708 - Foundation of Taras. Phalanthus leads Partheniae, sons of unmarried Spartan women and perioeci, free men but not citizens of Sparta to found Taras. The myth is that he was shipwrecked before reaching land, but was saved by a dolphin that carried him to the shore. Hence the dolphin rider types of the coins of Taras

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690 - Foundation of Metapontum. Leucippus leads Achaean settlers to found Metapontum, preventing expansion of Taras into that region

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625 - First electrum coinage in Lydia minted under Alyettes

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575 - First coinage in Aegina

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550 - The fall of Siris. The date of the destruction of the Ionian colony of Siris by a league of Metapontion, Sybaris and Kroton cannot be fixed with certainty: it was probably after 550 BCE, and certainly preceded the fall of its rival Sybaris in 510 BCE. It's destruction appears to have been total as there is no further mention of it other than a claim by Athenians as a possible site for Thurii in 443 BC.

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546 -  Pisistratus becomes tyrant of Athens  and leads the unification of Attica; Croesus defeated by the Persians

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535 - Pythagoras migrates to Croton in Southern Italy

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527 - Pisistratus dies. His sons become tyrants of Athens

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510 -  Introduction of democracy in Athens 

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510  - The fall of Sybaris. Sybaris unwisely threatened war against Kroton if it did not return 500 wealth exiles. Kroton declined to do so and defeated Sybaris, inundating the city by diverting the local river

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499 -  Ionian revolt  caused by dissatisfaction of the Greek cities of Asia Minor with the tyrants appointed by Persia to rule them begins

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494 - The Ionian fleet defending Miletus is decisively beaten at the Battle of Lade, after the defection of the Samians leading to the end of the Ionian and defeated by Persians

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490 - Battle of Marathon. Greek army lead by Athens defeats the Persians of Darius I

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483 - Laurion silver mines discovered near Athens. This discovery meant that at the beginning of the second Persian invasion of Greece, the Athenian state had at its disposal 3,000 tons of silver

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480 - Battle of Thermopylae where Spartans and Thebans delay the advance of the Persians under Xerxes but cannot prevent the capture and burning of Athens. Battle of Salamis where Themistocles leads the Greeks to victory at sea

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480 - Gelon defeats Carthage at the Battle of Himera. A contingent of Gelon's men gained access to the Carthaginian camp by posing as allies from the nearby city of Selinus and set fire to Hamilcar's ships. The ensuing battle was a decisive victory for Gelon, with Carthaginian casualties estimated at 150,000, including Hamilcar

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479 – The Greek city-states including Sparta, Athens, Corinth and Megara defeat Xerxes at the Battle of Plataea, ending the second Persian invasion of Greece.

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477 - Delian league founded by Athens with members numbering between 150 and 330

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473 - Taras allies with Rhegium. Tarentines and Rhegines were defeated near Kailia by the Iapygians in what Herodotus claims to be the greatest slaughter of Greeks in his knowledge

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460 – Start of the First Peloponnesian War between Sparta as the leaders of the Peloponnesian League and Sparta's other allies, most notably Thebes, and the Delian League led by Athens with support from Argos

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456 - Aegina surrenders to Athens and becomes a subject state (Aegeans eventually expelled from the island in 431

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454 - Delian league treasury moved from Delos to Athens

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450 - Coinage decree forces Delian league members to standardise currency on the Attic- Euboean standard and curtails some mint within the Delian league. Ends in 447 BC

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446 - Thirty-year peace treaty signed between Athens and Sparta, ending the first Peloponnesian war.

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443 - Heraclea jointly founded by Taras and Thuria on the site of the destroyed Siris, but subsequently moved 24 stadia away.

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431 – Second Peloponnesian War. In the first phase (Archidamian War), Sparta launches repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens takes advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese

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430 - Plague epidemic in Athens kills one quarter of the population

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421 - Peace of Nicias. The Spartans and Athenians have fought each other to a standstill and the resulting treaty returns all territory to re-war status except Nisaea and Plataea which were retained by Athens and Thebes respectively. The treaty was never workable and was abandoned in 414 BC.

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418 - Battle of Mantineia, the largest land battle of the Peloponnesian War. On one side were Sparta and its remaining allies, and on the other were Athens, its allies, plus the cities that had revolted against the Spartans. After the Athenians' commander, Laches, was killed, the battle turned into a rout of the Athenian and allied armies

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415 - Athens dispatches a massive expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in support of Segesta, Sicily; the attack fails disastrously, with the destruction of the entire force.

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410 – Carthage invades Sicily. Hannibal Mago succeeds in capturing Selinus after winning the Battle of Selinus, then destroyed Himera after winning the Second Battle of Himera in 409 despite Syracusan intervention. Hannibal did not press on to attack Akragas or Syracuse.

