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The 430s BC

57 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.

439 BCE5 entries

  • As a result of Persian assistance to Samos, it takes the Athenian army nine months to successfully complete its siege of Samos and force the Samians to surrender. Samos becomes a tributary of Athens.
  • Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus is made dictator of the Roman Republic for a second time to deal with the Maelius controversy. He appoints Gaius Servilius Ahala as his Master of the Horse.
  • Spurius Maelius, a wealthy Roman plebeian, tries to buy popular support with the aim of making himself king. During the severe famine affecting Rome, he buys up a large store of grain and sells it at a low price to the people of Rome – the first time this had been done in Rome. This leads Lucius Minucius, the patrician praefectus annonae ("president of the market"), to accuse Maelius of seeking to take over the government.

438 BCE8 entries

  • The colossal statue of the Athena Parthenos, which Phidias has made for the Parthenon, is completed and dedicated. It is made of gold and ivory and stands some 12 metres high.
  • The Greek playwright Euripides' play Alcestis is performed in the Dionysia, an Athenian dramatic festival.
  • Three seated Goddesses (possibly Hestia, Dione and Aphrodite), from the east pediment of the Parthenon, are made (finished in 432 BC). They are now kept at The British Museum in London.

437 BCE2 entries

  • Pericles, concerned for Athenian trade with Greek settlements to the East, and in order to counteract a new and possibly threatening Thracian–Scythian alliance, leads Athens' fleet to Pontus on the Black Sea and establishes friendly relations with the Greek cities of the region.
  • Mnesikles starts to build Propylaia, Acropolis, Athens. The work is canceled in 432 BC, due to the Peloponnesian War, and thus is never finished.

436 BCE4 entries

  • Following Pericles' visit to the Black Sea, a large Athenian colony is founded at Amphipolis. This is disconcertingly close to an outpost of Corinthian influence at Potidaea in the Chalcidice. Corinth feels it is being indirectly pressured by Athens.

435 BCE4 entries

  • A dispute arises between Epidamnus' oligarchs and democratic forces in the Greek colony. Most of the colony's inhabitants originate from Corinth or Corcyra (Corfu). Epidamnus' oligarchs are exiled and then appeal to Corcyra for help, while the democrats enlist the support of Corinth. Corcyra is then attacked by Corinth as the dispute heats up.
  • Forces of the Roman Republic, led by dictator Quintus Servilius Priscus, captured the nearby city of Fidenae by tunneling in through the hill the town was built upon. He was awarded the cognomen 'Fidenas' as a reward for his success.
  • A gold and ivory statue of Zeus, king of the gods, is completed at Elis by the Athenian sculptor Phidias for the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. The statue becomes one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The Olympian Zeus is about seven times life size (or 13 metres) and occupies the full height of the temple.

434 BCE4 entries

  • While in prison, Anaxagoras tries to square the circle with straightedge and compasses.
  • Philip, brother of Perdiccas II of Macedon challenges Perdiccas for the throne, and enlists the support of Athens and King Derdas of Elimea. Perdiccas responds by stirring up rebellion in a number of Athenian tribute cities, including Potidaea.
  • Under the leadership of Pericles, Athens introduces a series of measures (the "Megarian decree") imposing an economic embargo on Megara for violations of land sacred to Demeter. According to the provisions of the decree, Megarian merchants are to be excluded from the market of Athens and the ports in its empire. This ban strangles the Megarian economy and strains the fragile peace between Athens and Sparta, which is allied with Megara.

433 BCE5 entries

  • Pericles concludes a defensive alliance with Corcyra (Corfu), the strong naval power in the Ionian Sea, which is the bitter enemy of Corinth. As a result, Athens intervenes in the dispute between Corinth and Corcyra, and, at the Battle of Sybota, a small contingent of Athenian ships play a critical role in preventing a Corinthian fleet from capturing Corcyra. Following this, Athens places Potidaea, a tributary ally of Athens but a colony of Corinth, under siege.
  • Pericles renews alliances with the Rhegium on the southwest corner of Italy and Leontini in southeast Sicily, threatening Sparta's food supply route from Sicily.
  • A set of sixty-five bells, from the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (Zhou dynasty) in Suixian, Hubei, is made. It is now preserved at the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan.

432 BCE6 entries

  • Sparta calls and hosts a conference of the Peloponnesian League. The conference is attended by Athenian representatives as well as members of the League. Following arguments by Corinth against Athens, a majority of the League members vote to declare that the Athenians had broken the peace.
  • Pheidias completes the sculptures that form the decoration of the Parthenon in Athens.
  • The Greek colony of Heraclea in Southern Italy is founded by colonists from Tarentum and Thurii.

431 BCE9 entries

  • The Greek philosopher Empedocles distinguishes the four elements - earth, fire, water, and air - that he claims all substances are made of. He explains the development of the universe by the forces of attraction and repulsion known as Love and Strife.
  • Euripides' play Medea wins third prize at the Dionysia, the famous Athenian dramatic festival.
  • Athens enters into an alliance with King Sitalkes of Thrace, after Nymphodorus, an influential Athenian, marries Sitalkes' sister. Nymphodorus then negotiates an agreement between Athens and Macedon's King Perdiccas II, through which Perdiccas regains Therma. As a result, Athens withdraws its support for Perdiccas' brother, Philip, and the Thracians promise to assist Perdiccas in capturing him. In return, Perdiccas marches on the Chalcidians, the people he has originally persuaded to revolt.

430 BCE10 entries

  • Traditional date where scholars believe the Hebrew prophet known as Malachi writes the 39th and last book, and last of the prophetic books, of the Old Testament of the Biblical canon, the Book of Malachi. Biblical books written between now and the millennium will not be included in the Hebrew Bible and in some Christian traditions considered Biblical apocrypha.
  • Approximate date – Sophocles' drama Oedipus Rex is first performed in Athens.
  • An outbreak of a plague hits Athens and the disease ravages the densely packed city (modern DNA analyses of material from ancient cemeteries suggest the mortal disease may have been typhus). The plague wipes out over 30,000 citizens, sailors, and soldiers as well as Pericles' two sons. Roughly one-quarter of the Athenian population dies. The fear of plague is so widespread that the Spartan invasion of Attica is abandoned, their troops being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased enemy.