Timeline: 60,000 to 1001 BCE

60,000 Humans (homo sapiens) are limited to Africa and number around 10,000.
50,000 Humans, running from drought have left Africa, taking a coastal route to India and
then to Australia.
35,000 Some people from Africa migrated inland to Central Asia, and their descendants
have branched out, one branch to Europe another to East Asia.
30,000 In Europe, Neanderthal's have become or are becoming extinct.
20,000 By now, among other places in the world, humans are in southern Greece.
15,000 Descendants of people who left Africa have crossed the Bering Straits to North
America.
10,000 Humans have spread into most habitable places. Sparse populations allow for
hunting game, gathering food that grows wild and drifting from campsite to campsite.
Storytelling and myth is a major pastime.
8000 Hunter-gatherers in Southeast Asia begin growing crops to supplement their food
supply. A walled settlement exists at Jericho - near the Dead Sea in the Fertile Crescent of
the Middle East.
7000 In the Fertile Crescent, people have begun farming and raising animals. Their farms
anchor them to one place. Gods are seen as settled into a temple and place. Still seeing
everything as magic and their crops subject to the vicissitudes of weather, people intensify
their pleadings to the gods to help their crops grow. They sacrifice humans, sending them as
gifts to the gods.
6000 Growing crops and domesticating animals have begun in southern and eastern
Europe, including Greece. Agriculture is developing among hunter-gatherers in southern
Mexico. Along the upper Nile, people are growing sorghum, millet and wheat.
5500 People in China are planting seeds.
4500 >Agriculture has spread from Greece into central Europe. Farming reappears in
Africa south of the Sahara in the Niger Basin in the West. The Sahara at this time is grass
and woodland with an abundance of rainfall, rivers, lakes, fish and aquatic life. People there
are growing crops and raising sheep, goats and cattle.
4000 The wooden plow is being used in central Europe.
3500 .Sumerians have migrated to Mesopotamia and have taken over villages and the
agriculture of others. Food surpluses are allowing a diversity of occupations to develop:
soldier, farmer, craftsperson, merchant. Individual possession of land has been replacing
communal possession.
3500 .Desert is forming in North Africa. People have fled from drought to the Nile River,
where they trap water for irrigation and begin an intense agriculture in what is otherwise
desert.
3000 Among the Sumerians, democratic assemblies are giving way to the authority of
kings. Priesthood is becoming distinct from working alongside others in the fields. Field
labor is described as deserved subservience to the gods. Hardship is seen as a product of
sin. People and animals are still sacrificed to gods. Floods are common and a story of a
great flood exists. Trade and wealth are pursued. Competition for power between the kings
of city-states is producing wars of conquest. The warrior tradition continues with men
dominating women. With commerce, writing develops.
3000 Commerce and writing develop in Egypt. Egypt is united through warfare. Human
and animal sacrifices continue. Egyptians have many gods but Egypt is without rain and
has no myth of a flood. The rule of Egyptian kings is claimed to be associated with the
gods. Kings are believed descended from the gods and deserving much more than common
folk.
2600 Agricultural people give rise to the Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley.
2300 Indo-Europeans move into southern Greece. They conquer and make themselves an
aristocracy over those who had migrated there many centuries before. These latest migrants
are to be known as the Mycenae Greeks, who have gods similar to other Indo-Europeans,
including a father god of the sky called Zeus, whom they believe has power over the entire
world.
2250 The Mycenae Greeks are in contact with sea-going tradesmen, the Minoans of Crete
- a commercial society ruled by the wealthy.
2200 Troy, a coastal town in Asia Minor, known as Troy II among archaeologists (a
second level settlement with numerous others to be built on top in coming centuries) is
destroyed by fire.
2200 A Semite to be known as Sargon the Great takes power in the Sumerian city of Kish.
He conquers in the name of the Sumerian god Enlil and builds an empire across
Mesopotamia and Syria.
2150 The empire of Sargon's grandson, Naramsim, is overrun by migrating Gutiens.
Naramsin's subjects blame their misfortune on their having angered their gods.
2130 .Reduced waters in the Nile are accompanied by political upheaval. By now
instability within the royal families of Egypt have ended various dynasties, and now an
eighth dynasty of kings loses power. Two hundred years of political chaos has begun.
Common folks attack the rich and local lords assume power independent of any king.
2000 Give or take a century or two, Malay people begin migrating from the Asian
mainland, across the ocean, to join others on Indonesian islands, bringing with them the
cultivation of rice and domesticated animals. People called Mon migrate from Central Asia
to the southern tip of Burma, where they began growing rice. People leave the Mulucca
Islands and migrate eastward to islands north of Australia.
1950 .The Sumerians have been overrun by Amorites and are to disappear as a
recognizable people. Their writings, stories and gods are to endure. Sumerian language is to
be what Latin will be in Europe in early modern times.
1900 .Egypt is united again, followed by the rule of King (Pharaoh) Amenemhet I.
Common people have failed to win political power, and local lords are subservient again to
one king, but common people and lords have won recognition of having an afterlife like
kings. And more importance is given by all to the goddess of justice, Ma'at.
1800 Migrants in magnificent little boats reach Micronesia.
1800 .An Amorite king at Babylon, Hammurabi, extends his empire from the Persian Gulf
to the city of Haran. He builds roads, creates a postal system and sees himself as conqueror
of the world. Babylon is lush with agriculture. In the name of his god of justice,
Hammurabi gives his subjects laws about mistreatment of each other.
1750 Along the Yellow River (Huang He), conquerors start building what would be
known as the Shang civilization, eventually to stretch four or five hundred miles. The main
concern of the Shang kings is power. They take slaves and practice human sacrifice to
please the gods they fear. Women are subservient to men. Shang kings claim to be
descended from ancestors who reside in heaven. Canals are dug for irrigation.
