Under PhilipII, (359–336BC), Macedon expanded into the territory of the Paeonians, the Thracians and the Illyrians. Philip's son, Alexander the Great, (356–323BC) managed to briefly extend Macedonian power not only over the central Greek city-states but also to the Persian Empire, including Egypt and lands as far east as the fringes of India. The classical period conventionally ends at the death of Alexander in 323BC and the fragmentation of his empire, which was at this time divided among the Diadochi. The Republican period of Ancient Rome began with the overthrow of the Monarchy c.509BC and lasted over 450 years until its subversion through a series of civil wars, into the Principate form of government and the Imperial period. During the half millennium of the Republic, Rome rose from a regional power of the Latium to the dominant force in Italy and beyond. The unification of Italy under Roman hegemony was a gradual process, brought about in a series of conflicts of the 4th and 3rd centuries, the Samnite Wars, Latin War, and Pyrrhic War. Roman victory in the Punic Wars and Macedonian Wars established Rome as a super-regional power by the 2nd centuryBC, followed up by the acquisition of Greece and Asia Minor. This tremendous increase of power was accompanied by economic instability and social unrest, leading to the Catiline conspiracy, the Social War and the First Triumvirate, and finally the transformation to the Roman Empire in the latter half of the 1st centuryBC. Culturally, the Roman Empire was significantly Hellenized, but also saw the rise of syncretic "eastern" traditions, such as Mithraism, Gnosticism, and most notably Christianity.

Roberts, J. M.; Westad, Odd Arne (2013). The Penguin History of the World (Sixthed.). New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-1-84614-443-1.The Neo-Babylonian Empire, or Chaldea, was Babylonia from the 7th and 6th centuries BC. [34] Under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, it conquered Jerusalem. This empire also created the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the still-surviving Ishtar Gate as architectural embellishments of its capital at Babylon. [35] The political, philosophical, artistic, and scientific achievements of ancient Greek civilization formed alegacywith unparalleled influence on Western civilization. Greek political ideas have influenced modern forms of government, Greek pottery and sculpture have inspired artists for millennia, and Greek epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry is still read around the world. The Roman Empire began to decline in the crisis of the third century. Late antiquity also saw the rise of Christianity under Constantine I, finally ousting the Roman imperial cult with the Theodosian decrees of393. Successive invasions of Germanic tribes finalized the Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply classical history or antiquity, [1] is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD [note 1] comprising the interwoven civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome known together as the Greco-Roman World, centered on the Mediterranean Basin. It is the period in which ancient Greece and ancient Rome flourished and wielded huge influence throughout much of Europe, North Africa, and West Asia. [2] [3] The Ta-Seti kingdom in Nubia to the south of Egypt was conquered by Egyptian rulers around 3100 BC, but by 2500 BC the Nubians had created a new kingdom further south, known as the Kingdom of Kush, centred on the upper Nile with a capital at Kerma. [77] In the Egyptian New Kingdom period, Kush once more was conquered by Egypt. However, by 1100 BC a new kingdom of Kush had formed, with a capital at Napata. Nubian rulers conquered Egypt around 760 BC and retained control for about a century. [78] Aksum and ancient Ethiopia [ edit ] The Ezana Stone records negus Ezana's conversion to Christianity and conquests of his neighbors.

BC: King Aristagoras of Miletus incites all of Hellenic Asia Minor to rebel against the Persian Empire, beginning the Greco-Persian Wars. BC: Oldest known surviving literature: Sumerian texts from Abu Salabikh, including the Instructions of Shuruppak and the Kesh temple hymn. [7] [8] [9] [10] Main article: Classical Greece Delian League ("Athenian Empire"), right before the Peloponnesian War in 431BC BC: Burebista is assassinated in the same year like Julius Caesar and his empire breaks into 4 and later 5 kingdoms in modern-day Romania. BC: Death of Spartacus. End of the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic.

Many writers have attempted to put a specific date on the symbolic "end" of antiquity with the most prominent dates being the deposing of the last Western Roman Emperor in 476, [21] [22] the closing of the last Platonic Academy in Athens by the Eastern Roman Emperor JustinianI in529, [23] and the conquest of much of the Mediterranean by the new Muslim faith from 634 to 718. [24] These Muslim conquests, of Syria (637), Egypt (639), Cyprus (654), North Africa (665), Hispania (718), Southern Gaul (720), Crete (820), and Sicily (827), Malta (870) (and the sieges of the Eastern Roman capital, First Arab Siege of Constantinople (674–78) and Second Arab Siege of Constantinople (717–18)) severed the economic, cultural, and political links that had traditionally united the classical cultures around the Mediterranean, ending antiquity (see Pirenne Thesis). [24] The Byzantine Empire in 650 after the Arabs conquered the provinces of Syria and Egypt. At the same time early Slavs settled in the Balkans. Roman Empire at largest extent under Trajan after having conquered modern-day Romania, Iraq and Armenia. Drews, Robert (1995). The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe Ca. 1200 BC. Princeton University Press. p.3. ISBN 0691025916. Main article: Ancient Egypt Khafre's Pyramid ( 4th dynasty) and Great Sphinx of Giza (c. 2500 BC or perhaps earlier)

Stager, Lawrence E. (1998). "Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel". In Coogan, Michael D. (ed.). The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513937-2. Wright, David Curtis (2011). The History of China (2nded.). Santa Barbara: Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-37748-8. BC: The Old Babylonian text of the Epic of Gilgamesh is written. Possibly the oldest significant work of literature. The early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago. [4] Evidence for the use of fire has been dated as early as 1.8 million years ago, a date which is contested, [5] with generally accepted evidence for the controlled use of fire dating to 780,000 years ago. Actual use of hearths first appears 400,000 years ago. [6] Dates for the emergence of Homo sapiens (modern humans) range from 250,000 [7] to 160,000 years ago, [8] with the varying dates being based on DNA studies [7] and fossils respectively. [8] Some 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa. They reached Australia about 45,000 years ago, southwestern Europe about the same time, southeastern Europe and Siberia around 40,000 years ago, and Japan about 30,000 years ago. Humans migrated to the Americas about 15,000 years ago. [9]Mendis, Ranjan Chinthaka (1999). The Story of Anuradhapura. Kotte: Lakshmi Mendis. ISBN 978-955-96704-0-7. The Sasanian Empire began when the Parthian Empire ended in AD 224. Their rulers claimed the Achaemenids as ancestors and set up their capital at Ctesiphon in Mesopotamia. Their period of greatest military expansion occurred under Shapur I, who by the time of his death in AD 272 had defeated Roman imperial armies and set up buffer states between the Sasanians and Roman Empires. After Shapur, the Sasanians were under more pressure from the Kushans to their east as well as the Roman then Byzantine Empire to its west. However, the Sasanians rebuilt and founded numerous cities and their merchants traveled widely and introduced crops such as sugar, rice, and cotton into the Iranian plateau. But in AD 651, the last Sassanid emperor was killed by the expanding Islamic Arabs. [47] Hittites [ edit ] Largest expansion of Kingdom of Armenia under Tigranes the Great BC: Construction of the Great Pyramid of Cholula, the world's largest pyramid by volume (the Great Pyramid of Giza built 2560 BC Egypt stands 146.5 meters, making it 91.5 meters taller), begins in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico. Hodges, Henry; Newcomer, Judith (1992). Technology in the Ancient World. Barnes & Noble. ISBN 978-0-88029-893-3.