1st Millennium BC Classical History

0900s (10th century BC)
3rd Intermediate Period / Arameans

Phoenicia, Philistia, Aram
Ammon, Moab, Edom

0800s - Neo-Asyrian Empire

• Semitic Chaldeans migrate from Canann into Akkadian Babylonia. c.940-860

884 Ashurnasirpal II succeeds his father Tukulti-Ninurta II as king of Assyria.

Prophet Elijah (9??-c.849) warns King Ahab against worshiping Baal and later ascends into heaven after anointing Jehu as king of Israel, and Elisha as his successor.
• Elisha (c.910-c.800) performed miracles similar to those of Jesus, like resuscitating the dead, curing lepers and feeding crowds.
• The dating of Edomite convert Obadiah is uncertain because he is credited with hiding a hundred prophets from Jezebel, but his Book rebukes Edom for helping the Babylonians conquer Jerusalem.

Micaiah, a disciple of Elijah, warns Ahab against joining Jehoshaphat to attack the King of Aram.
• God commanded Jonah to prophesy against the capital city of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Nineveh, but he flees on a boat in the Mediterranean Sea instead and is swallowed by a large fish.

0700s BC:
Neo-Asyrian Empire

738 King Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria invades Israel, forcing it to pay tribute.
• Amos traveled from Judah to warn King Jeroboam II of Israel of the injustice suffered by the poor and that worship of God required just and righteous behavior. Amos was expelled but continued preaching through his Book.
• Hosea was a prophet in the Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II. In his Book, he compares his unfaithful wife to Israel's unfaithfulness to the Lord.
•

Micah, active from approximately 737 to 696, prophesied the destruction and then future restoration of the Judean state, and he rebuked the people of Judah for dishonesty and idolatry during the reigns of kings Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.
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Isaiah prophesied to Hezekiah that the Assyrian army under Sennacherib had angered God and 185,000 of its men were killed in one night as they approached Jerusalem. The 2nd half of his Book is attributed to his disciples writing 100 and more years later.

664: Assyrians under Ashurbanipal conquered Egypt, sacking Memphis and Thebes. This is the largest expansion of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
• Nahum wrote a Book about the downfall of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire in 612.
• Zephaniah wrote about God's judgement of Jerusalem and neighboring kingdoms of the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, Ethiopians, and Assyrians as a prelude to a future worldwide Messianic Kingdom.
• Habakkuk wrote about the impending Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and the inevitable triumph of faith in God in his Book.
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Jeremiah authored several Books in the Bible and prophesied the conquest of Judah and the Babylonian exile. c.650-c.570
• According to R. Friedman, author of Who Wrote the Bible?, the sacred texts of the surviving northern Israelites were combined with those of the Judeans in a revised Torah shortly before the fall of Assyria.
c.750-550

Greeks colonized the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts.

c.650 or 600 The first silver coins are minted in Lydia. Greeks spread the use of coins, staters and drachmas, around the Mediterranean.
Units of bronze similarly began to be traded in China around the same time.

0500s BC:
Neo-Babylonian / Persian Empires

587

Nebuchadnezzar II beseiges Jerusalem for 18 months, takes the city, and relocates Jews to Babylon.
• Thales, c.623-c.545 one of the Greek Seven Sages, was regarded by Aristotle as the first philosopher for his natural rather than mythological explanations of reality. He is credited with various insights but primarily advanced the study of geometry and astronomy.
• The Book of Daniel portrays an ideal Jewish nobleman, who is considered legendary by many scholars. He was among the first hostages to be taken to Babylon in 604 where he interprets a dream of Nebuchadnezzar II, predicts the unexpected conquest by the Medes, and miraculously survives a den of lions.
• Ezekiel
551

Zoroaster (Zarathustra) dies.
• Prophets Haggai and Zechariah
c. 6th Century Siddhartha Gautama founds Buddhism.
c. 529 Pythagoras (c.570-c.495) of Samos founds an anti-democratic school (1st secret society?) in Croton, southern Italy after reputed travels in the Near East. His school of thought, Pythagoreanism. continued to evolve for centuries, so his personal contributions to it are uncertain, but he may have been the first to identify as a "philosopher" and definitely taught the "transmigration of immortal souls" into other bodies. Pythagorus is credited with many mathematical and scientific discoveries, but some, like his Pythagoren theorem, might have been learned during his travels.
• Pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus (c.500s-400s) promotes the "unity of opposites", "world in flux" and "logos giving structure to the world."

• Confucius (c.551 – c.479 BCE) develops Confucianism, a system of thought and behavior that will become a pillar of Chinese culture.
• Laozi (c.500s - c.400s) is considered the founder of Taoism.

