Greece history timeline
This chart puts 17 periods and states of Greek history on one timeline in order, from Minoan civilization (c. 3100 to 1450 BCE) to Greece (1974 CE to the present).
See it on the interactive chart
- Minoan civilizationc. 3100 to 1450 BCE
- Mycenaean Greecec. 1600 to 1050 BCE
- Greek Dark Agesc. 1180 to 800 BCE
- Spartac. 900 to 192 BCE
- Greek city-statesc. 800 to 338 BCE
- Kingdom of Macedonc. 700 to 168 BCE
- Athens508 to 322 BCE
- Empire of Alexander the Great336 to 323 BCE
- Achaean League280 to 146 BCE
- Roman Macedonia and Achaea146 BCE to 395 CE
- Byzantine Empire395 to 1453 CE
- Despotate of Epirus1205 to 1479 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 to 1922 CE
- Kingdom of Greece1832 to 1924 CE
- Second Hellenic Republic1924 to 1935 CE
- Kingdom of Greece (restored)1935 to 1973 CE
- Greece1974 CE to the present
- Greek
- Latin and Romance
- Turkic
- People or culture without a state
In order
Minoan civilization
A Bronze Age civilization on Crete, often regarded as Europe's first, known for frescoes and palace complexes at Knossos, Phaistos and Malia. Its Linear A script is undeciphered and its language unknown. Mycenaean Greeks dominated Crete after about 1450 BCE.
Mycenaean Greece
Greek-speaking palace kingdoms that wrote in Linear B, built the walls of Mycenae and Tiryns and traded across the Mediterranean. The palaces were destroyed in the Late Bronze Age collapse around 1200 BCE.
Greek Dark Ages
After the palaces fell, Linear B writing went out of use and settlements became fewer and smaller. Iron came into general use, and Greeks may have begun settling the Ionian coast of Anatolia around 1000 BCE.
Sparta
A state of full-time citizen soldiers ruling helot serfs, leader of the Peloponnesian League. It beat Athens in 404 BCE, lost to Thebes at Leuctra in 371 and was forced into the Achaean League in 192.
Greek city-states
About 1,500 known city-states, which founded colonies around the Mediterranean and Black Sea and defeated the Persian invasions at Marathon and Salamis. Philip II of Macedon beat Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea in 338 BCE.
Kingdom of Macedon
The Argead kingdom north of Thessaly. Philip II built a professional army and mastered Greece. After Alexander the Antigonids ruled until Rome won at Pydna in 168 BCE.
Athens
Cleisthenes made Athens a democracy in 508 BCE. It led the Delian League, built the Parthenon and was home to Socrates and Plato. It lost the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE and its democracy to Macedon in 322.
Empire of Alexander the Great
Alexander III conquered the Persian Empire, from Egypt to the Indus, in ten years of campaigns. After his death in Babylon in 323 BCE civil wars among his generals, the Diadochi, broke it apart.
Achaean League
A federation of Greek cities in the northern Peloponnese, revived in 280 BCE, that grew into a major power and forced Sparta to join. Its war with Rome ended in 146 BCE, when Lucius Mummius razed Corinth.
Roman Macedonia and Achaea
The Roman provinces of the southern Balkans, where Greek stayed the main language while Latin was used for official purposes and in Roman colonies. They passed to the Eastern Empire at the division of 395.
Byzantine Empire
The eastern Roman Empire, centred on Constantinople, where Greek gradually replaced Latin for official use. Justinian briefly retook much of Italy, and the city withstood Arab sieges until the Ottomans took it in 1453.
Despotate of Epirus
A Byzantine successor state founded after 1204 that briefly took Thessalonica. It passed through Serbian and Italian hands before the Ottomans took its last fortresses in 1479.
Ottoman Empire
From Anatolia the Ottomans crossed into Europe at Gallipoli in 1354 and ruled the Balkans for five centuries, besieging Vienna in 1529 and 1683. Defeat in 1918 led to the sultanate's abolition in 1922.
Kingdom of Greece
Independent after the War of Independence of 1821 to 1829, under the Bavarian prince Otto. Its gains in the Balkan Wars nearly doubled its area and population, but it lost the war with Turkey in 1922.
Second Hellenic Republic
A republic proclaimed in 1924 after the defeat in Anatolia. In the 1928 census 1.2 million people, 19% of the population, were registered as refugees. A heavily rigged plebiscite restored the monarchy in 1935.
Kingdom of Greece (restored)
The restored monarchy went through the Metaxas dictatorship, the Axis occupation of 1941 to 1944 and a civil war that lasted until 1949. The military junta abolished it in 1973.
