The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

338. Athens and Thebes form an alliance to resist Philip of Macedon, who had passed Thermopylae and seized Elatea. The allied forces are overwhelmed at Chaeronea, and Philip establishes the Macedonian dominion in Greece.

Artaxerxes III is succeeded by Arses in Persia.

337. Philip of Macedon declares himself commander of the Greeks against the Persians; he repudiates his wife Olympias; their son Alexander attends his mother into Epirus.

336. Assassination of Philip of Macedon, by Pausanias at Aegae, while preparing to invade Persia; he is succeeded by his son, Alexander the Great.

Arses is succeeded by Darius III (Codomannus) in Persia.

335. Thebes, revolting against the Macedonian authority, is subdued and destroyed by Alexander, who, however, spares the house of Pindar the poet.

Rome concludes a peace with Gaul.

334. Alexander enters upon the conquest of Persia; he is victorious over Darius at the Granicus.

333. Lycia and Syria reduced by Alexander; Damascus captured by Parmenio, Alexander's general, and the siege of Tyre begun.

Darius is defeated at Issus; his family are among Alexander's captives.

332. "ALEXANDER REDUCES TYRE: LATER FOUNDS ALEXANDRIA." See ii, 133. He takes Gaza and occupies Egypt.

The Lucanians and Bruttians defeat and slay Alexander of Epirus, his ambitious designs in Italy having been betrayed.

331. "THE BATTLE OF ARBELA," in which Alexander the Great conquers Darius and overthrows the Persian empire. See ii, 141.

330. The Spartans, under Agis III, revolt against the Macedonians; Antipater defeats the Spartans and their allies at Megalopolis; Agis is slain.

Darius is seized and laden with chains by Bessus, a Bactrian satrap who soon after slays him.

Alexander captures Bessus and delivers him to Oxathres, the brother of Darius, by whom he is executed.

Alexander pursues his conquests in Parthia, Media, Bactria, and on the shores of the Caspian.

329. The Oxus and Jaxartes are crossed by Alexander; he drives back the Scythians; he founds new cities in the countries adjacent, and winters in Bactria.

The consuls at Rome are granted a triumph and the surname of "Privernas," for the conquest of Privernum.

328. Sogdiana, Central Asia, occupies Alexander during this, his seventh campaign, and he winters there at Nautaca.

327. Marriage of Alexander to Roxana, daughter of Oxyartes, a Bactrian ruler.

326. Alexander invades India and defeats Porus; his soldiers refuse to proceed farther.

Rome begins the Second Samnite War.

325-4. Alexander marches from the Indus to Persepolis; his fleet is sailed to the Euphrates by Nearchus.

Harpalus flees from Babylon with immense treasures, which he conveys to Athens.

323. Death of Alexander the Great at Babylon. His principal generals endeavored to obtain, each for himself, a portion of his empire. Ptolemy first secures Egypt and establishes his dynasty firmly there. Philip Aridaeus, half-brother of Alexander, succeeds him on the throne of Macedon, with Perdiccas as regent. Demosthenes returns to Athens and rouses the Greek states to recover their freedom; under Leosthenes they overpower Antipater, who takes refuge in Lamia, whence this is called the Lamian War.

The Samnites sue for peace, but reject the terms on which it is offered by the Romans.

322. The body of Alexander is entombed at Alexandria.

The confederate Greeks are defeated by Antipater at Crannon; end of the Lamian War.

Demosthenes, who was accused by the Macedonians of being privy to the looting of the treasury by Harpalus, after the battle of Crannon fled to Calauria; he was captured by the Macedonian troops and thereupon poisoned himself.

321. Beginning of the wars between Alexander's successors; Perdiccas and Eumenes oppose themselves to Antipater, Craterus, Antigonus, and Ptolemy.

Perdiccas assails Ptolemy in Egypt; Perdiccas is slain in a mutiny. In Asia Minor, Eumenes triumphs over Craterus, who is killed.

Victory of the Samnites over the Romans at the Caudine Forks. These were two narrow gorges, united by a range of mountains on each side. The Romans went through the first pass, but found the second blocked up; on returning they found the first similarly obstructed. Being thus hemmed in they passed under the yoke.

320. Eumenes, defeated by Antigonus, shuts himself up in the castle of Nora, where he sustains a year's siege.

319. Polysperchon is appointed by Antipater to succeed him as regent for Philip Arrhidaeus and Alexander Aegus, half-brother and son of Alexander the Great, on his, Antipater's, death.

Polysperchon's elevation to power is followed by a league against him, formed by Antipater's son Cassander, Antigonus, and Ptolemy. Eumenes lends his support to Polysperchon, after escaping from Nora.

318. The Romans and Samnites make a truce.

Polysperchon prevailed over by Cassander in the struggle for power in Greece and Macedonia. Athens he places under the rule of Phalereus.

317. Phocion, an Athenian general who wisely advised in vain for peace with Antipater, became regarded as a traitor; he fled to Phocis, entered into the intrigues of Cassander, who delivered him up to the Athenians, who condemned him to drink hemlock. Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great, aided by Polysperchon and the Epirotes, seizes Macedonia.