0400s BC
Persian Empire / Greek City States / Roman Republic

438 The Parthenon, built on the Athenian Acropolis in thanksgiving for the Hellenic victory over Persian invaders, is completed. Its decorative sculptures in 432.
• Parmenides' principle that "all is one"
• Empedocles identifies the 4 roots of the world: fire, air, water, and earth, which are later associated with the 12 Astrological signs. He also believed wisdom corresponded to a soul's nearness to the end of 30,000 cycles of reincarnation. c.494-c.434
• Anaxagoras c.500-428 introduced the concept of Nous (Cosmic Mind) as an ordering force and proposed that life exists throughout the universe.
• Zeno of Elea developed a series of paradoxes to prove his teacher Parmenides' philosophy of a unified reality and nothing existing of itself. 490-430
• c.440s Greek itinerant teachers of rhetoric and other subjects, e.g. math, music and philosophy, become popular with the upper class. They are called Sophists which means 'a wise man'.
• Sophist and rhetorical theorist Protagoras claimed democratic dialogue depended on individual relativism, which his critics said denied objective truth c.490–c.420
• Democritus, the 'laughing philosopher', proposes the universe is composed of atoms. c.460 – c.370
• Sophist Prodicus c.465–c.395 taught linguistics and ethics. Plato and Aristophanes praised him.
• Sophist polymath Hippias c.460-c.399 is credited with originating a limited view of natural law. Plato and Plutarch criticized his superficial and arrogant speeches.
• Sophist Thrasymachus c.459–c.400 is credited with first using rhythmic speech and gestures in teaching rhetoric. He appears in Plato's Republic as an advocate of the 'might is right' theory.
• Sophist Lycophron was egalitarian in his view of barbarians and Greeks and taught that laws existed to prevent people from harming one other rather than to make people just and good.
• Antiphon , the earliest of the 10 Attic orators was tried and executed for his role in the Athenian coup of 411, although Thucydides thought "he made what would seem to be the best defence of any known up to my time".

0300s BC
Macedonian / Persian Empire

399 Athenians attribute their defeats in Syracuse and Aegospotami to the impiety that the godless philoslpher Socrates (c.470–399) had instilled in the youth. After a trial that lasted a day, he was sentenced to death.
392 Unlike previous itenerant sophists, Isocrates (436–338) founded a shool of rhetoric in Lyceum of Athens which promoted a philosophy of public service.
c. 388 Plato founds the Academy at Athens.
c. 366 Aristotle joins Plato's Academy.
• Diogenes c,404-323 the Cynic fled Sinope to Athens, offended many, including Plato by proclaiming Antisthenes the true disciple of Socrates. Diogenes was later enslaved by pirates, settled in Corinth. where he passed his philosophy of Cynicism to Crates.
335 Aristotle founds the Peripatetic school in the Lyceum of Athens.

323: Alexander the Great dies at Babylon, of a fever.
c. 307 Epicurus founds the philosophy of Epicureanism
c. 300 Zeno of Citium, after studying Cynicism, Platonism and the dialectal method, founds the Stoic school of philosophy in Athens.

0200s BC
Macedonian Empires
• The "father of geometry", Euclid (c.300s-200s), compiled his teaching in his Elements treatise while living in Alexandria.
c. 260s Emperor Ashoka promotes Buddhism in India
c. 264 Arcesilaus becomes the head of the Academy at Athens and founds Academic Skepticism
c.262 Philosopher Cleanthes became head (scholarch) of the Stoic school in Athens. c.330-230 BC
c. 240 Eratosthenes calculates the circumference of the earth.
c. 229 Chrysippus succeeds Cleanthes as head of the Stoic school in Athens

218: Declaration of Second Punic Warr to 201 (Carthage vs.Rome)
217: Hannibal crosses Alps from Gaul into Italy.
212: Archimedes, the greatest inventor of antiquity, is killed while safeguarding a few scientific instruments, when Marcellus allows his Roman soldiers to loot the city of Syracuse.

0100s BC
Roman Conquest / Macedonian Empires
• Hellenistic Jewish scribe Ben Sira writes the Book of Sirach

169: Selucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes captures Jerusalem.
167

Beginning of Maccabean War of Liberation against Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
164: Maccabeans recapture City of Jerusalem.
155 The New or Third Academy begins with Carneades, in 155
155 Carneades 213-128 gives lectures in Rome on Skepticism.
• Antiochus of Ascalon c.130–c.68 rejected skepticism and blended Stoic doctrines with Platonism as the first philosopher in the tradition of Middle Platonism.
Hipparchus, the founder of trigonometry, discovers of the precession of the equinoxes.

0000s BC
Roman Imperialism 88 The Greek Philo c.158–c.83 teaches Cicero in Rome.
79 Cicero studies philisophy in Athens with neo-platonist Antiochus of Ascalon.

27 the Roman Senate votes Octavian the title of Augustus. Augustus eventually assumes all authority formerly held by the Roman senate becoming the first emperor. This is traditionally taken as the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Principate (27 BC-AD 235).


	The 1st Millennium BCE	0000s BC