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The 420s BC

71 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.

429 BCE7 entries

  • The Athenian admiral Phormio has two naval victories, the Naupactus and the Battle of Rhium at the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf. In the first battle, his 20 ships defeat 47 Corinthian ships commanded by Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas that were advancing to reinforce the Spartan general, Cnemus's campaign in Acarnania. In the second battle, Phormio routs Cnemus's 77-vessel fleet.
  • The plague in Athens that is killing thousands of the city's inhabitants, claims Pericles. Cleon, who has headed the opposition to Pericles's rule, succeeds to power in Athens following Pericles's death.
  • The Macedonian king, Perdiccas II, once again betrays the Athenians and sends 1000 troops to support a Spartan assault on Acarnania but they arrive too late to help. In response to this, King Sitalkes of Thrace invades Macedonia with a vast army that includes independent Thracian tribes (such as the Dii) and Paionian tribes (Agrianes and Laeaeans). His progress is slowed when the promised support from Athens fails to materialise. So Perdiccas once again uses diplomacy to ensure the survival of Macedonia. He promises the hand of his sister in marriage to the nephew of Sitalkes, who then persuades Sitalkes to leave Macedonia.

428 BCE6 entries

  • Euripides' play Hippolytus is performed in the Dionysia competition, the famous Athenian dramatic festival. The play is awarded first prize.
  • The chief city of Lesbos, Mytilene, revolts against Athenian rule. The Spartan admiral, Alcidas, leads 40 Peloponnesian alliance ships with the aim of assisting the inhabitants of Mytilene. However, the rebellion by Mytilene is crushed before his forces can arrive.
  • Despite encouragement from the Ionian leaders to engage the Athenians, Alcidas declines. Rather, Alcidas leads his fleet to Cyllene where the Spartans resolve to strengthen the fleet and send it to Corcyra where a revolution has broken out. Spartan leaders, Brasidas and Alcidas, then defeat a fleet of Corcyran ships. However, they retire when word reaches them that 60 Athenian ships from Leucas under the command of Eurymedon have been dispatched to intercept them.

427 BCE8 entries

  • In an effort to blockade Sparta from access to Sicilian corn, Athens responds to a plea for help from a delegation from the city of Leontini led by Gorgias, the sophist and rhetorician. Leontini is being threatened by Syracuse which is allied to Sparta. However, the Athenian mission led by the Athenian general Laches is unable to offer much help. Laches is later prosecuted by Cleon for his unsuccessful mission to support Athenian interests in Sicily.
  • The Quaestorship is opened to the Plebs.
  • Plataea surrenders to the Spartans and Thebans after its garrison comes close to death from starvation. Over 200 prisoners are put to death and Plataea is destroyed.

426 BCE5 entries

  • An Athenian army under Nicias, Hipponicus and Eurymedon defeats a combined Tanagran and Theban army in the Battle of Tanagra.
  • Demosthenes unsuccessfully besieges the Corinthian colony of Leukas. As a result, he does not return to Athens, fearing for his life. However when, later in the year, Ambracia invades Acarnania, and the Acarnanians seek help from Demosthenes, who is patrolling the Ionian Sea coast with twenty Athenian ships, he reaches the Athenian naval base in the Gulf of Corinth at Naupactus and secures it just in time to defend it against a large Spartan army from Delphi under Eurylochus which has come to assist the Ambraciots. Demosthenes defeats the Spartan army and Eurylochus is killed during the Battle of Olpae. The Acarnanians and Ambraciots then sign a peace treaty.
  • The Athenian leader Cleon and Athenian general Demosthenes revitalise the city's military and naval forces despite opposition from Nicias, a rich merchant and soldier, and his supporters.

425 BCE13 entries

  • Callicrates starts to build the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis in Athens (approximate date). Between 410 and 407 BC the temple is surrounded by a parapet.
  • Artaxerxes I, Achaemenid king of Persia, is succeeded by his son Xerxes II.
  • Demosthenes captures and fortifies the port of Pylos in the Peloponnesus, giving Athens a strong base close to Sparta. Meanwhile, a Spartan army, commanded by Brasidas, lands on the nearby island of Sphacteria, but is repulsed by the Athenians. An Athenian fleet summoned by Demosthenes bottles up the Spartan navy in Navarino Bay.

424 BCE9 entries

  • The temple to Athena Nike (also known as the Wingless Victory) on the Athenian Acropolis is completed. It has been designed by the Athenian architect Callicrates.
  • Brasidas' capture of the city of Amphipolis is a major reverse for Athens, for which the Athenian general (and future historian) Thucydides is held responsible and banished. This gives Thucydides the opportunity for undistracted study for his History and travel and wider contacts, especially on the Peloponnesian side (Sparta and its allies).
  • After he frustrates the Athenian attack on Megara, Brasidas marches through Boeotia and Thessaly to Chalcidice at the head of 700 helots and 1000 Peloponnesian mercenaries to join the Macedonian king Perdiccas II. Refusing to be made a tool for the furtherance of Perdiccas' ambitions, Brasidas wins over the important cities of Acanthus, Stagirus, Amphipolis, and Torone as well as several minor towns. An attack on Eion is foiled by the arrival of Thucydides at the head of an Athenian squadron.

423 BCE7 entries

  • The Athenian general, Laches, successfully moves in the Athenian Assembly for an armistice with Sparta to check the progress of Sparta's most effective general, Brasidas. However, the "Truce of Laches" has little impact on Brasidas and collapses within a year.
  • Ochus, satrap of Hyrcania and son of Artaxerxes I and a Babylonian concubine, seizes the Persian throne from his half brother Secydianus (or Sogdianus), whom he has executed. The new king rules as Darius II.
  • Aristophanes' play The Clouds is performed as is Sophocles' play Maidens of Trachi and The Putine (The Bottle), by Cratinus.

422 BCE4 entries

  • Aristophanes' play The Wasps is performed.
  • Alcibiades takes over the leadership of the pro-war party in Athens.
  • Athenian leader, Cleon, ends the truce between Athens and Sparta after he resolves to rescue the town of Amphipolis in Macedonia. However, through skillful generalship by Brasidas, the Spartans rout the Athenians in the Battle of Amphipolis. Both Brasidas and Cleon are killed in the battle, thereby removing the key members of the pro-war factions on both sides.

421 BCE6 entries

  • Nicias, the leader of the aristocratic and peace party in Athens and Pleistoanax, King of Sparta, negotiate the Peace of Nicias between Athens and Sparta, which brings a temporary end to the Peloponnesian War. The essence of the Peace of Nicias is a return to the antebellum period with most wartime gains being returned. Seventeen representatives from each side swear an oath to uphold the treaty, which is meant to last for one generation (30 years: meaning they are not responsible for the next generation's decision). All of Sparta's allies agree to sign the peace except for the Boeotians, Corinth, Elis, and Megara.
  • Aristophanes' play Peace is performed.
  • The construction of the Porch of the Maidens (the Caryatid Porch) commences at the Erechtheion which is part of the Acropolis in Athens.

420 BCE6 entries

  • 17 Boedromion (Epidauria): The cult of Asclepius is introduced at Athens.
  • The young and popular Alcibiades is elected "Strategos" (one of a board of ten generals) and begins to dominate Athenian life and politics. A Quadruple Alliance of Athens, Argos, Mantineia and Elis, which has been organised by Alcibiades (in opposition to Nicias) confronts a Spartan-Boeotian alliance.
  • Euripides' play The Suppliant Women is performed.