1750 A literate people move through Canaan, take control of some cities there, and then
they conquer northern Egypt. They have horses and light-weight chariots and introduce the
Egyptians to the wheel, new musical instruments, new techniques for making bronze and
pottery, new kinds of crops, new gods and new weapons of war. The Egyptians call them
Hyksos.
1700 Rainfall declines in the Indus Valley and Mohenjo-Daro civilization disappears.
1593 Hittites from Asia Minor, with horses and lightweight chariots, sack Babylon, ending
the dynasty that had been created by Hammurabi. Then they withdraw.
1525 The Egyptians drive the Hyksos from their land. The Egyptian king, Thutmose I, and
his subjects pursue the Hyksos through Canaan and into Syria.
1500 . Aryan nomads with horses and light-weight chariots packed in their wagons drop
out of the mountains eastward into the Indus valley. They bring with them their sacred
hymns and oral history - stories that express their desire to please the gods, including their
god Dyaus Pitar (Sky Father).
1480 Hurrians, from the Zagros Mountains, dominate the city of Mari, on the upper
Euphrates, and Nuzi, a thriving commercial center. They have overrun and dominate the
Assyrians. And around this time they battle the Egyptians who are still in the north around
Syria.
1350 .The Egyptian king, Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) rules. He tries to force his subjects
to worship the god Aton, whom he believes is the god of the universe. Egypt has withdrawn
from Syria and Canaan.
1300 .The Assyrians have benefited from the decline of the Hurrians and are in control all
of Mesopotamia. People from Micronesia have sailed into Melanesia, including the
Solomon and Fiji islands. Writing has appeared in Shang civilization, with characters partly
pictorial and partly phonetic, and bronze casting has developed.
1200 Tribal peoples from Central Asia had been moving westward with their herds,
running from droughts. They are pushing other tribal peoples into Asia Minor. Hittites are
overrun and begin to disappear as a recognizable people. Waves of illiterate migrants
overrun Greece, beginning a "dark age" there. Brown-skinned people begin migrating
eastward into Polynesia, to the Tonga and Samoan islands.
1177 .People in boats, perhaps escaping from invasions into Greece, raid the coast of Egypt
and are driven off. They land farther east and are to be known as Philistines.
1050 .A century or so after the arrival of the Philistines, Hebrews, occupying hilly regions
in the Land of Canaan, combine their forces for the first time and confront an army of
Philistines near the Philistine outpost at Aphek, and they lose the battle.
1010 .The Hebrew David conquers and subjugates Amorities - also known as Canaanites.
David has acquired some Canaanite culture and is a man of his time.
1000 Shang rule is overthrown by rugged nomadic warriors. A new dynasty of Zhou kings
rule. They claim that in heaven their gods have ousted the rule of the Zhang gods. A
shortage of rainfall sends Aryan tribes from the Indus Valley to the plains of the Ganges
Valley. Aryan tribal kings have been changing from elected leaders to autocratic rulers,
allying themselves with the priesthood and associating themselves and their power with
their gods. People in western Africa are clearing portions of tropical forest with stone axes.
They plant yams, harvest fruits and palm nuts and keep goats. In eastern Africa, south of
the Sahara, cattle raising is spreading alongside people who farm.
970 King David is succeeded by his son Solomon. Hebrews are writing a Phoenician
language that includes words of Sumerian origin and have learned stories carried by that
language. Religious toleration prevails as it had under David. Solomon has temples built for
his wives, who worship gods other than the Hebrew god, Yahweh. Solomon has a temple
constructed for Yahweh.
900 Some have put traditional Aryan stories into writing, in what is known as the Vedas -
Veda meaning wisdom. Those opposed to this form of communicating their religion are
ignored. The Vedas are considered an infallible source of timeless and revealed truth. In the
coming century the writings called Upanishads begin, by persons interested in the relations
between self and universe, an addition to Hinduism often associated with the Vedas and
beyond Hinduism's routines of ritual sacrifices - a collection of as many as two hundred
books to be written across two centuries. One writer will speculate as to how many gods
really exist and he will conclude that there is really only one god.
853 King Ahab of Israel, allied with the Phoenicians and with Damascus, defeats the
empire-building Assyrians at QarQar in Syria.
815 The city of Carthage, on the coast of North Africa, is founded by Phoenicians from
the city of Tyre.
800 In the coming century, Edom comes into existence as a social and political entity.
776 People on mainland Greece are trading again with peoples east of them, and the
writing that disappeared with the invasions of previous centuries reappears. A sense of
religious community has developed among Greece's aristocrats, and, beginning in 776,
aristocrats from various city-states hold mid-summer religious festivals at Olympia. Greeks
believe Olympia to be the center of the world and the home of the gods. In this century, the
poet Homer reworks oral history on the Trojan War into writing. Called the Iliad, Homer's
work is about an age of heroes. He praises warrior society and describes all as the doing of
the gods.
771 Chuanrong tribesmen overrun Zhou civilization. Zhou kings rule in name only as the
Zhou empire fragments into various power centers.
730 Nubians again invade Egypt. The Nubian king, Piankhi, moves his capital to Memphis
and starts Egypt's 25th dynasty. An Egyptianization of Nubian culture is beginning,
including the use of Egyptian writing. Egyptian is to be the official language of Nubian
government, and gods among the Nubians acquire Egyptian names.
721 Assyria overruns Israel, disperses the Israelites and takes thousands as slaves. Israel as
a nation vanishes. The Assyrians see their god, Assur, as having given them victory over the
god of the Hebrews. Assyria's army moves through Judaea, conquers Egypt in 676 and
establishes the greatest of empires to date. The great Assyrian god, Assur, is seen as having
defeated the Hebrew god, Yahweh. As with some other peoples, Hebrews see demise as
punishment for sin.
