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492 BCE

This year falls in the Classical antiquity (c. 500 BCE–500 CE). Large empires rule much of Eurasia, among them Persia, the Maurya and Gupta states of India, Han China and Rome. Classical Greece, the spread of Buddhism and the rise of Christianity belong to this era, which ends as the western Roman Empire falls in the fifth century CE.

Within fifteen years

Philosopher · Classical antiquity · GreeceProtagorasc. 490–c. 420 BCGreek Sophist from Abdera who taught rhetoric at Athens and charged fees for it. He is remembered for the line that man is the measure of all things. He lived about 490 to 420 BC, and none of his books survive whole.

Ruler · Classical antiquity · GreecePericlesc. 495–429 BCAthenian statesman and general, dominant in Athens from about 461 to his death in 429 BC. Under him Athens reached the height of its power and built the Parthenon, and democracy paid its citizens to serve on juries and row in the fleet. He died of the plague in the second year of the Peloponnesian War.

Civilization · Classical Greece · GreeceClassical Athens5th–4th century BCThe city-state of Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. A container for the philosophers and texts placed there, not a history of the city.

Era · Classical Greece · GreeceClassical Greece5th–4th century BC