ally and therefore prepare an armada to attack Sicily.

415 BCE6 entries

  • Euripides' play The Trojan Women is performed shortly after the massacre by Athenians of the male population of Melos.
  • After learning that he has been condemned to death in absentia, Alcibiades defects to Sparta and Nicias is placed in charge of the Sicilian expedition. The Athenian forces land at Dascon near Syracuse but with little result. Hermocrates heads the Syracusan defence.
  • The Athenian expedition to Sicily sets sail under Nicias, Lamachus and Alcibiades. After his departure with the armada, Alcibiades is accused of profanity and is recalled to Athens to stand trial.

414 BCE3 entries

  • The Athenian army moves to capture Syracuse while the larger fleet of Athenian ships blocks the approach to the city from the sea. After some initial success, the Athenian troops become disorganised in the chaotic night operation and are thoroughly routed by Gylippus, the Spartan commander. The Athenian commander Lamachus is killed. Nicias, although ill, is left in sole charge of the siege of Syracuse.
  • Athens responds to appeals from its general, Nicias, by sending out 73 vessels to Sicily under the command of Demosthenes to assist Nicias and his forces with the siege of Syracuse.
  • Aristophanes' play The Birds is performed.

413 BCE4 entries

  • Archelaus I becomes King of Macedonia following the death of his father, King Perdiccas II. Archelaus seizes the throne after murdering his uncle, his cousin, and his half brother, the legitimate heir.
  • Euripides' play Electra is performed.
  • Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap of Lydia and Caria, forms an alliance with Sparta. The Spartans, with strategic advice from Alcibiades and limited assistance from the Persians under Pharnabazus, advance almost to the gates of Athens. King Agis II leads the Spartan force that occupies Decelea in Attica.

412 BCE7 entries

  • The Spartans sign a treaty of mutual help with the Persian satrap of Lower Asia, Tissaphernes. By the treaty of Miletus, Persia is given complete freedom in western Asia Minor in return for agreeing to pay for seamen to man the Peloponnesian fleet.
  • Alcibiades helps stir up revolts amongst Athens' allies in Ionia, on the west coast of Asia Minor. However, Alcibiades loses the confidence of the Spartans and antagonises their king Agis II. As a result, he flees to the court of the Persian satrap Tissaphernes. Alcibiades advises Tissaphernes to withdraw his support from Sparta while conspiring with the oligarchic party in Athens, as Sparta's allied cities break away in a series of revolts.
  • The Persians under Darius II see their opportunity to play off one Greek city-state against another and to recover control of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, which have been under Athenian control since 449 BC. The satraps of Asia Minor, Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus, are ordered to collect overdue tribute.

411 BCE8 entries

  • Antiphon defends himself in a speech Thucydides describes as the greatest ever made by a man on trial for his life. Nevertheless, Antiphon is unable to persuade his accusers and he is executed for treason.
  • Euripides' play Iphigenia in Tauris is performed.
  • Aristophanes' plays Lysistrata and Women Celebrating the Thesmophoria are performed.

410 BCE7 entries

  • A relief decoration from the parapet (now destroyed), Nike (Victory) adjusting her sandal is constructed in the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis in Athens and is ready in 407 BC. It is now preserved at the Acropolis Museum in Athens.
  • The grave stele of Hegeso is made and is finished about ten years later (approximate date). It is now preserved at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
  • Commanding 20 ships, the Athenian generals Theramenes and Thrasybulus collaborate with Alcibiades and the main Athenian fleet in inflicting a major defeat on the Spartan navy commanded by Mindarus and its supporting Persian land army near Cyzicus on the shore of the Propontis (Sea of Marmara). As a result of its victory in the Battle of Cyzicus, Athens regains control over the vital grain route from the Black Sea.