Ancient wonders & empires

Outnumbered Athenian soldiers rout the Persian army on the plain of Marathon.

The Athenians run to the battlefield at full sprint in heavy armor — to deny Persian archers a stationary target.

The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. The battle was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia under King Darius I to subjugate Greece. The Greek army inflicted a crushing defeat on the more numerous Persians, marking a turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars.

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King Leonidas leads 300 Spartans — plus thousands of allied Greeks — against the massive Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae.

The 300 Spartans are accompanied by roughly 7,000 other Greeks, a detail conveniently omitted from most heroic retellings.

The Battle of Thermopylae was fought in 480 BC at Thermopylae between the Achaemenid Persian Empire under Xerxes and an alliance of Greek city-states led by Sparta under Leonidas I. Lasting over the course of three days, it was one of the most prominent battles of both the second Persian invasion of Greece and the wider Greco-Persian Wars.

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Alexander the Great founds the city of Alexandria on the Egyptian coast.

According to his biographer Plutarch, he lays out the city's streets using grain instead of chalk — and birds immediately eat the plan.

Alexandria is a major city in Egypt. Lying at the western edge of the Nile River Delta, it extends about 40 km (25 mi) along the country's northern coast. It is Egypt's principal seaport, the second largest city after Cairo, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in 331 BC by Alexander the Great, Alexandria is one of the largest and most important cities of antiquity and a leading hub for science, culture, and scholarship.

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Julius Caesar defeats Vercingetorix at the siege of Alesia, completing Rome's conquest of Gaul.

Caesar's engineers build not one but two concentric rings of fortifications around Alesia — one to trap the Gauls inside, one to fend off a relief army outside.

The Battle of Alesia or Siege of Alesia was the climactic military engagement of the Gallic Wars, fought around the Gallic oppidum of Alesia in modern France, a major centre of the Mandubii tribe. It was fought by the Roman army of Julius Caesar against a confederation of Gallic tribes united under the leadership of Vercingetorix of the Arverni. It was the last major engagement between Gauls and Romans, and is considered one of Caesar's greatest military achievements and a classic example of siege warfare and investment; the Roman army built dual lines of fortifications—an inner wall to keep the besieged Gauls in, and an outer wall to keep the Gallic relief force out. The Battle of Alesia marked the end of Gallic independence in the modern day territory of France and Belgium.

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Octavian is granted the title 'Augustus' by the Roman Senate, becoming Rome's first emperor.

He later boasts that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble — a claim that is, remarkably, close to the archaeological truth.

Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the founder of the Roman Empire and the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult and an era of imperial peace when the Roman world was largely free of armed conflict. The principate, a style of government in which the emperor showed nominal deference to the Senate, was established during his reign and lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century.

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A fire breaks out near the Circus Maximus and burns for six days, destroying large swathes of Rome.

Emperor Nero is actually 35 miles away in Antium when the fire starts — yet the rumour that he fiddled while Rome burned persists for centuries.

The Great Fire of Rome began on the evening of 18-19 July 64 AD. The fire started in the merchant shops around Rome's chariot stadium, Circus Maximus. After six days, the fire was brought under control, but before the damage could be assessed, the fire reignited and burned for another three days. In the aftermath of the fire, nearly three quarters of Rome had been destroyed.

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Mount Vesuvius erupts catastrophically, burying the city of Pompeii under meters of ash and pumice.

Pliny the Younger, watching from a safe distance, writes two letters describing the disaster in such precise detail that volcanologists still use the term 'Plinian eruption' today.

In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius, a stratovolcano located in the modern-day region of Campania, Italy, erupted, causing one of the deadliest eruptions in history. Vesuvius violently ejected a cloud of super-heated tephra and gases to a height of 33 km (21 mi), ejecting molten rock, pulverized pumice and hot ash at 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The event gives its name to the Vesuvian type of volcanic eruption, characterised by columns of hot gases and ash reaching the stratosphere, although the event also included pyroclastic flows associated with Peléan eruptions.

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Emperor Trajan dedicates a soaring marble column in his new forum, its shaft carved with a continuous spiral frieze of his Dacian wars.

The column contains 2,662 individual human figures — and a hollow interior staircase of 185 steps lit only by tiny slits in the marble.

Trajan's Column is a Roman triumphal column in Rome, Italy, that commemorates Roman emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars. It was probably constructed under the supervision of the architect Apollodorus of Damascus at the order of the Roman Senate. It is located in Trajan's Forum, north of the Roman Forum. Completed and dedicated on 12 May 113 AD, the freestanding column is most famous for its spiral bas relief, which depicts the wars between the Romans and Dacians. Its design has inspired numerous victory columns, both ancient and modern.

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Emperor Constantine and co-emperor Licinius issue the Edict of Milan, granting religious freedom throughout the Roman Empire.

The edict carefully avoids naming Christianity specifically — it grants freedom to 'all persons' to follow 'whatever religion each wished,' covering every faith.

The Edict of Milan was the 13 February 313 AD agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman Empire. Western Roman Emperor Constantine I and Emperor Licinius, who controlled the Balkans, met in Mediolanum and, among other things, agreed to change policies towards Christians following the edict of toleration issued by Emperor Galerius two years earlier in Serdica. The Edict of Milan gave Christianity legal status and a reprieve from persecution but did not make it the state church of the Roman Empire, which occurred in AD 380 with the Edict of Thessalonica, when Nicene Christianity received normative status.

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Attila the Hun leads his army into northern Italy but halts his advance and meets with Pope Leo I near the River Mincio.

Attila's army is reportedly ravaged by famine and disease at the time — yet for centuries the credit goes entirely to the pope's persuasive words.

The most feared conqueror of the age inexplicably spares the city of Rome after a single meeting, leaving historians puzzled ever since.