700 Aryan migrations into the Ganges Valley are over or coming to an end. Cities are
rising in the Ganges Valley. Traders, merchants, landlords and money lending appear. In the
coming century, Indians trade with the Assyrian Empire, Arabia and with the Chinese.
675 In the coming decades, rebellions against kings occur in various Greek city-states.
Kings are replaced by cliques of wealthy men - oligarchies. During the political turmoil
people will find relief in a new religious cult that promotes everlasting life, community and
emotional abandon. Its god is Dionysus, a god of fertility and vegetation. Men of wealth
and power fear that worship of Dionysus might disrupt the order upon which they depend,
but most Greeks hold onto the gods with whom they grew up, and many believed more in
reason than in letting their emotions lead them to an acceptance of promises of eternal bliss.
655 Egypt breaks away from Assyrian rule. Soon cities in Canaan also break away, and
Phoenicia begins ignoring Assyrian directives.
640 With the end of Assyrian rule, comes a resurgence of worship of the god Yahweh.
King Josiah and Yahwist priests move against worshippers of other gods. The priests claim
that a scroll has been found in a secret archive within Solomon's temple, a scroll signed by
Moses. The scroll is used as a weapon against rival worship. An official intolerance rises
that had not been the policy of kings David, Solomon, Jeroboam, Ahab and others. The
practices of rival worship are forbidden: witchcraft, sorcery, using omens, worshiping
images of gods in wood or stone, orgiastic fertility festivals, human sacrifices and temple
rituals involving prostitution and homosexuality. Homosexuality is labeled an abomination.
623 A Chaldean army drives north from around Sumer and expels the Assyrians from
Babylon.
612 The Medes and Chaldeans overrun Assyria's capital, Nineveh. Its walls are broken by
siege engines that Assyria introduced centuries before. Assyrian communities, more than
two thousand years old, are obliterated.
598 The Chaldeans overrun Jerusalem and Judah, while driving the Egyptians back to
Egypt.
593 An Egyptian army sacks the Nubian city of Napata, along the upper Nile. Nubians
push into Meroe.
587 Jerusalem rebels against Chaldean rule. The Chaldeans burn the city and tear down
its walls and Solomon's temple. They round up about forty thousand from Judah as
captives, including political leaders and high priests, and take them to their capital,
Babylon.
584 Around this time, the Greek philosopher, Thales, turns forty. Thales, is an engineer
and thinker from Miletus who believes in the gods but is interested in the nature of things
apart from magic. He theorizes that the world is in essence water. He mentors
Anaximander, who rejects his ideas and develops a more complex theory about nature and
change.
550 The Greek Pythagoras studies the movements of celestial bodies and mathematics. He
blends his observations with Greek religion into what he believes is a theological
coherence.
547 A Persian, Cyrus II, is expanding his empire and overthrows King Croesus of Lydia,
in Asia Minor.
539 Cyrus conquers Babylon. There the captive high priests of Yahweh worship are
liberated and see Cyrus as an agent of Yahweh. They expect Cyrus to inflict Yahweh's
vengeance upon the wicked Babylonians. But Cyrus fails to punish Babylon. He honors
Babylon's gods and disappoints the priests.
530 The Greek Xenophanes rejects mysticism, divine revelations and Pythagoras. He
describes the gods of Homer as morally bankrupt. All they have taught men, he says, is
theft, adultery and mutual deceit. He ridicules seeing gods as human-like and says that if
oxen, horses or lions had hands to make images of their gods they would fashion them in
their own image. He speculates that the earth stretches infinitely in all directions, that the
earth is infinitely deep and that air extends infinitely upwards. He imagines a god as a
central force in the universe but not human-like in shape, thought or emotions: a god that is
everywhere and everything, a god that is the whole universe. And his belief that god is
nature and nature is god leaves him open to the charge that he believes in no god at all.
517 Darius extends Persian rule through the Kyber Pass to the Indus River. The Persians
still rule in Egypt, Asia Minor and everywhere in between, including Jerusalem.
510 Confucius is around forty. The use of iron has brought a higher productivity in
agriculture in China, followed by a greater rise in population, urban growth and new
wealth, and this has loosened social stratification. Confucius attributes the ills of his time to
people neglecting the rituals or performing incorrectly the rituals of the early Zhou kings.
Unlike other scholars of his time who become reclusive, Confucius tries to teach proper
respect.
509 Roman nobles fed up with their Etruscan king drive him from power. The city of
Rome becomes independent of the Etruscans and a republic.
508 In Athens, Greece, progressive members of the upper class unite with commoners in a
popular rising against an oligarchy supported by Sparta. A democracy of sorts is created.
Slavery in Athens lives on. Women in Athens are subject to custody of their fathers, their
husbands, and, when they are widowed, their sons.
501 The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is around forty. Rather than dwell on harmony, he
sees conflict as a part of nature, and, recognizing conflicting interests, he introduces
objectivity and compromise into deciding questions of justice.
500 Rebellion against Hinduism and its animal sacrifices gives rise to Jainism. In the
gatherings that are entertainment in towns across the Ganges Valley, cult leaders have been
debating and picking up followers. Siddartha Gautama is a successful debater and
movement leader. He also rejects animal sacrifices and metaphysics. He produces a guide
for living and (according to claims passed down by his followers) he says that people must
be their own light rather than follow blindly the dogma of any priesthood.
499 In Asia Minor, Greeks begin a rebellion against Persian rule.
490 To punish mainland Greeks for their support of the rebellion in Asia Minor, Darius the
Great of Persia sends a fleet across the Aegean Sea and lands soldiers near Marathon,
twenty-six miles north of Athens. A runner covers the distance to announce the arrival of
the Persians. A coalition of city-states defeats the Persians at Marathon, and the Persians
withdraw. In Athens, the god Pan is said to have given the Greeks their victory, to win back
from the Athenians their devotion, which he had seen as diminishing.
