The Last of the Wine: A Novel

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

B.C.

431

(Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem. Rome completes conquest of Volscians.)

Outbreak of Peloponnesian War.

Siege of Potidea. Sokrates, then aged 38, saves in battle the life of Alkibiades, aged 18, and gives up in his favour the prize for valour.

430

Spartans invade Attica. The plague at Athens. Xenophon born about this time.

429

Death of Perikles. Plague continues.

428

Spartans in Attica. Probable year of Plato’s birth.

427

Fall of Mitylene. Reprieve of the Lesbians. Spartans in Attica.

425

Demosthenes’ victory at Pylos. Spartans in Attica. Athens doubles tribute of the subject allies.

424

Battle of Delion. Athenians defeated by the Thebans, with their

corps d’élite

of friends afterwards known as the Sacred Band. Alkibiades rescues Sokrates during the retreat. Thucydides exiled.

423

One year’s truce. Aristophanes presents The Clouds in which Sokrates is represented as an anarchic influence on young men.

422

Assault on Amphipolis. Kleon and the Spartan general Brasidas both killed. Autolykos, aged about 17, wins his first crown at the Panathenaic Games; the occasion of the party described in Xenophon’s

Symposium.

421

The Peace of Nikias.

420

Olympic Games held. Lavish displays by Alkibiades who enters seven chariots and wins 1st, 2nd and 4th prizes.

419

Alliance with Argos engineered by Alkibiades.

418

Athens re-enters the war.

416

Melos reduced and captured by Athenians after siege. Adult males massacred and non-combatants enslaved, Phaedo probably among them.

Agathon awarded the prize for Tragedy; the occasion of the party described in Plato’s

Symposium.

415

First performance of Euripides’

Trojan Women.

Preparations for Sicilian Expedition.

Breaking of the Hermes and accusation of Alkibiades.

Expedition sets out in early summer.

Alkibiades recalled for trial but escapes to Sparta.

Aristophanes’

Birds

performed.

413

Dekeleia seized and fortified by the Spartans on advice of Alkibiades.

Mykalessos in Boeotia seized by Thracians under Athenian command, with barbarous massacre of non-combatants, including children in school.

Timaea, wife of King Agis, seduced by Alkibiades.

Reinforcements sent to Sicily under Demosthenes, whose night attack is repulsed with heavy loss. Nikias agrees to leave but is delayed by eclipse of the moon (August 27th).

Naval action in harbour and total defeat of Athenian fleet.

Retreat of Athenian army followed by debacle.

412

Alkibiades campaigning in Ionian Islands. Widespread revolt of Athenian subject Allies. Sparta recognises Persian claim to Ionia, in return for funds to finance her fleet.

Isthmian Games held and Athenians invited.

Alkibiades goes to Persians; is entertained by Tissaphernes.

411

Subversion of democracy in Athens. Promise of electoral roll of 4,000 not implemented; political assassinations and reign of terror.

Revolution in Samos crushed with help of Alkibiades, who has discarded the oligarchs (according to Thucydides, because he had promised them more than the Persians would give).

Counter-revolution in Athens by moderate conservatives under Theramenes, in time to prevent capitulation to Sparta. The Four Hundred oligarchs overthrown; leaders in exile.

Euboea captured by Spartans with crippling loss of food-producing land and private estates.

The restored democracy recalls Alkibiades, who elects to remain in Samos in command of the fleet.

Aristophanes’

Lysistrata

and

Thesmophorians

performed.

410

Alkibiades victorious in the Aegean.

Euripides’

Electra

performed.

409

Agathon, and possibly Euripides, leave Athens for Macedon.

408

Alkibiades recovers Byzantium and returns in triumph to Athens.

407

Lysander in command of Spartan fleet.

406

Antiochos defeated by Lysander in battle of Notium (Cape Rain). Alkibiades deposed.

Battle of Arginusae (the White Isles). Desertion of wrecks causes heavy loss of life. Unconstitutional trial of the Generals; protest by Sokrates.

Offer of peace by Spartans. The demagogue Kleophon moves rejection.

405

Lysander, re-appointed to command at Cyrus’ request, blockades Lampsakbs.

Athenian fleet annihilated at Aegospotami (Goat’s Creek).

General revolt of subject allies (except Samos).

Siege of Athens begun.

404

Siege of Athens. Theramenes negotiates in Salamis. Starvation compels surrender (April).

Thirty Tyrants established in Athens by Lysander.

Reign of terror. Alkibiades assassinated in Phrygia. Autolykos murdered.

Theramenes procures nomination of 3,000 citizens entitled to civil rights.

403

Kritias denounces Theramenes.

Thrasybulos and the Seventy seize Phyle. Judicial murder of Eleusinians.

Capture of Piraeus and Battle of Munychia. Kritias killed.

King Pausanias of Sparta intervenes. Proclaims amnesty and withdraws garrison.

402

Lysander deposed.

401

Cyrus killed in war of succession against Artaxerxes. His mercenary army of Ten Thousand Greeks left leaderless, their generals, including Proxenos the friend of Xenophon, being treacherously killed by Tissaphernes. Xenophon rallies the despairing troops and with assistance of other junior officers marches them from Babylon to the Hellespont across wild and hostile country.

400

Death of King Agis. His son barred from the succession on suspicion of Alkibiades’ paternity.

399

Xenophon in exile.

Sokrates indicted, tried, and executed after thirty days in prison, awaiting the return of the sacred galley from Delos. Plato and other friends, after remaining with him to the last, withdraw to Megara.