A Sweet and Glorious Land

B.C.E.

           

 

circa 5000

 

First agricultural settlements in Egypt

c. 2700

 

Beginning of Egyptian Old Kingdom

c. 2300

 

Full European Bronze Age begins

c. 1775–1200

 

Mycenaean civilization on mainland Greece, eventually evolves into Greek civilization

c. 1560

 

Rise of Egyptian New Kingdom

c. 1100

 

Spread of Phoenicians (thought to be the precursors of Carthaginians) throughout the Mediterranean

c. 1000

 

Hilltop settlements established in Rome, including on the Palatine Hill

c. 1050–950

 

Migration of Ionian Greeks to the eastern Aegean, principally along coast of modern-day southwestern Turkey

c. 900

 

End of Greek Dark Age; rise of the Archaic Age

c. 875–730

 

Greek colonization of the West begins

c. 776

 

First Olympic Games held in Greece

c. 753

 

Traditional, perhaps mythical, founding of Rome by Romulus

c. 750

 

Homer's
Iliad
first written down

First Greek colony in Magna Graecia (Great Greece), or southern Italy, believed established on modern Ischia, in Gulf of Naples.

740

 

Cumae (modern Cuma), earliest Greek colony on Italian mainland, established

720

 

Sybaris (later named Thurii by Greeks and still later renamed Copia by Romans) in the far south of Italy founded by Achaean Greeks near the mouth of the river Crati

Rhegion (Roman Rhegium, modern Reggio di Calabria) founded by Chalcidian Greeks

710

 

Kroton (modern Crotone, known as Cotrone from the Middle Ages until
C.E.
1928) founded by Achaean Greeks

706

 

Taras (Roman Tarentum, modern Taranto), founded by Spartan Greeks

c. 700

 

Palatine settlement in Rome expands. The Forum, between the Palatine and the Capitoline Hills, is laid out as a public meeting place

Metapontion (Roman Metapontum, modern Metaponto) established along the Bradano River as buffer colony between Taras (Taranto) and Sybaris

c. 650

 

Rise of the “tyrants” in Greece

First Greek coins and rise of lyric Greek poetry

c. 600

 

Foundation of Greek colony at Massilia (modern Marseilles in southern France)

Greek colony at Neapolis (modern Naples) founded by colonists from Cumae, ten miles to the northwest

Sybaris establishes colony at Poseidonia, later renamed Paestum by Romans in 273
B.C.E.

Development of Latin script

c. 530

 

Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras active in southern Italy

510

 

Sybaris destroyed by fellow colonists from nearby Kroton

509

 

Last of kings expelled from Rome; the Roman Republic founded

c. 485

 

First western historian Herodotus, born at Halicarnassus in what is now southwestern Turkey; dies about 425, either in Thurii, in southern Italy, or in Pella, in Macedonia, north of mainland Greece

480–460

 

Carthage expands African territory

460–430

 

Herodotus writes
Histories

c. 479–338

 

Period of Greek classical culture

444

 

Colony of Thurii built by Greek colonists on site of destroyed Sybaris

Cumae overrun by Italic tribes

410

 

Carthage invades Sicily

c. 380

 

Roman expansion in Italy begins

Romans conquer Cumae

341–295

 

Rome wages war with native peoples through much of the Italian peninsula; conflicts range from Latin War through Battle of Sentinum, establishing Rome's supremacy in Italy

336

 

Assassination of Philip at Pella in Macedonia; Alexander the Great (356–323), his son, succeeds to the Macedonian throne as Alexander III of Macedonia

c. 336–31

 

Greek Hellenic period

323

 

Death of Alexander the Great at Babylon

322–281

 

Alexander's empire, now Greek, divided among his “Successors”

312

 

First Roman roads under construction, beginning with the Via Appia from Rome to Capua; in following centuries, this road is extended to Tarentum (Taranto) and then to Brundisium (Brindisi) along the Adriatic coast of eastern Italy

272

 

Romans capture Greek Taras, the final act in the Roman conquest of Italy; the city renamed Tarentum

264–241

 

First Punic War between Rome and Carthage; Carthage loses Sicily to Romans

218–201

 

Second Punic War; begins when Hannibal invades Italy by crossing the Alps

216

 

Hannibal, after earlier victories in Italy's north, delivers crushing blow to Romans with military defeat at Cannae

204

 

Consentia/Cosenza, built by native Bruttians, taken by Rome

203

 

Hannibal retreats to Carthage from near Kroton (Crotone) in southern Italy

202

 

Scipio defeats Hannibal at Zama, in North Africa

193

 

Romans establish Copia on site that had been occupied by Greeks at Thurii/Sybaris

149–146

 

Third Punic War; Carthage destroyed

44

 

Assassination of Julius Caesar; Augustus, following civil war, begins rise as first emperor of Roman Empire, dies
C.E.
14

 

C.E.