486 Darius the Great dies at around the age of seventy-two.
485 The Athenian poet, Aeshylus is turning forty. Before he dies he will have written
around ninety plays. Athens is developing a literature that goes beyond simple divisions of
good versus evil people, a human-centered approach that would be called humanistic.
These are writers about which the Yahwist Isaiah would have complained that "...they do
not pay attention to the deeds of the Lord." (Isaiah 5:12)
480 Xerxes, son of Darius, marches an army through Thrace and into mainland Greece.
The Persians are trying to extend their empire too far.
479 Near Athens, the Athenian navy and its allies destroy the Persian fleet. With much of
the Persian army dependent on ships for supplies, it is forced to march back to Asia Minor.
460 The navy of Athens is still taking war to the Persians, and, asserting leadership,
Athens is turning its alliance with other Greek cities into an empire.
458 The Persians are allowing Yahwist priests to return from Babylon to Judah and urging
the priests to maintain order in accordance with their teachings - a common practice by the
Persians regarding subject peoples. The Persians do not allow the Jews a king, which is
okay with the high-priests. In Jerusalem, the high-priest Ezra arrives with 1,800 others and
finds assimilations. He begins to organize Judaic law along lines of identity with Yahweh
worship. Men are soon to be asked to expel from their homes their foreign wives. Judaic
law is to be based on an assembled five books purportedly written by Moses: Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Intolerance toward other faiths is
encouraged.
450 .The philosopher Anaxagoras is teaching in Athens. He gives laboratory
demonstrations, conducts simple experiments and tests hypotheses. He speculates that
matter too small to see is infinitely numerous and distributed in all things. He speculates
that mind is a substance disconnected from all other substances, that mind was the first
cause of all motion. He equates mind (collective rather than individual) with soul, which he
calls nous, and for Anaxagoras, nous is God, giving rise to a monotheism alongside what
has arisen in the Upanishads.
445 Protagoras is around forty and moves from Thrace to Athens. He is a democrat and,
contrary to popular opinion, speaks of people from different areas around the world as
sharing a common humanity. He claims that by criticizing tradition and eliminating
customs derived from “barbarian times” people can create better societies. He is opposed to
the tradition of laws made by kings, favoring the privileged and described as having been
made by the gods. He claims that laws should be made by and for people common people.
He claims that humanity must learn for itself what is just and right - a view that "man is the
measure of all things."
442 In Rome, legislation is introduced against a law prohibiting marriage between
aristocrats and commoners. Aristocrats (patricians) are concerned about the purity of their
blood and describe the legislation as a rebellion against the laws of heaven. Commoner
(plebeian) families headed by vigorous entrepreneurs have accumulated much wealth, and
patricians from poorer families have an interest in marrying into these more wealthy
families. The law against prohibiting marriage between aristocrats and commoners is
repealed.
440 Herodotus is in his early forties. He has or will soon write about the Persian war and
about his travels to Babylon, Egypt, the Crimea, Italy and elsewhere. His open-mindedness
about the people he visits results in fellow Greeks calling him a "barbarian-lover." Unlike
priestly writers, he does not write to praise his gods and he admits that his work is
subjective.
431 The Great Peloponnesian War begins, with Sparta and its allies on one side and
Athens and its allies on the other. Athenians have built an empire among the island states
and believe that it is rule or be ruled. Sparta and its allies fear domination by Athens and
invade Attica, announcing that they are fighting against Athenian imperialism for their
independence and for the liberty of Greeks.
430 A Chinese scholar, Mo-zi, nears forty. Unlike Confucius and his followers, Mo-zi
believes that all men are equal before the lord of the heavens. He believes that the powers
of heaven exercise love for all humankind. Mo-zi speaks of the value of the labor of
common folks, and he advocates promoting people to positions of power solely on the
strength of their abilities and virtues. Mo-zi witnesses local rulers sending their armies
against neighboring states, devastating crops, slaughtering cattle, burning towns and
temples, killing civilians and dragging people away to be made slaves. He tries to mediate
between rulers at war with each other. He creates an army of well-trained and highly
disciplined warriors which he offers to rulers defending themselves against aggression.
404 Athens has counted too much on military force and too little on hearts and minds.
The Great Peloponnesian War ends with defeat for Athens and victory for Sparta and its
allies. Sparta is now the undisputed leader and policing power among the Greek city-states.
400 Zoroastrianism is the faith of many Persians. The Zoroastrians believe in a struggle
between their god, Mazda, and the devil. They believe that the birth of their founder, the
prophet Zarathustra, was the beginning of a final epoch that is to end in an Armageddon
and triumph of good over evil. Perhaps Persian officials or merchants in Judah are passing
Zoroastrian notions to the Jews, who at this time had respect for Persians and the late Cyrus
II, who had freed the Jewish captives in Babylon.
399 Democrats, back in power in Athens and afraid of enemies and condemn the
aristocratic philosopher Socrates to death. Socrates wants people to question, and he
pretends to be without conclusions. He believes in a god like that of his teacher,
Anaxagoras. Like Xenophanes he thinks that the gods of Homer are examples of bad
behavior. Greeks are looking upon Homer's writing as divinely inspired and a reference for
religious thought. Those who sentence Socrates at least pretended to be believers in the
gods of the common people, and they consider Socrates subversive and against democracy.
396 Antisthenes is around forty. He has founded a school of thought called Cynicism. He
is disgusted by the world around him and what he sees as the worthless quibbling of refined
philosophy. He has left the company of other philosophers and preaches to common people
in market places using simple language. He tells people that virtue demands withdrawal
from involvement with a world that is immoral and corrupt. But dropping out is
meaningless to people trying to survive.
394 Rome, now grown to about thirty by twenty miles, responds to a request from the
Etruscan city of Clusium for help against an attack by a Celtic people called Gauls.
