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This webpage reproduces an appendix to
The Rulers of the South

by
Francis Marion Crawford

published by MacMillan & Co. Ltd.
New York and London
1900

The text, and illustrations except as noted,
are in the public domain.

This page has been carefully proofread
and I believe it to be free of errors.
If you find a mistake though,
please let me know!

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 p377  Chronological Table

Volume I

1200 (about) Farming developed by the Sicelians.
800 (about) Cumae founded by the Greeks.
735 Naxos founded by the Chalcidians.
734 Syracuse founded by the Corinthians.
721 Sybaris founded by the Achaeans.
715 Crotona founded by the Achaeans.
708 Tarentum founded by Spartans, called Partheniae.
700 (about) Catania, Leontini, and Zancle founded by Chalcidians and Ionians.
700 (about) Megara Hyblaea founded by the Dorians.
700 (about) Rhegium founded by the Messenians.
700 (about) Metapontum, Poseidonia, and Terina founded by the Achaeans.
700 (about) Selinus founded by Dorians from Megara.
690 Gela founded by Dorians from Rhodes.
648 Himera founded by Ionians.
580 Akragas founded by Dorians.
570 (about) Pythagoras born at Samos.
485 Gelon becomes tyrant of Syracuse.
480 Hamilcar of Carthage besieges Himera.
478 Hiero succeeds Gelon as tyrant of Syracuse.
473 Pindar visits the court of Hiero.
468 Death of Hiero and accession of Thrasybulus.
467 Simonides dies at Syracuse.
 p378  465 Syracuse, Akragas, etc., become independent commonwealths.
461 Ducetius heads a rising of Sicelians.
456 Aeschylus dies at Gela.
415 Athenian expedition against Syracuse, led by Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus.
413 The Syracusans, led by Gylippus the Spartan, defeat the Athenians.
409 The Carthaginians, led by the second Hannibal, take Selinus and Himera.
406 Hermocrates returns from exile, and is killed at Syracuse.
406 Hannibal dies of the plague, and Akragas surrenders to his father Himilcon.
405 Dionysius becomes tyrant of Syracuse.
397 Dionysius declares war against Carthage.
395 Dionysius defeats the Carthaginians and destroys their fleet.
367 Death of Dionysius, and accession of his son, Dionysius II.
356 Dionysius II dethroned by his brother-in‑law, Dion.
353 Dion assassinated by Callippus.
346 Second tyranny of Dionysius II.
343 Timoleon deposes Dionysius II and interrupts the tyranny.
339 Timoleon defeats the Carthaginians.
337 Death of Timoleon.
317 Agathocles makes himself tyrant.
289 Death of Agathocles.
287 Archimedes born.
278 Pyrrhus, called in by the Syracusans, defeats the Carthaginians.
276 Pyrrhus leaves Sicily.
 p379  270 Hiero II made king of Syracuse.
270 (about) Theocritus is at the court of Hiero.
265 The Mamertines appeal from Messina to Rome for aid.
264 First Punic war begins, called in Rome "the Sicilian war."
262 The Romans besiege Akragas, thenceforth known as Agrigentum.
260 First Roman fleet built.
255 The Romans, led by Regulus, are totally defeated by the Carthaginians.
254 The Romans take Drepanon, thenceforth known as Drepanum.
253 The Romans lose a fleet.
242 The Romans take Lilybaeum.
215 Hiero II dies, and is succeeded by his grandson, Hieronymus.
213 The Romans massacre the inhabitants of Henna.
212 Syracuse taken by Marcellus.
212 Archimedes slain by a common soldier after the fall of Syracuse.
210 The Romans take Agrigentum, and Sicily becomes a Roman province.
202 Scipio of Africa assembles his fleet at Lilybaeum before the battle of Zama.
139 Sicilian slaves revolt against the Romans.
132 Publius Rupilius, the consul, puts down the first servile insurrection.
104 Insurrection in Campania led by the knight Vettius.
99 Manlius Aquillius, the consul, finally crushes out the servile revolts.
79 Cicero is quaestor in Sicily.
73 Verres obtains the propraetor­ship of Sicily by lot.
 p380  70 Verres is tried in Rome, and retires to Marseilles.
47 Julius Caesar assembles his fleet at Lilybaeum for his African campaign.
43 Sextus Pompeius becomes master of all Sicily.
39 Treaty between Sextus Pompeius, Octavian, and Mark Antony signed at Baiae.
36 Sextus Pompeius expelled by Octavian.
21 Augustus, formerly Octavian, visits Sicily.
A.D.
40 Saint Pancras, first bishop of Sicily, said to have been ordained by Saint Peter.
126 Hadrian visits Sicily.
164 Saint Victor and Saint Corona martyred under Marcus Aurelius.
252 Saint Agatha and three others martyred by the praetor Quintianus.
280 Syracuse plundered by roving Franks.
284 Seventy-five Christians martyred under Diocletian.
307 Saint Lucy martyred at Syracuse under Galerius.
310 Saint Nympha martyred under Galerius.
410 Alaric the Goth dies at Cosenza in Calabria.
440 Sicily laid waste by the Vandals under Genseric.
456 The Vandals defeated by the Romans near Agrigentum.
475 Peace concluded between the Vandals and Goths under Genseric and Odoacer.

