43 BC

c. 400 BC–AD c. 250	Central America [everyday life]	The Late Formative (or pre-Classic) period of Mayan culture takes place in Mexico. By 400 BC, large structures have been built at several sites in the tropical lowland jungle. In the highlands, people begin to put up large clay platforms, some the basis for temples and others for elite houses, flanking open plazas.
c. 200 BC–AD c. 200	South America [religion]	During this period the Nazca Lines are drawn in the desert along the south coast of Peru. These are enormous stylized outlines of animals, including a monkey, whale, spider, and hummingbird, and sets of parallel lines, some as long as 20 km/12 mi. They are believed to be a development of Chavín de Huantar art; they may have had religious significance, or they may have been connected with astronomy.
c. 85 BC–AD c. 52	East Asia [art]	The earliest known Chinese lacquer (found at Lak Lang in North Korea in modern times) is produced.
64 BC–AD c. 52	Syria, Palestine, Seleucid Kingdom, Rome [treaties]	The Roman general Pompey the Great arrives at Antioch in Syria and dictates terms: King Antiochus XIII of Syria is deposed and the Seleucid dynasty ends. Syria becomes part of the Roman provinces. Hyrcanus II and his brother Aristobulus II, rival claimants for the Hasmonaean throne of Judaea, bring their claims before Pompey. Pompey supports the claim of Hyrcanus, but makes Palestine into a Roman province, appointing Hyrcanus as high priest of the Jews but the Idumean Antipater as governor of Roman Judaea.
43 BC	Rome, Gaul [administration]	Roman consul Mark Antony gets a law passed allotting him the provinces of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul for five years instead of Macedonia, when his consulship ends. He moves to take up command, but the senator to whom they had originally been allotted, Decimus Junius Brutus, refuses to evacuate the area, and Mark Antony besieges him in Mutina, northern Italy.
43 BC	Rome [administration]	With the support of the Senate (persuaded by the orator and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero that Mark Antony is aiming at dictatorship), Octavian and the consuls march to defeat Mark Antony, and lift the siege of Mutina in northern Italy. A reconciliation is achieved, and Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus meet at Bononia (modern Bologna). Between the three of them they have more than 33 legions at their command. They form the Second Triumvirate and agree to divide power between them. Octavian becomes consul for 42 BC.
43 BC	Rome [administration]	The newly-appointed Triumvirate (power-sharing alliance between the Roman leaders Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus) divide the Roman world between them: Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia to Octavian; the East and Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul go to Mark Antony; and Spain and the remainder of Gaul go to Lepidus. Lepidus is to be consul in 42 BC while Antony and Octavian go east to attack the armies led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus.
20 March 43 BC	Roman Empire [births and deaths]	Ovid, Roman poet known for his poem ‘Ars amatoria’/‘Art of Love’, born in Sulmo, Roman Empire (–AD 18).
7 December 43 BC	Roman Empire, Italy [births and deaths]	Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, orator, author of De republica/On the Republic, having inflamed the Senate against the Roman consul Mark Antony by his brilliant series of speeches The Philippics (in which he accuses Antony of aiming at dictatorship), is executed at the order of the Second Triumvirate, in Formia, Italy (c. 63).