=499 [D] (500)=.  Ionian expedition against Sardis.  The city was taken and during the pillage was accidentally burned.  The Ionian forces were utterly inadequate to hold Sardis; and their return was not effected without a serious defeat by the pursuing army of Persians.

=497.57= [D] The Latins are defeated by the Romans at Lake Regillus.

=495.= Birth of Sophocles.

=494.= The naval battle of Lade, in which the Persians defeat the Asiatic Greeks.  Fall of Miletus.

=494 (492).= First secession of the plebeians from Rome.  Creation of the tribunes of the people.  See “ROME ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC,” i, 300.

=493 (491).= The Latins are compelled by the Romans to enter into a league with Rome, which is threatened by the Etruscans, Volscians, and the AEquians.  The Latins obtained the name of Roman citizens; the title disguised a real subjection, since the men who bore it had the obligation of citizens without the rights.

=492.= [D] Mardonius heads the first Persian expedition against Greece.

=490.= Battle of Marathon, in which Darius’ Persian host is overwhelmingly defeated by Miltiades, See “THE BATTLE OF MARATHON,” i, 322.

=489.= Condemnation and death of Miltiades.  See “THE BATTLE OF MARATHON,” i, 322.

=486.= Darius Hystaspes, of Persia, is succeeded on the throne by his son Xerxes.

League of Rome with the Hernici.

=484.= [D] Birth of Herodotus, the “Father of History,”

=483.= Aristides, one of the ten leaders of the Greeks at Marathon, ostracized through the jealousy of Themistocles.

=480.= Second Persian invasion of Greece, this time by Xerxes.  Defence of Thermopylae by Leonidas.  See “DEFENCE OF THERMOPYLAE,” i, 354.  Naval battle of Artemisium.  Athens burned.  The Persian fleet vanquished by Themistocles and Eurybiades at Salamis.  Retreat of Xerxes.

[D] Date uncertain.

The Carthaginians attempt the conquest of the Greek cities of Sicily. 
Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, defeats their army at Himera.

Birth of Euripides, the celebrated Greek tragic poet.[E]

=479.= The Greeks, under the command of Pausanias, at the battle of Plataea, crush the Persian army under the lead of Mardonius.  Leotychides and Nanthippus gain a simultaneous victory over the Persian fleet at Mycale.  End of the Persian invasion of Greece.

=478.= The tyranny of Hieron, brother of Gelon, begins at Syracuse.  He was noted as a patron of literature.

=477.= The predominance in Greece passes from Sparta to Athens, by the formation of the Confederacy of Delos.

=474.= Hieron, of Syracuse, defeats the Etruscans near Cumae.

=471.= Themistocles exiled from Athens, the Spartan faction having plotted his ruin, alleging his complicity with the enemy.

Birth of Thucydides.[E]

=470 (471).= The Publilian law passed in Rome; the plebeians accorded the right of initiating legislation in their assemblies.  See “ROME ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC,” i, 300.