Sparta sends an army against the Persians…

Daily farming scenes from a Theban tomb, painted around 400, depict Egyptians breaking earth clods and sowing by hand, using oxen for plowing.

Egypt becomes independent of Persian rule concurrent with the Achaemenid civil war.

Sparta's old helot problem recurs in 399 BCE with the attempted revolt of Cinadon.

This demonstrates Sparta's insecurity even in its local dominance in Laconia and Messenia, despite the glory of Sparta's victory over the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami, duly commemorated at Delphi, and the personal prestige of Lysander, who may even receive at this time some kind of cult at Samos (though perhaps only after his death in 395 BCE).

Moreover, Sparta's former Peloponnesian and extra-Peloponnesian allies are unhappy with what they see as alarming extensions of Spartan territorial interests.

Lysander, having failed in his efforts to make the Spartan kingship an elective monarchy, supports the Eurypontid Agesilaus in his claim to the disputed throne.

Succeeding his half-brother Agis II as Agesilaus II, one of the two Spartan kings in 399 BCE, he ignores Lysander once he is safely enthroned.

The Sophists begin their grammatical analysis of Greek around 400 or a little earlier.

Contrary philosopher-educator Socrates, about seventy in 399, is accused by the Athenian government of impiety and of corrupting the youth of the city by questioning tradition.

The example of undisciplined and restless ambition displayed by the charming, brilliant, but unscrupulous Alcibiades, who could not practice his master's virtues, strengthens the charge.

On trial for his life before an Athenian jury, Socrates (according to Plato's later Apology, whose title is from the Greek word for defense) declares himself thoroughly innocent of the charges against him, countering that his accusers are motivated by resentment caused by his deflation of their pretended wisdom.

His own wisdom, he says, consists of knowing that he is not wise, and his relentless questioning of people's assumptions is prompted by an inner voice, a “daimon,” which must be obeyed, regardless of the consequences.

Instead of being punished by the state, it should reward him for acting as its "gadfly."

The unexamined life, says Socrates, is not worth living. (Xenophon offers a different account of the defense in his Apology of Socrates.)

The government convicts Socrates and orders him to take his own life by poison.

Following the trial, his friends arrange for him to escape, but rather than do wrong to the city by flouting its laws he remains in prison and suffers the death penalty. (Plato's Phaedro records the philosopher's death scene.)

Socrates' famously shrewish wife, Xanthippe, dies about the same time.

Athenian soldier Xenophon, a follower of Socrates in his youth, had left Athens in 401 to join the mercenary army raised by Cyrus the Younger in his attempt to overthrow Artaxerxes.

Following Cyrus’ defeat and death at Cunaxa, the ten-thousand strong Greek contingent, led by Clearchus, had made a desperate retreat from Babylon through hostile territory to the Black Sea. (Xenophon survives to produce a lively firsthand account of the campaign in the Anabasis.)

Plato, whose parents were both from distinguished Athenian families-his stepfather, an associate of Pericles, had been an active participant in the political and cultural life of Periclean Athens-had apparently been destined for an aristocratic political career.

The excesses of Athenian political life seem to have led him to abandon these ambitions, however.

Socrates, who had been a close friend of Plato's family, had a profound influence on the young man (as his writings will later attest).

Following Socrates' ingestion of a lethal dose of hemlock, his twenty-nine-year-old pupil retires from active Athenian life to begin traveling around the Mediterranean.

Dionysius is a brutal military despot who, over the past eight years, has used loyal mercenaries to ruthlessly consolidate and expand his power in Sicily.

War, which includes large-scale munitions manufacture, is essential to his economy.

He has built a wall around Syracuse and fortified Epipolae.

The Greek citizens of Naxos, Catana, and Leontini have been removed from their cities; many of them have been enslaved and their homes given to Sicilian and Italian mercenaries.

He is now ready to lead his vast army against Carthage in an effort to roll back the Carthaginian power in Sicily and keep his Syracusan citizenry in line.

Dionysius sends an embassy to Carthage in 398 BCE to declare war unless they agree to give up all the Greek cities under their control.

Before the embassy returns from Carthage, Dionysius lets loose his mercenaries on Carthaginians living in Syracusan lands, putting them to the sword and plundering their property.

Then he sets out for Motya with his army, accompanied by two hundred warships and five hundred transports carrying supplies and war machines.

Greek cities under Carthaginian control rebel as Dionysius and his army march west along the southern coast of Sicily.

The Greeks kill Carthaginians living in their cities, loot their property, and send soldiers to join Dionysius.

Sicels, Sikans and the city of Messene also send contingents so that by the time Dionysius reaches Motya, his army has swelled to eighty thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry.

Dionysius sends his navy under his brother Leptines to blockade Motya, and himself moves with the army to Eryx, which surrenders to him.