390 The Gauls attack and almost destroy Rome. Rome is determined to be stronger. They
are to adopt new military weaponry, dropping the spear in favor of a two-foot long sword,
adopting helmets, breastplates and a shield with iron edges. And they are to reorganize
their army.
387 The philosopher Plato turns forty. He returns to Athens from exile and starts his own
academy. Plato dislikes democrats and the likes of Protagoras (the sophists). He is an
aristocrat who dislikes the world around him, including aristocratic rule, and he favors of a
society divided into classes and run by philosophers. He believes that abstractions are real
unto themselves rather than representations, that words are absolutes rather than convention
and representative of meaning. He understands nothing about the body allowing the brain to
function. The heavens, he believes, are nothing but perfection, including perfect circles. He
belongs to the Pythagorian tradition in philosophy. And like Socrates he is a monotheist.
380 Carthage has begun trading with Africans to their south, sending iron through the
Sahara. Iron smelting has appeared in what we now call Nigeria. The use of use of iron is
improving hunting and forest farming, which is helping to build population pressures that
send Bantu speaking people migrating eastward.
371 Sparta has made a mess of policing other Greek city-states. Sparta is no longer the
society it was a century before. It is defeated by Thebes. Greeks recognize that Sparta's
domination has ended, and new coalitions form across Greece.
360 Jerusalem has been rebuilt and the power of Judaism's hereditary priesthood is firmly
established. If a father finds his son rebellious and disobedient he can take him to the city
elders and have him stoned to death. In a dispute that goes to court, a man judged wicked is
whipped, but no more than forty times. Priest scribes have described the Hebrews as
descendants of Noah, Noah's forebears as the first family of humankind and the god of the
Jews as supreme above all other gods. Moses is described as living during the time of the
kingdoms of Moab and Edom, and Abraham is described as living when the Chaldeans
were in possession of Sumer. Jewish law permits slavery, but the enslavement of a fellow
Jew is restricted to seven years.
350 Hindu stories, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, are being put into writing. They are
from oral tradition, and, like Homer's Iliad, they focus on the power of the gods and praise
the heroism and virtues of warrior-princes. The heroes of these sacred stories are devoted to
truth, have a strong sense of duty and affection for their parents.
344 Aristotle turns forty. He had been a student of Plato. He dislikes Plato's utopia and
believes more in empiricism than does Plato. His empiricism: If you do not believe that
rivers begin as little streams in mountains, follow them upstream. He likes to categorize
everything, including things biological. He believes in syllogistic logic - consistency from
the general to the specific. He believes in harmony and balance, that the best is between
extremes, including a balance between state power and individual freedom. He believes in
the god of Anaxagoras. He dislikes communism and supports slavery. He is for a balance
between individualism and a totalitarian enforcement of collective interests.
337 Philip II has created a strong and unified nation in Macedonia. He is devoted to Greek
culture and has hired Aristotle to tutor his son, Alexander. He imposes unity on the divided
Greeks city-states and creates the Hellenic League, which meets for the first time in in the
city of Cornith.
336 Philip II is assassinated. Alexander becomes king.
334 Alexander begins warring against Persia, he and his army moving through the Persian
empire, from Asia Minor, to Egypt, across Persia, into the Hindu Kush and the Indus Valley.
323 Alexander returns to his new capital, Babylon. He wants cooperation and brotherhood
across his empire and has plans for expanded commerce and extending his rule to Italy.
Then he dies, at thirty-two. Myth is still the dominant way of considering the past, and
many myths about Alexander are to develop.
322 Alexander's Persian wife, Roxana, gives birth to Alexander's child, Alexander IV.
Alexander's generals have sworn to keep Alexander's empire together, but for some
Macedonians it is unthinkable that their king should be the son of a barbarian Asian
woman.
321 In India, competition between kingdoms produces one dominate power under
Chandragupta Maura, founder of a new dynasty.
316 Alexander the Great's mother, Olympias, has claimed rule in Macedonia, has raised an
army and is supporting the legitimacy of Roxana's son, Alexander IV. Macedonia is overrun
by her opponents and she is killed.
311 Alexander IV is executed, and his mother, Roxana, also dies. Former subordinates of
Alexander the Great have been fighting each other and are dividing his empire. Alexander's
former bodyguard, Ptolemy, is making himself king of Egypt.
305 A former officer in Alexander's army, Seleucus, considers himself emperor across
Persia and into lands east of Persia. He attempts to recover lands taken by Chandragupta
that had been a part of Alexander's Empire. Chandragupta turns back Seleucus' drive and
Seleucus is forced to agree to peace terms. Chandragupta then conquers into the Himalayas
and the rest of northern India.
301 Chandragupta abdicates in favor of one of his sons and withdraws with a Jainist sage
to a religious retreat. There, while appealing to God for relief from a drought, he fasts to
death.
300 Taoists scoff at Confucianism's veneration of early Zhou kings and reject
Confucianism's striving for virtue, belief in ritual and governmental regulation. They expect
society to continue to be driven by greed and lust for power, and they advocate withdrawal
from social strife. For ending strife and greed they advocate an end to profits. The Taoists
seek serenity in the beauties of nature and in surrender to the will of heaven. They have a
saying not fashioned to encourage technological and economic growth: He who does
nothing accomplishes everything.
296 Zeno of Citium turns forty. He has founded a new school of thought: stoicism. Zeno
believes that God is the father to all and that all men are therefore brothers. He looks
forward to one great nation under divine laws to which everyone consents - a nation bound
together by love. He believes in God's will, that God works in mysterious ways, that
humanity sees only a tiny portion of God's plan. Believing that God plans all, he believes in
facing all circumstances with resignation. He and his followers believe that self-discipline
is the starting point of virtue and that freedom is a state of mind. For the Stoics, poverty and
slavery affect only the body. The poorest slave, they hold, could be a king in his own soul.
