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477 BC

The Spartan co-ruler Leotychides and the Athenian leader Themistocles lead a fleet and army to reoccupy northern Greece and to punish the aristocratic family of the Aleuads for having aided the Persians. Leotychides is caught accepting a bribe during the operations in Thessaly


Greece

478 BC

While Pausanias is occupying Byzantium, his arrogance and his adoption of Persian clothing and manners offends the allies and raises suspicions of disloyalty. Pausanias is recalled to Sparta, where he is tried and acquitted of the charge of treason, but he is not restored to his command.

479 bc

27 August — The Battle of Plataea in Boeotia ends the Persian invasions of Greece as the Persian general Mardonius is routed by the Greeks under Pausanias, nephew of the former Spartan King, Leonidas. The Athenian contingent is led by the repatriated Aristides. Mardonius is killed in the battle and the Greeks capture enormous amounts of booty. Thebes is captured shortly thereafter and the Theban collaborators executed by Pausanias.

480 BC

The Battle of Salamis brings victory to the Greeks, whose Athenian general Themistocles lures the Persians into the Bay of Salamis, between the Athenian port-city of Piraeus and the island of Salamis. The Greek triremes then attack furiously, ramming or sinking many Persian vessels and boarding others. The Greeks sink about 200 Persian vessels while losing only about 40 of their own. The rest of the Persians fleet is scattered, and as a result Xerxes has to postpone his planned land offensives for a year, a delay that gives the Greek city-states time to unite against him.

481 BC

The Persian King Xerxes I arrives at Sardis and begins to build up his great army and navy for the invasion of Greece. Egypt contributes 481 ships.

482 BC

Byzantine emperor Zeno I issues the Henotikon, an attempt to reconcile the differences between the supporters of Orthodoxy and Monophysitism.


Byzantine Empire

483 BC

Athenian archon Themistocles realises that the Greeks need to be able to beat the Persians at sea. To carry out this strategy, however, Athens needs far more warships (that is to say the newly developed, specialised triremes) than the 70 it has. Themistocles is initially opposed by other Athenian leaders. However, when the state-owned silver mines at Laurium become the site of a rich strike, Themistocles persuades the assembly, instead of "declaring a dividend," to devote the whole surplus to increasing the navy to a proposed 200 ships.

484 BC

Xerxes I quells the Egyptian revolt against Persian rule. He ravages the Delta region in the process and then appoints his brother Achaemenes as satrap (governor) of Egypt.
Despite an attempt at rebellion, the land and city of Babylon remains solidly under Persian rule.

485 BC

Darius I, one of the greatest rulers of the Achaemenid dynasty of the Persia, dies and is succeeded by his son, Xerxes I. During this time the Persian empire extends as far west as Macedonia and Libya and as far east as the Hyphasis (Beas) River; it stretches to the Caucasus Mountains and the Aral Sea in the north and to the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Desert in the south.

486 BC

During his third consulate, Roman consul Spurius Cassius Vecellinus proposes an agrarian law to assist needy plebeians, a measure violently opposed both by the patricians and by the wealthy plebeians, who have Cassius condemned and executed.