Plato establishes a school in Akademeia, a suburb of Athens

Central to Plato's philosophy is the theory that there are higher Forms of reality, of which our senses perceive only a transient shadow

A Greek text, attributed to Polybus, argues that the human body is composed of four humours

A Spartan army is overwhelmed at Leuctra by a smaller number of Thebans under Epaminondas

Aristotle, at the age of seventeen, comes to Athens to join Plato's academy

Philip II sets about making Macedon the most powerful state in Greece

Alexander the Great is born in Pella, the capital of his father Philip II, at the heart of the expanding Macedonian kingdom

Eudoxus of Cnidus proposes the concept of transparent spheres supporting the bodies visible in the heavens

Private financiers in Athens give loans, take deposits, change money from one currency to another and arrange credit for travellers

The earliest description of a pulley appears in a Greek text

The citizens of Olynthus abandon their houses, with elaborate mosaic floors, when their city is attacked by Philip of Macedon

Aristotle is employed in Macedon as tutor to the 13-year-old heir to the throne, Alexander

The theatre at Epidaurus is the earliest and best surviving example of a classical Greek stage and auditorium

Alexander the Great, at the age of sixteen, conducts his first successful military campaign – against the Thracians

The Macedonians develop the catapult as a siege engine for the armies of Philip II and Alexander the Great

Philip of Macedon defeats Athens and Thebes at Chaeronaea, giving him control of Greece

Philip of Macedon persuades most of the Greek city-states, brought together in Corinth, to agree to a military alliance with himself as leader

Before departing for the east, Alexander destroys Thebes and enslaves the Thebans for rebelling against the League of Corinth

Aristotle tackles wide-ranging subjects on a systematic basis, leaving to his successors an encyclopedia of contemporary thought

The Greek author Theophrastus writes On the History of Plants, the earliest surviving work on botany

Epicurus postulates a universe of indestructible atoms in which man himself is responsible for achieving a balanced life

The Colossus, a giant statue of Helios the sun god, is erected beside the harbour of Rhodes

On the small Greek island of Samos an astronomer, Aristarchus, comes to the startling conclusion that the earth is in orbit round the sun

Archimedes (it is said) leaps out of his bath shouting eureka ('I have found it') when he perceives how to test for relative density

To help the king of Syracuse extract water from the hold of a ship (so the story goes), Archimedes invents the screw now known by his name