291 Epicurus is turning fifty. He is founder of a school of thought opposed to cynicism
and stoicism. His is a philosophy for people who have enough wealth to live a life of ease
and have enough time to smell the roses. He too is against exposing oneself to strife. He is
atheistic. He believes in an empirical approach to knowledge and explains why he thinks
life is worth living.
290 The great library at Alexandria is founded. A new Hellenistic, cosmopolitan culture is
rising in the wake of Alexander's empire. Commercial enterprises are growing. Merchant
ships are bigger. From Marseille to India, Greek is becoming the language of business.
Education and training are on the rise. Migrations are increasing and with it religious
diffusions. Monotheism is on the rise with the belief that all of the gods worshiped across
the world are really Zeus, that Zeus is the universal god. Slavery continues.
283 Ptolemy abdicates in favor of his twenty-five year-old son, Ptolemy II. To win support
from the Egyptians the Ptolomies have created a cult that includes worship of the goddess
Isis. Priests clad in white initiate people by submerging them in the Nile or in sacred water
from the Nile, believed to remove one's sins. The daily routine of the priests faith includes
ceremonies with the singing of hymns and the sprinkling sacred water. Members of the cult
believe that they will be judged after death, and they hope that with death they will pass
into an everlasting life.
279 Pyrrhon, founder of a school of thought called skepticism, turns forty. While a soldier
with Alexander he had come into contact with a variety of cultures and conflicting beliefs.
He is the ultimate cultural relativist, holding that equally valid arguments can be made on
both sides of any question and that there is no way to know which point of view is correct.
He takes an absolutist approach to knowledge, believing that because we can know nothing
with certainty we know nothing at all. Pyrrhon is left with intuition and faith. What
matters, believes Pyrrhon, is living well and living unperturbed.
275 Rome wins its last war over who will dominate Italy, defeating the city of Tarentum
and its ally, a former kinsman of Alexander the Great, Pyrrhus, of "Pyrrhic victory" fame.
264 Rome goes to war against Carthage, the result of a politician arousing the chauvinism
of Roman citizens, overriding the Roman Senate's misgivings and breaking an old treaty
with Carthage.
261 Asoka, grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, has been ruling the great Mauryan Empire
since around the year 273. He is disgusted by his wars of expansion and converts to
Buddhism. He gives up the kingly pastime of hunting game and instead goes on religious
pilgrimages. He supports philanthropies, advocates non-violence, vegetarianism, charity
and tenderness to all living things. He proselytizes for Buddhism and promises no more
wars of expansion. He keeps an army for defense. He maintains monarchical
authoritarianism and the network of spies that he has inherited.
250 In Alexandria, most literate Jews cannot read Hebrew, and the Five Books of Moses
are translated into Greek - a translation called the Septuagint. The translations are
proclaimed to be miraculous creations, and a curse is announced against anyone who
changes what has been produced. Jews in different areas need clarifications, and they
ignore the curse and insert new words to fit local meaning.
247 Parthians, from the steppe lands east of the Caspian Sea, have been establishing
themselves in Persia, and their chief, Arcases, becomes king.
246 The governor for the Seleucus dynasty in Bactria declares Bactria's independence.
The Seleucus dynasty continues to rule in Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and parts of
Persia. Colonies that Alexander created are islands in a sea of eastern people, and Greek
culture is diffusing with eastern cultures.
241 Twenty-three years of war between Carthage and Rome come to an end. Many
Romans believe that victory confirms that their city has been called on by the gods for a
special destiny. Rome's concern for security has been raised. Rome wins control over
Corsica and Sardinia. The Sardinians resist. Roman soldiers with trained dogs invade
Sardinia, hunt down people and glut the slave market in Italy. A new saying emerges: "as
cheap as a Sardinian."
240 To Japan's major southern island, Kyushu, migrants have brought, or are about to
bring, a culture with iron, bronze, tool making and wet-rice agriculture. The migrants are
perhaps from Korea - the shortest distance from the Asian mainland and where such ways
of living exists.
233 The scholar Han Feizi dies as a result of political intrigue. He had abandoned
Confucianism, believing that moral example is not enough. He has followers known as
Legalists. The Legalists see goodness as people cooperating with authority. Society, they
believe, must be organized by the state. Seeing rivalries between states as a fact of life, the
Legalists believe in strengthening the state, and some of them advocate expansion as a
means of strengthening the state. Seeing Taoism and Confucianism as unessential and
divisive, the Legalists favor restricting these.
230 The most eastern of the states in Zhou civilization, Qin, defeats the first of its rival
states, Han, in a drive to unify all the states of Zhou civilization. Qin has been considered
the most barbaric of states, mixed as it was with tribal peoples to the west. But it has been
the most innovative and vigorous of the states, and it has been open to immigration, adding
to its manpower.
221 Qin has defeated its other rivals: Chao, Wei, Ch'u and Yan. Qin's ruler takes the title
of First Emperor - Shihuang-di. It is said that Heaven has given him the mandate to rule.
The new and widespread unity gives birth to what will be called China.
218 The second war between Carthage and Rome begins, sparked by a clash of interests
between the two imperial powers in Spain. The Carthaginians, led by Hannibal, cross from
Spain through Gaul and over the Swiss Alps into Italy.
217 At Lake Trasimenus, the Carthaginians kill all but a few Roman soldiers, and in the
wake of this disaster, on December 17th, Rome introduces a festival to lift the morale of its
citizens, a festival called Saturnalia for the god of agriculture, Saturn. The courts and
schools close and military operations are suspended so that soldiers can celebrate. It is a
time of goodwill and jollity that includes visiting people, banqueting and exchanging gifts.
