Simmering hostilities between the allies of Sparta and Athens develop into endemic conflict among the Greek city states of the Peloponnese

Euripides enters the drama contest at the City Dionysia in Athens for the first time

The Athenians transfer into their own keeping the accumulated treasure of the Delian League

Empedocles states that all matter is made up of four elemental substances - earth, fire, air and water

The followers of Pythagoras maintain that the earth revolves on its own axis and moves in an orbit

The Athenians mount successful attacks on the Persian forces occupying the Greek island of Cyprus

The Sophists, professional philosophers, travel round Greece educating the sons of the rich

In the Peace of Kallias the Persians acknowledge the independence of Greek Ionia, and agree not to bring their fleet into the Aegean

The Athenians begin building the Parthenon, a temple to Athena, which they complete within ten years

Ictinos, the architect of the Parthenon, blends Doric and Ionic elements in a way which will later influence many other Greek temples

Phidias sculpts a huge statue of the goddess Athena, to be the central feature of the new Parthenon

Pericles negotiates a treaty, scheduled to hold for thirty years, establishing spheres of influence for Sparta (the mainland) and Athens (the Aegean coast and islands)

Myron sculpts the Discus Thrower, an outstanding example of the Greek ability to suggest movement

A sudden attack on Plataea (an ally of Athens) by Thebes (an ally of Sparta) begins the Second Peloponnesian War

The renewal of the Peloponnesian War prompts Thucydides to begin a great work of contemporary history

Phidias creates a massive statue of Zeus, covered in gold and ivory, to stand in the temple at Olympia

A plague strikes Athens in the second year of the Peloponnesian War

Athenians vote to kill all the men on the captured island of Mytilene, but the next day change their mind - almost too late

Aristophanes wins first prize in Athens for his comedy The Acharnians

Socrates is now sufficiently prominent to be satirized in Clouds, a comedy by Aristophanes

The Greek philosopher Democritus declares that matter is composed of indivisible and indestructible atoms

The Athenians, capturing Melos, kill all the males of the island and sell the women and children into slavery

The Persians, renewing their interest in the Aegean, fund the Spartans in the building of a fleet to match that of Athens

The Greeks develop the three classical styles of column, the Doric, the Ionic and the Corinthian

A Carthaginian army lands near Marsala to begin the long involvement of Carthage in Sicily