440 BC

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Events

By place

Greece

• Samos, an autonomous member of the Delian League and one of Athens' principal allies with a substantial fleet of its own, quarrels with Miletus and appeals to Athens for assistance. Pericles decides in favour of Miletus, so Samos revolts. Pericles then sails to Samos with a fleet to overthrow its oligarchic government and install a democratic one. Sparta threatens to interfere. However, at a congress of the Peloponnesian League, its members vote not to intervene on behalf of Samos against Athens.

Roman Republic

• A famine strikes in Rome.

China

• Zhou kao wang becomes King of the Zhou Dynasty of China.

By topic

Physics

• Democritus proposes the existence of indivisible particles, which he calls atoms.

Art

• Polykleitos completes one of his greatest statues, the Doryphorus (The Spear Bearer) (approximate date).
• The stela, Demeter, Persephone and Triptolemos, from Eleusis, is made (approximate date). It is now kept at the National Archeological Museum in Athens.
• A temple for Poseidon is erected in Sounion.

Births

*

Deaths

• Ducetius, a Hellenized leader of the Sicels and founder of a united Sicilian state

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