213 Shihuang-di is trying to secure his rule. He is collecting weapons from all those not in
his armies, and his agents are confiscating books thought to be dangerous. Books on
agriculture, forestry, herbal medicine and divination are spared. Writings of Confucius and
his followers are burned. Shihuang-di makes himself an enemy to Confucianists.
210 Shihuang-di dies and civil war erupts.
202 In China's civil war, Liu Bang, a former policemen, has been better at attracting
support, and he defeats his brutal and ruthless rival, Xiang Yu. Earlier. Having won the title
Prince of Han, Liu Bang begins what is to be known as the Han dynasty.
202 After sixteen years of fighting, the second war between Carthage and Rome is about
over. A Roman soldier runs a sword through the Greek scientist and philosopher,
Archemides, at his home in Syracuse.
201 Rome defeats Carthage. Hannibal finds refuge with the Seleucid king in Syria,
Antiochus III. Rome considers itself ruler on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain).
200 to 197 Rome intervenes in a conflict between a reformer, Philip V of Macedonia,
and conservatives ruling Greek city states. The Romans win, and Philip agrees to stop
interventions and to pay war damages.
193 to 190 Rome sees expansion by Antiochus III of Syria as a threat to its power and
remembers that Antiochus has given refuge to Hannibal. Rome allies with Rhodes,
Pergamum and other Greek cities hostile to Antiochus, and together they defeat Antiochus
and his allies. Antiochus agrees to surrender Hannibal and to pay a great sum to Rome as
tribute.
185 he Mauryan dynasty ends when the army commander-in-chief, Pushyamitra, murders
the last Mauryan king and takes power. Animal sacrifices, prohibited under Asoka and his
heirs, return. Musical festivals and dances also return.
183 Word is out about division and weakness in India, and a series of invasions into the
Indus Valley begins.
183 Hannibal commits suicide rather than let himself be found by Romans.
171 Greek cities that fear Macedonia's power have told Rome's senate that Macedonia is
plotting against Rome. Rome's Senate decides on war against Macedonia's new ruler,
Perseus, son of Philip V.
168 Rome destroys the army of Perseus and takes him away as prisoner. Because Epirus
was allied with Perseus, Rome attacks its towns and villages and carries away 150,000
people whom they sell into slavery. Rome divides Macedonia into four republics and
forbids contact between the four. Rome takes possession of Macedonia's mines and forests.
It is the beginning of Roman annexations east of the Adriatic Sea.
167 Antiochus IV, of the Seleucid dynasty and empire, dedicates the temple in Jerusalem
as a shrine to Zeus. He believes that this will be accepted because people readily shift the
names of gods and are willing to recognize the one god of the universe by the name of
Zeus.
166 In Judah, the Maccabaean rebellion against Seleucid rule begins. It is part civil war
and partly a war of national liberation. Rome, which has no love for the Seleucid dynasty,
is friendly toward the rebellion.
155 to 151 In the Iberian Peninsula, the Lusitani nation rebels against Rome. The
Romans offer them peace and land, trap them, slaughter 9,000 and enslave 20,000. To give
one of its generals a longer season for campaigning, the Senate has moved the date of the
New Year from March 15 to January 1.
149 Rome begins a third war against Carthage, a war that Carthaginians do not want.
148 Rome crushes a rebellion in Macedonia.
146 Across Greece, an alliance led by a reformer, Critolaus, rebels against Roman
domination. At Carthage, amid suicides and carnage, the Romans demolish and burn the
city and carry off survivors to sell as slaves. The Romans defeat an army of Greeks at
Corinth, slaughter all of that city's males, enslave the city's women and children, ship the
city's treasures to Italy and burn the city to the ground. Rome now dominates the
Hellenized east. Rome's army finds Thebes entirely empty of people, its inhabitants having
fled to wander through mountains and wilderness. According to the Greek historian
Polybius, people everywhere are throwing themselves down wells and over precipices.
141 After more than twenty-five years of rebellion, Jewish rebels drive the last of the
Syrians out of Judea. With the strength of Rome behind the rebellion, Judea wins formal
independence: an independent Jewish state for the first time in more than four centuries.
Simon Maccabeus is chosen by a popular assembly as High Priest despite his lack of
qualifications by birth. He also takes the position of Ruler of the Nation (ethnarch). He
creates a festival called Hanukkah to celebrate both Judea's independence and the day that
his rule begins.
141 Scythians, from Central Asia, are beginning to push into the lush agricultural land of
Bactria.
140 In China, a young man succeeds his father Han Jing-di and becomes Emperor Wu.
138 Emperor Wu sends an explorer to Persia, which helps open the Silk Road.
135 Encouraged by a slave-priest, about four hundred slaves in Sicily revolt. They
massacre most of their masters, and the uprising encourages other slaves in Sicily. As many
as sixty thousand join the revolt. They seize a number of Sicilian towns, and they defeat the
first of the armies that Rome sends against them.
133 A Roman war hero, aristocrat and reformer, Tiberius Gracchus, challenges the power
of the senate and is murdered.
132 to 130 The slave revolt in Sicily is crushed, but the slave revolt spreads to western
Asia Minor, led by a king denied his throne by the Romans: Aristonicus. Aristonicus is
fighting a guerrilla war with support from common people. The Romans poison the water
wells that local people and the guerrillas depend on. Aristonicus is captured, taken to Rome
and executed by strangulation. Rome extends its rule across much of western Asia Minor.
128 With the rise in China's prosperity, Emperor Wu believes he can support a war against
tribes in the northwest, whom previous emperors have been paying not to attack. Emperor
Wu stops the bribery and launches a successful series of offensives.
124 China's Imperial University is founded.
121 Gauis Gracchus, brother of Tiberius, has renewed efforts at reform. He has an army of
bodyguards, but he and his associates are hunted down and killed.
120 A revival of Confucianism has occurred, and Emperor Wu makes Confucianism
China's official philosophy.
