Darius demands earth and water
491 BCE · Event
Persian heralds tour Greece demanding the tokens of submission; most cities comply. Athens throws its heralds into a pit and Sparta into a well — 'dig them out yourselves' — acts of sacrilege that make the coming war a fight to the finish for both.
On these timelines: Greco-Persian Wars, Ancient Greece, Persia and Iran, Master
More from Greco-Persian Wars
- Persian invasions of Greece (499 BCE)
- Themistocles builds the fleet (483 BCE)
- Xerxes bridges the Hellespont (480 BCE)
- Xerxes burns Athens (480 BCE)
- Ionian Revolt (499 BCE)
- The burning of Sardis (498 BCE)
- Battle of Artemisium (480 BCE)
- The Peace of Callias (449 BCE)
Around 491 BCE
- Peloponnesian War (431 BCE)
- Gautama Buddha (563 BCE)
- Confucius (551 BCE)
- Achaemenid Persian Empire (550 BCE)
- Plato (428 BCE)
- Roman Republic founded (509 BCE)
- Cleisthenes' reforms (508 BCE)
- Mahabharata (400 BCE)
- Socrates (469 BCE)
- Babylonian Captivity of the Jews (586 BCE)