| 461 BC–446 BC | Greece | 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. |
| 459 BC | Greece | The Athenian politician Pericles' first move in his aggressive foreign policy is to try to isolate central Greece and replace Theban control by Athenian occupation. Athens makes strategic alliances with the city-states Argos and Megara, and the region of Thessaly. Corinth and the island of Aegina feel that these actions threaten their sea trade, and declare war on Athens. |
| 458 BC | Greece | The Greek city-states of Sparta and Thebes, the capital of Boeotia, declare war on Athens. A Spartan force, going to the help of Boeotia in a local dispute, is nearly cut off by the Athenians on its return. |
| 458 BC | Greece | After a great effort, the Greek city-state of Athens is victorious over its Peloponnesian enemies and the Peloponnesian city of Aegina is forced to join the Delian League. |
| 457 BC | Greece | On returning from their Boeotian expedition, the Spartans are drawn into fighting with the Athenians, the latter being defeated at the ensuing Battle of Tanagra. The Spartans are unable to follow up their victory, however, and withdraw from the area. Athens then advances into Boeotia, which becomes a member of the Delian League. |
| 451 BC | Greece | The warring Greek city-states are temporarily exhausted and a five-year truce is arranged between Athens and the Peloponnese. |
| 447 BC | Greece | Athens loses control of Boeotia after Thebes, the capital, successfully instigates a revolt in the cities taken over by the Athenians. The Athenian general Tolmides, sent to recapture them, is defeated at the Battle of Coronea. This encourages the city of Euboea to revolt and the city of Megara to declare independence. Before Euboea can be recovered, the Athenian truce with Sparta lapses and the Spartan army invades Attica. |
| 446 BC | Greece | The Athenian statesman Pericles rounds off a difficult period in foreign affairs by negotiating a somewhat humiliating peace treaty with Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies, restoring independence to Achaea on the southern shore of the Corinthian Gulf, and extending the 5-year truce for another 30 years. This brings the First Peloponnesian War to an end. |
| 432 BC | Greece | The Athenians besiege the city of Potidaea in Chalcidice; Corinth appeals to Sparta. At an intercity assembly at Sparta, Athens is accused of breaking the 30-year peace treaty agreed in 446 BC. |
| 431 BC | Greece | The Athenian statesman Pericles makes his famous funeral oration for the fallen in the year's campaigns. The Athenian historian Thucydides describes the incident in his History, showing that the speech is much more than an oration for the dead and amounts to an assertion of Athenian values and aspirations. |
| 5 May 431 BC | Greece | The Spartans invade Attica, marking the start of the 27-year Peloponnesian War. The Athenian army is outclassed by the Spartans and Athens' power lies in its navy, so the Athenian statesman Pericles brings the population of the country districts into the city of Athens while pursuing an active naval war. Athens insures itself against danger from the island of Aegina by supplanting its Doric population with Athenians. |
| 430 BC | Greece | The Spartans make the second of their five invasions of Attica. The Athenians have some successes in sea raids on their enemies and the city of Potidaea in Chalcidice is taken. In Athens itself, full to bursting point with refugees, plague breaks out. Pericles is deposed from his position as strategus (general) and fined, but is soon reappointed. |
| 427 BC | Greece | The southern Boeotian city of Plataea surrenders to Sparta, and the Aegean city of Mytilene to Athens. The Athenians are more merciful in victory than the Spartans. Thebes and Sparta show no mercy to the Plataeans following their revolt and subsequent surrender to Sparta. Each prisoner is asked: ‘Have you in the present war done any service to the Lacedaemonians (Spartans) or their allies?’ Some 200 prisoners who cannot say yes are put to death. |
| 425 BC | Greece | The Athenian general Demosthenes lands at the Peloponnesian city of Pylos, defeats the Spartans, and captures 420 Spartan hoplites (soldiers) on the neighbouring island of Sphacteria. He then fortifies Pylos and Sphacteria. Sparta breaks off its invasion of Attica to send troops to Pylos. The Athenian statesman Cleon takes command and wins a victory for Athens. Sparta makes peace overtures which Cleon persuades Athens to reject. |
| 423 BC | Greece | A year's truce in the Second Peloponnesian War is agreed between the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. |
| 422 BC | Greece, Macedon | Cleon of Athens, leader of the Athenian democracy (429 BC), ends the truce in the Second Peloponnesian War and resolves on the rescue of the Athenian colony of Amphipolis in Thrace, which was captured by Sparta in 424 BC. In a battle outside the city both the Athenian leader Cleon and the Spartan general Brasidas are killed. The victory goes to the Spartans. |
| 418 BC | Greece | Sparta invades the Peloponnesian city of Argos, and Athens, which allied itself with Argos in 420 BC, breaks the peace and comes to the aid of the Argives, attacking the Peloponnesian city of Epidaurus and advancing on the city-state of Tegea in southeast Arcadia. |
| 418 BC | Greece | The Argives (inhabitants of the Peloponnesian city of Argos) and the Athenians are defeated at the Battle of Mantinea in the centre of the Peloponnese, and Argos switches allegiance from Athens to Sparta, as do its allies. Athens is becoming increasingly isolated. |
| 416 BC | Greece | With the encouragement of the politician and general Alcibiades, the Athenians take the island of Melos, in the Cyclades. Its inhabitants are treated with great cruelty, an action later regretted by the Athenians. |
| 9 September 413 BC | Greece, Sicily | Despite the arrival of a second fleet under the command of the Athenian general Demosthenes, the Athenian expedition in Sicily is heavily defeated in a joint land and sea battle near Syracuse. The Athenian leaders Nicias and Demosthenes are captured and put to death; most of the surviving soldiers are sent to die in the Sicilian quarries. |
| 411 BC | Greece | An oligarchic council of 400 seizes power in the Greek city-state of Athens in an effort to exert more efficient control in the conduct of the Second Peloponnesian War. The orator Antiphon is one of the chief instigators of this oligarchic revolution, and one of the two ringleaders to be executed subsequently. A fragment of his defence speech, recorded on papyrus, survives to modern times, together with three other complete speeches. |
| 406 BC | Greece | The Greek city-state of Athens wins its last naval battle at Arginusae, near Lesbos. The Athenian generals (including the late Athenian statesman Pericles' son) are put on trial, after allegedly failing to save their damaged vessels and pick up survivors, and are put to death. |
| 405 BC | Greece | Athenian naval supremacy is finally shattered by the Spartans under the general Lysander at the Battle of Aegospotami in the Sea of Marmara. When the news reaches the Athenians, they remember their harsh treatment of the inhabitants of the island of Melos in 416 BC and are afraid that they too will be enslaved. |
| 404 BC | Greece | The Peloponnesians lay siege to the Greek city of Athens, which falls to the Spartans. The Second Peloponnesian War is over. The long walls between Athens and its port of Peiraias are pulled down to the playing of flutes, and a puppet oligarchic government, the Council of Thirty, is set up, led by the Athenian orator and politician Critias. It rules by a bloody reign of terror. |