111 Emperor Wu's armies conquer northern Vietnam and take control of Guangzhou, in
southern China - which had been lost during upheavals a century before.
108 To the extreme northeast, Emperor Wu's armies conquer northern Korea.
104 Emperor Wu's expansion and his maintaining large armies of occupation have
burdened China's economy. China's population has been growing. Big landowners have
been expanding their holdings. Ordinary farmers are most burdened by taxes, forced to
borrow at usurious rates and are paying 50 percent of their crops as rent. Homelessness and
banditry has increased, and agricultural productivity has declined. The Confucianist, Dong
Zhongshu, who has been leading the call for reform, dies.
91 Emperor Wu is seventy-five and violence erupts over who will succeed him.
86 Emperor Wu is succeeded by a compromise choice: an eight-year-old who is put under
the regency of a former general, Huo Guang.
83 For the Romans, compromise and toleration have not been working politically. General
Marcus Sulla returns from wars in the East, and in a civil war and bloodbath he takes power
in Rome. Sulla creates a new constitution that gives rule to the Senate and that he believes
will restore the republic, order and dignity to Rome.
79 Sulla retires. He believes that peace had been established at home and abroad and that
Rome's government is functioning as it had in its glorious past. He grows cabbages and
studies Epicureanism.
77 Around this year, the last book of the Old Testament, the Book of Esther, is translated
into Greek.
74 Emperor Zhao dies at the age of twenty and is succeeded by another child, Emperor
Xuan.
73 A Roman slave, Spartacus, escapes with seventy-seven other prisoners and seizes
control of nearby Mount Vesuvius. News of the revolt encourages other slaves, and they
join Spartacus on Mount Vesuvius - an army of from fifty to a hundred thousand.
71 Spartacus and other slaves are crucified on the major road in and out of Rome: the
Appian way. The latest slave uprising has lowered the demand for slaves. Landowners start
replacing gangs of slaves with a less frightening alternative: free people farming as tenants.
68 Regent Huo Guang dies peaceably, but palace rivalry leads to charges of treason against
Huo Guang's wife, son and many of Huo Guang's relatives and family associates, and they
are executed. With Huo Guang gone, Emperor Xuan is able to exercise more power.
67 The Maccabees family has been renamed the Hasmonaeans. Two Hasmonaean
brothers, John Hyrcanus II and Judas Aristobulus are competing for power, and a civil war
erupts.
63 The Roman general, Gneaus Pompey, is in Syria with a Roman army in response to
disorder there. Syria is annexed to the Roman Empire. The Hasmonaeans still have an
alliance with Rome, and the two warring Hasmonaean brothers seek arbitration from Rome.
Pompey and his army march into Judah. Fighting erupts between Jews and the Roman
army. The Romans take possession of Judah - territory they call Judea.
58 Julius Caesar goes to Gaul as military-governor.
53 The Parthians annihilate an army of 40,000 Romans.
50 Around this year the Parthians extend their empire to the Indus Valley. A people called
Kushans have been pushing into Bactria against the Scythians there, and the Scythians are
pushing into India (to be known in India as Sakas.)
49 Rome's senate worries over Caesar's popularity and orders him home from Gaul.
Caesar crosses the Rubicon River with his army, a forbidden move which means civil war.
48 China has a new emperor, Emperor Yuan, age twenty-seven. He is a timid intellectual
who is to spend much time with his concubines. Rather than govern, he will leave power in
the hands of his eunuch secretaries and members of his mother's family.
47 Caesar returns to Rome as victor. Many Romans think their troubles are over, that at
last a champion of the people had secured power and that the gods have granted Caesar
good fortune. Caesar is conciliatory with former enemies.
44 Caesar is murdered by Stoic idealists in order to preserve the Roman republic.
Reconciliation has not worked.
32 Emperor Cheng has succeeded his father. He also has little enthusiasm for governing
and is most concerned with personal pleasures.
29 Civil war has followed Caesar's assassination, and it reduces to Caesar's nephew and
heir, Octavian, against Anthony and Cleopatra. Octavian wins. He returns to Rome a hero.
He is to be worshipped as bringer of peace.
27 Octavian renounces his consulship and declares that he is surrendering all powers,
including control of the army. The Senate returns his powers and gives him a title that has
the ring of his being divinely chosen, Augustus Caesar, and the Senate makes it law that he
be included in the prayers of Rome's priests. In appearance, the Roman Republic had been
restored, but ultimate power is still held by Octavian.
23 South of Egypt, the Romans drive back, as far as Napata, the rival imperialist army of
Meroe.
19 Augustus Caesar is associating morality with the well-being of the state and the
pleasing of the gods. To stay on the good side of the gods he has begun a crusade to revive
temperance and morality. He tries setting an example by dressing without extravagance and
by living in a modest house. He asks Virgil to write the Aeneid, a story about the gods and
the founding of the Roman race.
15 Livy, the Roman historian is in his forties. He has been writing his history of Rome
since the year 29. He investigates the story of the founding of Rome, which is popular
among the Romans. It is the story of Romulus and Remus, ending with Romulus vanishing
into a thunderstorm, becoming a god and then reappearing, descending from the sky and
declaring that it is the will of heaven that Rome be the capital of the world.
6 Emperor Cheng is succeeded by Emperor Ngai, who lives in the company of
homosexual boys, one of whom he appoints commander-in-chief of his armies. With the
decline in quality of monarchs following the reign of Emperor Wu, some Confucian
scholars declare that the Han dynasty had lost its Mandate from Heaven, and this is widely
believed.
1 Augustus Caesar has laws passed that he hopes will reduce inter-breeding between
Romans and non-Romans. He is encouraging marriage. Romans believe in the family, and
they agree that adultery should be illegal. They believe that the virtue of their women
helped win favor for their city from their gods. And they continue to be disgusted by
criminality.