387 bce

Events

By place

Greece

• Antalcidas, commander of the Spartan navy, actively assists Persia against Athens. After escaping from the Athenian blockade at Abydos, he attacks and defeats a small Athenian force, then joins his fleet with a supporting fleet sent from Syracuse. With this force, which is soon further augmented with ships supplied by the Persian satraps of the region, he sails to the Hellespont, where he is in a position to cut off the trade routes that bring grain to Athens.
• The Persians, unnerved by some of Athens' actions, including supporting King Evagoras of Cyprus and Pharaoh Hakor of Egypt (both of whom are at war with Persia), decide that their policy of weakening Sparta by supporting its enemies is no longer wise. So Antalcidas enters into negotiations with the Persian satrap Tiribazus and reaches an agreement under which the Persians will enter into the war on the Spartan side if the allies refuse to make peace.
• With Antalcidas' Spartan fleet in control of the Hellespont, Sparta deprives Athens of her Bosporus trade and tolls. The Athenians, mindful of being in a similarly serious situation as when defeated in the Peloponnesian War less than two decades before and facing Persian intervention on Sparta's side, are thereby ready to make peace.
• With the support of the Persian King Artaxerxes II, King Agesilaus II of Sparta concludes "the King's Peace" (or the Peace of Antalcidas, after the Spartan envoy and commander) with Greek allied forces in a manner favourable to Sparta. Under the Peace, all the Asiatic mainland and Cyprus remain under Persian control, Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros remain Athenian dependencies, and all the other Greek states are to receive autonomy. By the King's Peace, the Persians become key players in Greek politics.
• Under the threat of Spartan intervention, Thebes disbands its league, and Argos and Corinth end their shared government. Corinth, deprived of its strong ally, is incorporated back into Sparta's Peloponnesian League. After eight years of fighting, the Corinthian War is at an end.

Sicily

• With the aid of the Lucanians, Dionysius I of Syracuse devastates the territories of Thurii, Croton, and Locri in mainland Italy. When Rhegium falls, Dionysius becomes the chief power in Greek Southern Italy. He then turns his attention to the Adriatic.
• Plato is forced by Dionysius to leave Syracuse after having exercised the right of free speech too broadly. Plato returns to Athens, outside which he founds a school.

Roman Republic

• Rome begins to rebuild after being invaded by the Gauls under Brennus.
• Marcus Furius Camillus introduces the Capitoline Games (Ludi Capitolini) in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus, and in commemoration of Rome's Capitol not being captured by the Gauls.

Births

Deaths

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