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404 - Sparta, now receiving support from the Achaemenid Empire, supported rebellions in Athens's subject states in the Aegean Sea and Ionia, undermining Athens's empire, and, eventually, depriving the city of naval supremacy. The destruction of Athens's fleet in the Battle of Aegospotami effectively ends the Second Peloponnesian war

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403 - Democracy restored in Athens, replacing the so-called Thirty Tyrants, who were pro-Spartan oligarchs

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389 - Destruction of Caulonia by Dionysus I and the end to coin production in that city.

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386 - Dionysus I of Syracuse captures Rhegium and attacks its allied cities in Magna Graecia. In one campaign, in which he was joined by the Lucanians, he devastates the territories of Thurii and Croton in an attempt to defend Locri

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371 - Battle of Leuctra fought between the Spartans and Thebans, by which the supremacy of Sparta was demolished

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362 – At the second Battle of Mantinea Thebes, supported by the Arcadians and the Boeotian league defeat the Spartans However, this weakens both alliances, easing the path for the Macedonian conquest of Greece

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359 - Philip II becomes King of Macedonia

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338 - The forces of Athens and Thebes were destroyed the Battle of Chaeronea by Philip II (Alexander commands the left wing). Since there was now no army which could prevent Philip's advance, the war effectively ended

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336 - Philip II is assassinated by the captain of his bodyguards, Pausanias. Alexander succeeds his father to the throne at the age of 20

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334 - Battle of the Granicus river was the first of three major battles fought between Alexander III and the Persian Achaemenid Empire.

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333 - The second major battle between Alexander’s Hellenic league and the Persian empire is fought in southern Anatolia, leading to defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Issus

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332 - Alexander the Molossian assists Taras against the Messapians

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331 - Alexander defeats Persians at Battle of Gaugamela. This is considered to be the final blow to the Achaemenid Empire 

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323 - Alexander III dies in Babylon the city he planned to establish as his capital, shortly after the death of Hephaestion. Ptolemy seizes the body and takes it temporarily to Memphis

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304 - Taras is attacked by the Lucanians and asks for the help of Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse

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301 - Battle of Ipsus fought between the Diadochi. Antigonus I Monophthalmus, ruler of Phrygia, and his son Demetrius I of Macedon were defeated by Cassander, ruler of Macedon; Lysimachus, ruler of Thrace and Seleucus I Nicator, ruler of Babylonia and Persia

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280 - Second Achaean League founded, named after the region of Achaea in the north western Peloponnese, which formed its original core

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280 - Rome declares war on Taras, and the Tarentines decided to call for help from King Pyrrhus of Epirus

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279 - Invasion of Greece by Gauls crossing over to Anatolia and eventually settling in the area that came to be named after them, Galatia

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275 - End of the Pyrrhic war and Phyrrus returns to Epirus. Plutarch wrote that Pyrrhus said after the second battle of the war, "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."

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272 – Taras is captured by Rome

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264 - Start of the First Punic war. The fighting, which consisted predominantly of naval warfare, largely took place on the waters of the Mediterranean surrounding Sicily

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241 - Carthage is defeated by the Romans, ending the first Punic war. A consequence if this is that Sicily becomes a Roman province

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238 - Attalus I of Pergamon gains the sobriquet Soter after defeating the Galatians at the Battle of the Caecus River

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218 - The Second Punic War begins with Hannibal's crossing of the Alps and invading mainland Italy and the war extends to other areas of Carthaginian influence in Sicily, North Africa and Spain.

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214 – Philip V of Macedon allies with Carthage and leads to skirmishes between Macedonia and Rome in the First Macedonian war, ending in 205 BC with the Treaty of Phoenice

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212 – Hannibal captures Taras and continues with victories over the Romans in the Battles of Silarus, Herdonia and Petelia, but Rome recaptures Taras in 209 BC

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202 - Rome invades of the Carthaginian homeland in Africa leading to Hannibal's recall and defeat in the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE. Carthage is defeated to end the Second Punic war

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200 - Fearing the remaining Diadochi states’ ambitions the remaining independent Greek cities send Ambassadors from Pergamon and Rhodes to Rome. Philip V ignores a Roman ultimatum, and the Second Macedonian War begins. Philip V is defeated at the Battle of Cynoscephalae three years later

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189 - The Seleucids (advised by Hannibal) form an alliance with Pergamon which threatens both Rome and the remaining Greek world. Rome attacks and defeats the Seleucid empire at the Battle of Magnesia

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172 - Perseus of Macedon , son of Philip V, moves against the independent Greek cities and draws Rome back into conflict in the Third Macedonian war. He is defeated decisively at the Battle of Pydna four years later and Macedonia is divided into four Roman client republics

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165 - Athens issues new style tetradrachms and continues production until its capture by Sulla in 86 BC

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150 – Rome enters Macedonia again to deal with a pretender trying to establish the old kingdom in the Fourth Macedonian war. The Achaean league mobilizes against Rome and is totally and quickly defeated, leading to the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC and the division of Greece into the Roman provinces of Achaea and Epirus.