GREEK CIVILIZATION: GENERAL CHRONOLOGY

This chronology is intended to be a general resource for students enrolled in Classics courses at Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois. If you have any questions about this document, please contact the instructor, Prof. Tom Sienkewicz at toms@monm.edu.

2800-1100 B.C. THE BRONZE AGE
c. 2000 Building of Minoan palaces on Crete
1550-1500 Shaft Grave Burials at Mycenae
1500 Volcanic explosion on Thera
1450 Destruction of Minoan palaces on Crete followed by Mycenaean conquest
1300-1250 Palaces built at Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos
1200-1120 Destruction of mainland palace-fortresses; collapse of the Mycenaean Empire
1184 Traditional date for the Fall of Troy

1100-700 B.C. THE DARK AGES
1100 The Dorian Invasion?
776 Traditional founding of Greek Olympic Games
750 Homer
700 Hesiod

700-500 B.C. THE ARCHAIC PERIOD
Colonization, lyric poetry, tyranny

500-300 B.C. THE CLASSICAL AGE
490-79 The Persian invasions and defeat
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Herodotus
431-404 The Peloponesian War; defeat of Athens by Sparta
Thucydides, Euripides, Plato

338-31 B.C. THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD
338 Defeat of Greeks by Macedonians
336-323 Alexander King of Macedon
323-31 Ptolemaic and Selucid Dynasties
146 Greek mainland comes under Roman control
31 Battle of Actium; Egypt made a Roman province

31 B.C.- A.D. 565 THE ROMAN PERIOD
A.D. 330 Constantine moves the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople
393 Theodosius ends the ancient Olympic games.

565-1453 THE BYZANTINE PERIOD
Roman emperors rule in Constantinople until fall of the city to the Turks in 1453

1453-1829 THE TURKISH OCCUPATION

1829-present MODERN GREECE

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