449 BC
Encyclopedia
Year 449 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar
Roman calendar
The Roman calendar changed its form several times in the time between the founding of Rome and the fall of the Roman Empire. This article generally discusses the early Roman or pre-Julian calendars...

. At the time, it was known as the Third year of the decemviri and the Year of the Consulship of Potitus and Barbatus (or, less frequently, year 305 Ab urbe condita
Ab urbe condita
Ab urbe condita is Latin for "from the founding of the City ", traditionally set in 753 BC. AUC is a year-numbering system used by some ancient Roman historians to identify particular Roman years...

). The denomination 449 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....

 calendar era
Calendar era
A calendar era is the year numbering system used by a calendar. For example, the Gregorian calendar numbers its years in the Western Christian era . The instant, date, or year from which time is marked is called the epoch of the era...

 became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Greece

  • The Greek
    Ancient Greece
    Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

     city-states make peace with the Persian Empire
    Achaemenid Empire
    The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...

     through the Peace of Callias
    Peace of Callias
    The Peace of Callias is a purported treaty established around 449 BC between the Delian League and Persia, ending the Persian Wars. The peace was agreed as the first compromise treaty between Achaemenid Persia and a Greek city....

    , named after the chief Greek ambassador to the Persian Court, an Athenian who is a brother-in-law of Cimon. Athens
    Athens
    Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

     agrees to end its support for the Egypt
    Egypt
    Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

    ians rebels still holding out in parts of the Nile Delta
    Nile Delta
    The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers some 240 km of Mediterranean coastline—and is a rich...

    , while the Persians agree not to send ships of war into the Aegean Sea
    Aegean Sea
    The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...

    . Athens now effectively controls all the Greek city states in Ionia.
  • Pericles
    Pericles
    Pericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars...

     begins a great building plan including the re-fortification of Piraeus
    Piraeus
    Piraeus is a city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens Urban Area, 12 km southwest from its city center , and lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf....

     and its long walls extending to Athens.
  • Pericles proposes a "Congress Decree" allowing the use of 9,000 talents
    Talent (weight)
    The "talent" was one of several ancient units of mass, as well as corresponding units of value equivalent to these masses of a precious metal. It was approximately the mass of water required to fill an amphora. A Greek, or Attic talent, was , a Roman talent was , an Egyptian talent was , and a...

     to finance the massive rebuilding program of Athenian temples. This leads to a meeting ("Congress") of all Greek states in order to consider the question of rebuilding the temples destroyed by the Persians. The Congress fails because of Sparta
    Sparta
    Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

    's opposition.
  • Pericles places the Athenian sculptor Phidias
    Phidias
    Phidias or the great Pheidias , was a Greek sculptor, painter and architect, who lived in the 5th century BC, and is commonly regarded as one of the greatest of all sculptors of Classical Greece: Phidias' Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World...

     in charge of all the artistic aspects of his reconstruction program. Construction begins on the Temple of Hephaestus
    Temple of Hephaestus
    The Temple of Hephaestus, also known as the Hephaisteion or earlier as the Theseion, is the best-preserved ancient Greek temple; it remains standing largely as built. It is a Doric peripteral temple, and is located at the north-west side of the Agora of Athens, on top of the Agoraios Kolonos hill....

     in Athens
    Athens
    Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

    , while the Athenian Senate commissions Callicrates to construct a temple to Athena Nike
    Athena Nike
    Nike means "victory" in Greek, and Athena was worshiped in this form, as goddess of victory in war and wisdom, on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Her temple was the earliest fully ionic temple on the Acropolis, compensated by its prominent position on a steep bastion at the south west corner of...

     on the Acropolis
    Acropolis
    Acropolis means "high city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel . For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides...

    .
  • The Second Sacred War
    Second Sacred War
    The Second Sacred War took place between 449 BC-448 BC and resulted in an indirect confrontation between Athens and Sparta during the so-called First Peloponnesian War....

     erupts between Athens and Sparta, when Sparta forcefully detaches Delphi
    Delphi
    Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

     from Phocis
    Phocis
    Phocis is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Central Greece. It stretches from the western mountainsides of Parnassus on the east to the mountain range of Vardousia on the west, upon the Gulf of Corinth...

     and renders it independent.

Roman Republic

  • The Law of the Twelve Tables (developed by the Decemvirates) is formally promulgated. The Twelve Tables are literally drawn up on twelve ivory tablets which are posted in the Forum Romanum so that all Romans can read and know them.
  • When the Decemvirate's term of office expires, the decemviri refuse to leave office or permit successors to take office. Appius Claudius Crassus
    Appius Claudius Crassus
    Appius Claudius Crassus was a decemvir of the Roman Republic ca 451 BC.His father was Appius Claudius Sabinus, Consul in 471 BCE...

     is said to have made an unjust decision which would have forced a young woman named Verginia
    Verginia
    Verginia, or Virginia, was the subject of a story of Ancient Rome, related in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita.The people of Rome were already angry with the decemviri for not calling the proper elections, taking bribes, and other abuses. It seemed that they were returning to the rule of the Kings of Rome...

     into prostitution, prompting her father to kill her. This leads to an uprising against the Decemvirate forcing the decemviri to resign their offices. The ordinary magistrates (magistratus ordinarii) are re-instituted. Appius Claudius is said to have committed suicide as a result of these events.

Literature

  • Herodotus
    Herodotus
    Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

     completes his History, which records the events concerning the Persian War
    Greco-Persian Wars
    The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire of Persia and city-states of the Hellenic world that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus...

    .

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