Events prior to the foundation of the Roman Republic and the reforms of Cleisthenes at Athens.

c4000-2700 - development of megalithic burial cultures on the Atlantic coast; at Boyne-Orkney, Morbihan, and Tagus.

c2700-2200 - Old Kingdom in Egypt

c2700-2000 - Summerian period in Mesopotamia

c2200-1450 - Middle Minoan palace culture

c2130-1800 - Middle Kingdom in Egypt

c2100 - probably arrival of Mycenean Greeks in Greece

c2000-1700 - Old Babylonian period in Mesopotamia

c2000-1400 - development of elites in Wessex, Amorica and Ireland

c1600-1200 - development of Mycenean palace culture

c1575-1000 - New Kingdom in Egypt

c1450 - Mycenean domination of the Agean

c1400 - beginning of Assyrian domination of central Mesopotamia

1352-1336 - Reign of Amenhotep IV / Akhenaten

1279-1213 - Reign of Ramses II.

c1200 - Hittite Empire destroyed

c1000-750 - age of Phoenician expansion

814 - traditional date of the foundation of Carthage

c800 - foundation of Gadir (Cadiz), Phoenician trading city; trade with Tartessos

776 - first Olympic games

775-650 - Greek colonisation in the western mediterranian

753 - traditional date of the foundation of Rome

734-680 - Lelantine war between Chalcis and Eretria

730-710 - Spartan conquest of Messenia

720 - Sargon of Assyria conquers Syria, Israel (722)

c700-400 - La Tene / Hallstatt period of central European Celtic culture

664 - Greeks begin to penetrate Egypt as mercenaries and traders

612-609 - Fall of Nineveh - division of Assyrian Empire between Media and Babylon

600 - Foundation of Massalia by Phocaeans

595-586 - first Sacred War for the control of Delphi

587 - capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon

559-530 - Cyrus founds Persian Empire

545 - conquest of the Ionian Greeks by Persians

540 - Battle of Alalia - Carthaginians and Etruscans check Greek expansion in western Mediterranian

512 - Darius conquers Thrace

509 - Foundation of Roman Republic

Key sources:

The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Shaw, Oxford, 2000)

The Oxford Illustrated History of Greece and the Hellenistic World (Boardman, Oxford, 1986)

The Mediterranean in the Ancient World (Braudel, Penguin, 2002)

Facing the Ocean - the Atlantic and its Peoples (Cunliffe, Oxford, 2001)

Mesopotamia - the Invention of the City (Leick, Penguin, 2001)