 p387  Volume II

451 The Synod of Chalcedon confirms the action of the Synod of Constantinople (381), which gave the Bishop of Rome precedence over all others.
472 Ricimer the Goth, who had captured Rome, dies.
475 Romulus Augustulus created Emperor of the West.
476 Romulus Augustulus deposed by Odoacer, the Goth.
488 Theodoric the Ostrogoth invades Italy.
489 Theodoric overcomes Odoacer in battle at Verona.
493 Theodoric murders Odoacer and proclaims himself King of Italy.
500 (about) A basilica dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel, at Monte Gargano, in Manfredonia.
526 Theodoric puts Boethius and Symmachus to death.
526 Theodoric succeeded by his daughter Amalasuntha.
527 Justinian becomes Emperor of the East.
535 Amalasuntha assassinated, and Justinian sends Belisarius to avenge her death.
535 Belisarius takes Palermo and Naples. Sicily becomes part of the Eastern Empire.
536 Rome besieged by the Goths, who are forced to retire by Belisarius.
 p388  540 Belisarius leaves Italy.
540 (about) Gregory the Great born.
544 Totila the Goth besieges and takes Naples.
546 Totila besieges and takes Rome, but evacuates it, and it is reoccupied by Belisarius.
549 Totila takes Reggio, crosses the straits, and ravages Sicily.
549 Belisarius returns to Constantinople, and Totila again seizes Rome.
552 Narses defeats the Goths in battle, and Totila is slain.
553 Narses expels the Goths, and Italy is again part of the Eastern Empire.
568 Italy first invaded by the Lombards.
570 Mohammed born.
590 Autharis, the Lombard, dies at Ticinum.
590 Gregory the Great becomes Pope.
610 (about) Mohammed begins to propagate his doctrines.
622 The Hejira, or flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina.
652 The Mohammedans raid and despoil Sicily.
668 The Emperor Constans murdered in his bath at Syracuse by a slave.
717 The Emperor Leo the Isaurian decrees the removal of all images from churches.
766 Antiochus, governor of Sicily, martyred at Constantinople for refusing to obey the decree against images.
772 Jacob, Bishop of Catania, suffers martyrdom for the same cause.
787 The Empress Irene revokes Leo's decree against images.
826 The troops in Sicily rise against the Emperor Michael Balbus.
 p389  827 Sicily invaded by a Saracen army.
829 Mineo and Mazzara taken by the Saracens.
831 Messina taken by the Saracens.
832 Palermo taken by the Saracens after a disastrous siege.
842 Sicily ravaged by a plague of locusts.
842 Italy invaded by the Saracens, who settle at Bari.
845 The fortresses of Modica taken by the Saracens.
845 A Saracen fleet defeated by the united forces of Amalfi, Gaeta, and Sorrento, led by Duke Sergius of Naples.
846 Nine thousand Greeks slain by the Saracens before Castrogiovanni.
847 Leontini taken by the Saracens.
848 Ragusa taken by the Saracens.
848 Italy suffers from a great famine.
849 A Mohammedan army attacks Rome and is defeated by Pope Leo IV.
854 Butera besieged by the Saracens.
858 Aghlab, first Mohammedan governor of Sicily, dies at Palermo.
859 The Emir Abas, second Mohammedan governor of Sicily, overruns the country, and takes Castrogiovanni.
863 (about) A quarrel between the Bishop of Syracuse and the Patriarch of Constantinople leads to the Schism of the East and West, which divides the Greek and Catholic churches.
870 Malta taken by the Saracens.
872 The Saracens attempt to take Salerno, but are defeated.
878 Syracuse taken and laid waste by the Saracens.
 p390  950 (about) Ibn Haukal, an Arab traveller and writer, visits Palermo.
995 (about) Forty Norman pilgrims rout a Saracen host outside Salerno, and on their return invite other Norman nobles to occupy Italy.
1019 The Normans, led by Raoul de Toëni, and the Lombards, under Meles, are outnumbered and defeated by the Byzantines, on Hannibal's battlefield of Cannae.
1030 Rainulf builds and fortifies Aversa, near Naples, the first Norman city in Italy.
1034 Civil war in Italy, and the Saracens ask the Greeks to intervene.