Even the city of Threame declares for him, leaving only the cities of Panormus, Solus, Ancyrae, Segesta and Entella loyal to Carthage in Sicily.

Dionysius raids the surrounding areas near the first three, then places Segesta and Entella under siege.

After these cities had repulsed several assaults, Dionysius himself returns to Motya to oversee the progress of the siege, assuming that the cities would surrender once Motya was captured.

Little is known of the activities of Carthage during 405 -397 BCE except that a plague had swept through Africa, which had been carried by the returning army in 405 BCE, weakening Carthage.

Himilco is again given the task of responding to the threat.

While raising a mercenary army (Carthage does not maintain a standing army) Himilco sends ten triremes to raid Syracuse itself.

The raiders enter the Great Harbor of Syracuse and destroy all the ships they can find.

Himilco next mans one hundred triremes with picked crews and sails to Selinus, arriving at night.

From there, the Punic navy sails to Motya the following day and falls on the transports beached near Lilybaeum, destroying all that lay at anchor.

Then the Carthaginian fleet moves into the area between Motya and the peninsula to the west of the lagoon, trapping the beached Greek fleet on the northern shallows of the lagoon.

It is unknown why Himilco chose to go after the transports instead of attacking the beached Greek warships to the north of Motya.

The loss of the war fleet would have forced Dionysius to lift the siege, giving Himilco a chance to carry the war to Syracuse.

Dionysius in response launches his ships with a great number of archers and slingers and supports them with his land-based catapults.

The first nontorsion artillery (i.e., artillery using mechanical means to winch back, by means of a ratchet, a bow of unusual solidity but of a basically conventional conception) is attested from the Sicily of this period.

While these duel with the archers and slingers on board the Carthaginian triremes, taking a heavy toll and preventing Himilco from reaching the beached ships, Dionysius has his men construct a road of wooden planks on the northern isthmus, on which eighty triremes are then hauled to the open sea to the north of the isthmus.

Once properly manned, these ships sail south along the peninsula.

The Carthaginian fleet now facing encirclement, Himilco chooses not to fight a two-front battle against superior numbers, and sails away to Carthage, having accomplished little except making a sizable dent in Syracusan shipping.

Himilco takes the time to negotiate with the Campanians at Aetna, offering them to switch sides.

They had given Dionysius hostages and their best troops are still serving with the Greek army, so they choose to stay loyal to the Greek tyrant.

The victory at Catana, which enables the Carthaginians to proceed and lay siege to Syracuse in 397 BCE, has not only reduced the naval power of Syracuse, but it has also decreased the strength of the Greeks army by causing other Sicilian Greeks to desert Dionysius.

Himilco now besieges Syracuse.

Dionysius, once his engineers have completed the mole, brings forward his siege towers, which are taller than the walls of Motya and equal the height of the tallest buildings in the city.

A storm of arrows and missiles from archers and catapults clears the wall of defenders, then battering rams are employed against the gates.

The Phoenicians counter by putting men on ship masts, and protecting them with breastworks built on the walls.

These "Crows’ nests" are then put beyond the walls, and from these, flax, covered in burning pitch, is dropped on the siege engines, burning them.

However, the Greeks learn to douse the flames with fire fighting teams, and the engines finally reaches the walls despite Carthaginian efforts.

As the Greek troops advance, the Phoenicians launch a storm of arrows and stones from the rooftops and houses, thinning the ranks of on the attackers.

The Greeks push the siege towers next to the houses closest to the walls, and sends troops on the roofs using gangways, who force their way into the houses.

A fierce hand-to-hand struggle ensues, the desperate resistance of the Phoenicians (who expect no mercy from the Greeks) taking a heavy toll on the attackers.

After several days of dawn-to-dusk fighting, Dionysius sends a picked group of mercenaries under a Thruian named Archylus at night with ladders to secure vantage points.

The commandos manage to secure the positions before the Phoenicians discover their tactic, and the Greeks overcome all resistance.

Dionysius had intended to secure as many prisoners as possible for the slave market, but the Greeks vent their frustrations by indiscriminate killing of the population.

Dionysius can only save those who seek refuge in the temples.

In the aftermath of battle, he crucifies all the Greeks who had fought on the side of Carthage; it is not known if these were mercenaries employed by Carthage or citizens of Motya.

He sacks the city, divides the vast spoils among his troops, and garrisons the ruins with an army made mostly of Sicels under an officer named Biton, then marches off to continue the siege of Segesta and Entella.

It is not known what he did there, but the cities continued to resist.

The majority of the fleet sailed back to Syracuse.

Himilco responds decisively, leading an expedition which not only reclaims Motya, but also captures Messina.

Motya as a city will never be rebuilt, however.

Himilco chooses to resettle the survivors at Lilybaeum, which will become the main base of Carthage in future and will never fall to siege or assault by Greeks or Romans while in Carthaginian possession.