 

 

14–37

 

Tiberius emperor of Rome

393

 

Olympic Games in Greece abolished

395

 

Division of Roman Empire between East, in Constantinople (now Istanbul), and West, in Rome

410

 

Alaric the Visigoth (western Goth) sacks Rome for the third time, hastening the eventual fall of the (western) Roman Empire; dies in Consentia/Cosenza and is believed buried in the bed of the Busento River

476

 

Last Roman emperor in the West deposed; replaced by a barbarian king

489–493

 

The Ostrogoths (eastern Goths) under Theodoric invade and conquer Italy

490

 

Cassiodorus born in area around modern-day Squillace in southern Italy, dies about 585; works with his father, who serves Theodoric

568

 

Germanic Lombards take over northern half of the Italian peninsula

c. 820

 

Muslims from North Africa conquer Sicily

962

 

Germanic king invades Italy and is crowned emperor in Rome

982

 

Germanic peoples defeated by the Arabs when they attempt to conquer southern Italy

1072

 

Normans (descendants of the Vikings) capture Palermo in Sicily

1130

 

Norman ruler is crowned king of Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia (modern Puglia)

1442

 

Naples falls to the ruler of Sicily, Alfonso V of Aragon, who in 1443 assumes the title King of the Two Sicilies, that is, of Sicily and Naples

1504

 

Spain assumes control of the Kingdom of Naples, which, for several years around the end of the fifteenth century, has been caught up in the struggles of foreign powers fighting to dominate Italy; Naples and Sicily are ruled by Spanish viceroys for two centuries

1527

 

The out-of-control armies of Emperor Charles V enter Rome and sack the city. Within a week, troops pillage and destroy thousands of churches, palaces, and houses; this event marks Rome's demise as a center of the Renaissance

1706–1708

 

The Kingdom of Naples comes under the influence of the Austrian Habsburgs, along with Milan and Sardinia

1734

 

Don Carlos de Borbón (later King Charles III of Spain) is granted cultural patronage at Naples and establishes the Bourbon fortunes in Italy

1735

 

Austria cedes Naples and Sicily–the “Kingdom of the Two Sicilies”—to the Bourbons; during the eighteenth century, in the spirit of “enlightened despotism,” the rulers sponsor reforms to rectify social and political injustices and to modernize the state

1796–1799

 

The French, under Napoleon, invade Italy, beginning the era of the Italian Republic

1802

 

Napoleon Bonaparte becomes president of the Italian Republic; Milan is his capital

1805

 

Napoleon declares himself king of Italy his sister Paolina eventually becomes ruler of the duchies of Parma, Guastalla, and Piacenza

1806

 

After first annexing the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to France, Napoleon then declares it independent and installs his brother Joseph as king

1808

 

Joseph is transferred to Spain, and Napoleon gives Naples to his brother-in-law Joachim Murat; under the French, Naples is modernized by the abolition of feudalism and the introduction of a uniform legal code, and Murat is deservedly popular as king; Napoleon also installs his young son as king of Rome

c. 1815

 

Napoleon's influence begins to wane throughout the Italian peninsula; Bourbon rule is restored in Naples, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies aligns with the conservative states of Europe

1820

 

Sicilian people win constitutional concessions from their Bourbon rulers, as well as further concessions in 1848, when Sicily tries to win independence from Bourbon rule in Naples; the kingdom's poor political and economic condition leads to its easy collapse in the mid-nineteenth century just prior to Italian unification

1849

 

Vittorio Emanuele II becomes king of Sardinia

1857

 

George R. Gissing, Victorian novelist and short story writer, born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, November 22

1860

 

Garibaldi conquers Sicily, then conquers southern Italy