Greece
The Third Hellenic Republic, founded after the fall of the junta in 1974. Greece joined the European Communities in 1981 and went through a severe debt crisis from 2010 until around 2018.
Major events
- Thera eruption. The volcano on Santorini buries the Minoan town of Akrotiri under metres of ash in one of the largest volcanic events in human history.
- Late Bronze Age collapse. Palace centres such as Mycenae are destroyed and Linear B writing falls out of use as trade across the eastern Mediterranean breaks down. Scholars debate how widespread the destruction was.
- First Olympic Games. By tradition the first Olympic festival is held at Olympia in honour of Zeus. Greeks later counted years in four-year Olympiads from this date.
- Athenian democracy. Cleisthenes reorganises the citizens of Athens into ten new tribes based on where they live, breaking the power of the nobility. His reforms underpin Athenian democracy, the best known of several Greek democracies.
- Battle of Marathon. Athenians aided by Plataea defeat a larger Persian force sent by Darius I, a turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus records 6,400 Persian bodies counted on the field and 192 Athenian dead.
- Battle of Salamis. The Greek fleet, led by the Athenian Themistocles, defeats Xerxes' navy in the straits off Salamis, a turning point in the Persian invasion of Greece.
- Peloponnesian War begins. Spartan king Archidamus II invades Attica, opening the war between Athens's Delian League and Sparta's Peloponnesian League. Persian support for Sparta from 413 BCE helps bring Athens to defeat in 404.
- Death of Socrates. An Athenian jury convicts the philosopher of impiety and corrupting the youth and sentences him to die by drinking hemlock. His students Plato and Xenophon wrote accounts of the trial.
- Alexander invades Persia. Alexander crosses the Hellespont with about 48,100 soldiers and 6,100 cavalry and begins the conquest of the Persian Empire.
- Constantinople dedicated. Constantine dedicates his new capital on the site of Byzantium. It stays the seat of the eastern Roman Empire for over 1,100 years.
- Justinian's Code. Emperor Justinian I promulgates the first edition of his Code, a compilation of imperial enactments, in April 529. It becomes part of the Corpus Juris Civilis, the body of Roman law enacted between 529 and 534.
- Plague of Justinian. Plague reaches Roman Egypt in 541 and Constantinople in 542, where estimates of the dead range from a fifth to 40 percent of the city. Outbreaks recur until the middle of the 8th century.
- Baptism of the Rus. Vladimir I of Kiev adopts Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium and has the people of Kiev baptised in the Dnieper.
- East-West Schism. Papal legates and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicate each other, splitting the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
- First Crusade proclaimed. At Clermont, Pope Urban II calls on western knights to aid Byzantium and take Jerusalem, which the crusaders capture in 1099.
- Crusaders sack Constantinople. Knights of the Fourth Crusade and the Venetian fleet storm and loot Constantinople and divide the Byzantine Empire among themselves.
- Fall of Constantinople. Mehmed II breaches the Theodosian Walls after a 53-day siege, ending the Roman state that had lasted nearly 1,500 years.
- Siege of Vienna. Imperial German and Polish forces under King John III Sobieski defeat the Ottoman army besieging Vienna. In the war that follows, to 1699, most of Ottoman Hungary passes to the Habsburg emperor.
- Greek War of Independence. Greek revolutionaries rise against Ottoman rule. After Britain, France and Russia intervene and destroy the Ottoman and Egyptian fleet at Navarino in 1827, Greece is recognized as independent by the London Protocol of 1830.
- First World War begins. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June sets off a war that causes 15 to 22 million deaths and ends with the collapse of four empires.
Questions
What is the order of periods and states of Greek history?
By start date: Minoan civilization, Mycenaean Greece, Greek Dark Ages, Sparta, Greek city-states, Kingdom of Macedon, Athens, Empire of Alexander the Great, Achaean League, Roman Macedonia and Achaea, Byzantine Empire, Despotate of Epirus, Ottoman Empire, Kingdom of Greece, Second Hellenic Republic, Kingdom of Greece (restored) and Greece.
How many periods and states of Greek history were there?
This timeline shows 17. Other lists count differently, depending on how they treat rival states and periods of division.
Which came first?
Minoan civilization, c. 3100 to 1450 BCE, is the earliest on this timeline.
Where do these dates come from?
Each row's dates were checked against the sources listed on that row's own page, mostly English Wikipedia articles, which cite the underlying scholarship. Dates that are uncertain are marked c.