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450 BC| c. 500 BC–c. 400 BC | Europe [everyday life] | The Celts begin to make an impression on European history. They are divided into a number of different tribes, sharing a distinctive decorative style of art, characterized by curving designs and mythical animals. These can be seen on their jewellery (gold and bronze torques), their weapons (decorated shields and sword scabbards), and their pottery and other vessels. The Celts probably originate in northwest and central Europe, France (particularly the area of Champagne), Switzerland, Lower Austria, and western Slovakia. The area of the western Hallstatt, Upper Austria, is also associated with the Celts. | | c. 500 BC–c. 400 BC | Rome [wars] | Rome and its Latin allies are almost constantly at war with both the Etruscans in the north and the native mountain tribes to the south, in particular the Aequi and the Volscians. | | 498 BC–446 BC | Greece [poetry] | Greek lyric poet Pindar composes odes in honour of athletes, most of them charioteers, at the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean Games in Greece. | | 480 BC–330 BC | Greece [sculpture] | The Greek classical style of sculpture develops more realism than the preceding Archaic period. Its leading exponents are Phidias (in the 5th century BC), and Praxiteles, Scopas, and Lysippus (in the 4th century BC). | | 475 BC–425 BC | Greece [plays] | In the 50 years that follow the end of the Persian Wars, the Greek city-state of Athens reaches the zenith of its greatness. In addition to its empire and political power, creative and intellectual culture flourish. The great tragic playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides are writing, as is the comic playwright Aristophanes. The sculptor Phidias supervises the construction of the frieze on the Parthenon, and the painter Polygnotus decorates the wall of the Stoa (the colonnade in the marketplace) with murals. Athens is now one of the main commercial centres of the eastern Mediterranean. | | 461 BC–446 BC | Greece [Peloponnesian War (431 BC)] | Athenian foreign policy, now under the control of the nationalistic statesman Pericles, becomes very aggressive and imperialist. This period sees intermittent war, known as the First Peloponnesian War, between the Athenian-led Delian League, edging ever closer to becoming an Athenian Empire, and the Spartan-dominated Peloponnesian League, consisting of the Peloponnesian states of Laconia (Sparta), Messenia, Ellis, and Arcadia, plus Corinth and Megara. | | 450 BC | Greece [births and deaths] | Aristophanes, outstanding Greek comic dramatist, 11 of whose plays survive, including The Clouds, The Birds, and The Frogs, born (–c. 388 BC). | | 450 BC | Europe [design] | At La Tène (in modern Switzerland), Lake Neuchâtel becomes a site for Celtic votive offerings, and the artistic style of the same name also flourishes at this time. It is an art of curved lines and patterns. The votive offerings often include imported objects from classical cultures. These mark definite progress in Celtic art and have given their name to the Iron Age culture of northwestern Europe of this time. The La Tène culture lasts until the time, some three and a half centuries later, of Germanic interference and then Roman conquest. | | 450 BC–445 BC | Babylon, Egypt [historical study] | According to his own accounts, the Greek historian Herodotus visits Babylon and Egypt in order to collect stories for his Histories. |
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