1038 An army of Greek mercenaries, and a small band of Normans, cross the straits, and defeat the Saracens at Messina.
1039 Guaimar, Greek Duke of Salerno, takes possession of Amalfi, and afterwards of Sorrento.
1041 The Normans defeat the Greeks in three pitched battles, in spite of heavy odds.
1042 Maniaces, the Greek General, is unable to make his soldiers face the Normans.
1043 Quarrel about the lands of Monte Cassino, between Pandolph the Wolf, Guaimar of Salerno, and Rainulf of Aversa.
1046 Apulia revolts against Constantinople.
1046 The Emperor Henry III makes Clement II Pope.
1047 The Emperor and the Pope attempt to pacify and organize Southern Italy, without success.
1052 Guaimar, Duke of Salerno, murdered by men of Amalfi.
1053 Pope Leo IX dies, and the division between the Eastern and Western Churches becomes permanent.
 p391  1053 The Normans, led by Humphrey of Apulia, Richard of Aversa, and Robert Guiscard, defeat the Germans and Lombards in battle near Monte Gargano.
1057 Robert Guiscard succeeds his brother Humphrey as Count of Apulia.
1058 Pope Nicholas II visits Apulia, and returns to Rome at the head of a Norman army.
1060 The Norman Count Roger, afterwards known as "the Great Count," with sixty knights, raids Sicily from Reggio.
1061 Count Roger, with four hundred and forty knights, captures Messina.
1061 Count Roger marries Judith, daughter of William of Evreux, at Mileto.
1062 Count Roger and his wife besieged by the Saracens at Troina.
1064 Count Roger and Robert Guiscard make a futile attempt to take Palermo.
1068 Count Roger wins a decisive battle over the Saracens at Misilmeri, near Palermo.
1068 Robert Guiscard puts down an insurrection of the Greeks in Apulia.
1071 Robert Guiscard takes Bari, after a long siege.
1072 Robert Guiscard and Count Roger besiege and take Palermo.
1073 Robert Guiscard is desperately ill, but recovers.
1083 Robert Guiscard takes an army as far as Rome, burns half the city, and routs the Emperor Henry IV.
1084 Robert Guiscard dies at Durazzo.
1085 Calabria invaded by the Arab Ben Arwet.
1086 Count Roger defeats and kills Ben Arwet at Syracuse.
 p392  1089 Judith, wife of Count Roger, dies.
1091 Noto capitulates, which completes the Norman conquest of Sicily.
1091 Count Roger takes Malta.
1094 Count Roger helps his nephew, Roger, to repress the rebellion of Grantmesnil, in Castrovillari.
1101 Roger the Great Count dies at Mileto.
1127 Roger of Sicily, son of the Great Count, takes possession of Apulia.
1130 Roger crowned King of Sicily at Palermo.
1139 King Roger takes Pope Innocent II prisoner at San Germano, and obtains investiture of Sicily, Apulia, and Capua.
1149 King Roger rescues and entertains Lewis VII of France, on his way home from the Second Crusade.
1154 King Roger succeeded by his second son, William the Bad.
1166 William the Bad succeeded by his son William II, the Good.
1189 William the Good succeeded by Tancred, a natural son of William the Bad's elder brother.
1194 Tancred dies, leaving his crown to his young son, William III.
1194 William III deposed by the Emperor Henry VI of Hohenstaufen, who claims the crown through his wife Constance, daughter of King Roger.
1194 The Emperor Frederick II, son of Henry and Constance, born at Palermo.
1197 Henry VI dies at Castrogiovanni, and his widow crowns her son Frederick King of Sicily.
1197 Queen Constance dies, leaving the Pope guardian of her son.
 p393  1208 Frederick II declared of age, and married to Constance of Aragon.
1212 Frederick goes to Germany to claim his Empire.
1220 Frederick is crowned in Rome, and returns to Sicily.
1239 Frederick establishes his Mohammedan colonists in Apulia, in the town called from them Lucera de' Saraceni.
1250 Frederick dies at Castel Fiorentino, in Apulia, and is succeeded by his second son Conrad.
1253 Pope Innocent IV names Charles of Anjou King of Sicily, Duke of Apulia, and Prince of Capua.
