527 Death of Pisistratos – succeeded by his son Hippias (with his brother Hipparchus?)
514 Assassination of Hipparchus – Hippias becomes the model paranoid tyrant
508 Cleisthenes’ reforms of the structure of Athenian tribes (paving the way for democracy)
c.525 Birth of Aeschylus
495 Birth of Sophocles
490 Battle of Marathon: Persia attacks Greece and is repulsed
486 Comic competition introduced into City Dionysia
484 Birth of Euripides; Aeschylus wins his first victory
480 Battles of Salamis and Thermopylae: Persia tries again, with no better results
472 Aeschylus' Persians
468 Sophocles wins his first victory, with his first production (including Triptolemus, which does not survive).
467 Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes, first prize
c.463 Aeschylus' Suppliant Women
458 Aeschylus' Oresteia (Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides)
c.457 Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound
c.456 Death of Aeschylus
455 Euripides competes for the first time, and finishes third
c.450 Sophocles' Ajax
c.442 Sophocles' Antigone
438 Euripides' Alcestis, second prize
431 Beginning of Peloponnesian War, Athens vs. Sparta. Pericles as General. Production of Euripides' Medea, third prize
c.430 Euripides' Children of Heracles. Sophocles' Women of Trachis
429 Plague decimates Athens, Pericles dies.
428 Euripides' Hippolytus, first prize
c.425 Euripides' Andromache
424 Euripides' Hecuba
424 Thucydides’ defeat in command of squadron of seven ships at Thasos. He was condemned to death, but took refuge in exile.
423 Euripides' Suppliant Women
c.421 Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus
c.420 Euripides' Electra and Sophocles' Electra; which of these plays is earlier is unknown
416 Euripides' Heracles
415 Euripides' Trojan Women, second prize
414 Euripides' Iphigeneia among the Taurians
413 Euripides' Ion
412 Euripides' Helen
411 Oligarchic coup; government in exile established in Samos; democratic counter-coup.
410 Euripides' Phoenician Women; Cyclops may have been the satyr play
409 Sophocles' Philoctetes
408 Euripides' Orestes
405 Deaths of Euripides and Sophocles, in that order, a few months apart. Posthumous production of Euripides' Bacchae and Iphigeneia in Aulis, first prize
404 Fall of Athens, end of Peloponnesian War
403 Restoration of Athenian democracy
401 Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, produced posthumously
Theatre of Dionysus in Athens