1254 Conrad succeeded by his son Conradin, two years old, whose guardian is his half-uncle, Manfred, a natural son of Frederick II.
1258 Manfred takes the crown of Sicily, promising to leave it to his nephew at his death.
1263 Charles of Anjou authorized by Pope Urban IV to begin the conquest of the south.
1266 Manfred slain at the battle of Benevento, and Charles of Anjou created King of Naples and Sicily by Pope Clement IV.
1268 Conradin loses the battle of Tagliacozzo, and is betrayed and sold to Charles.
1268 Conradin beheaded at Naples.
1282 Massacre of the French by the Italians, known as the Sicilian Vespers, takes place at Palermo on Easter Monday.
1282 King Peter of Aragon, husband of Constance the daughter of Manfred, summoned by the nobles, drives out Charles of Anjou, and becomes King of Sicily.
1285 Peter III of Aragon and I of Sicily leaves the latter kingdom to his second son James the Just.
 p394  1285 Charles of Anjou succeeded in his Kingdom of Naples by his son Charles II.
1291 James I, the Just, succeeds to the throne of Aragon as James II, leaving that of Sicily to his brother Frederick II.
1296 Frederick II elected king by the Sicilian Parliament after an interregnum of four years.
1309 Charles II of Naples succeeded in that kingdom by his third son, Robert the Wise.
1337 Frederick II of Sicily succeeded by his son Peter II, who is crowned during his father's lifetime.
1342 Peter II dies without male issue, and the crown of Sicily goes to Lewis, son of Peter IV of Aragon.
1343 Robert the Wise succeeded on the throne of Naples by his granddaughter, Joan I, sixteen years old, married to her cousin Andrew, brother of the King of Hungary.
1345 Andrew, consort of Queen Joan, murdered at Aversa with her connivance.
1349 The great basilica at Monte Cassino destroyed by an earthquake.
1355 Lewis of Sicily succeeded by his younger brother, Frederick III.
1377 Frederick III of Sicily succeeded by his daughter Mary, and her husband, Martin of Aragon.
1381 Charles III of Durazzo enters Naples, takes the crown, and imprisons his cousin Joan I at Muro.
1382 Joan I murdered at Muro.
1386 Charles III of Durazzo succeeded on the throne of Naples by his son Ladislaus.
1402 Mary I, Queen of Sicily, succeeded by her husband, Martin I.
 p395  1409 Martin I of Sicily dies without issue, succeeded by his father, Martin II of Sicily and I of Aragon, which reunites the two kingdoms.
1409 Martin II dies, and Blanche of Navarre, widow of Martin I, is vicar and lieutenant of Sicily, there being seven claimants to the throne.
1410 Bernardo Cabrera, Count of Modica, attempts to marry Blanche and seize the crown of Sicily.
1412 Ferdinand the Just crowned King of Sicily and Aragon, succeeding his uncle, Martin II of Sicily and I of Aragon.
1414 Ladislaus of Naples succeeded by his sister Joanna II.
1416 Saint Francis of Paola born at Paola, in Calabria.
1416 Alfonso V, the Magnanimous, succeeds his father, Ferdinand the Just, as King of Sicily and Aragon.
1435 Joanna II of Naples, last of the Durazzo line, appoints as her successor by her will Renéº of Anjou, Duke of Lorraine.
1442 René of Anjou, "the Good King René," expelled from Naples by Alfonso the Magnanimous, who claims the throne through the female line, and unites the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Aragon.
1453 The Sultan Mohammed II storms Constantinople.
1458 Alfonso I, the Magnanimous, bequeaths Naples to his son Ferdinand, and Sicily to his younger brother John.
1479 John II of Sicily, Aragon, and Navarre succeeded by his son Ferdinand II of Sicily and V of Aragon, "The Catholic."
 p396  1494 Ferdinand I of Naples succeeded by his eldest son, Alfonso II, Duke of Calabria.
1495 Alfonso II abdicates in favour of his eldest son, Ferdinand II.
1495 King Charles VIII of France takes Naples.
1496 Ferdinand II succeeded by his uncle, Frederick IV.
1500 By the Treaty of Granada, Ferdinand the Catholic, of Sicily and Spain, and Lewis XII of France, agree to divide the kingdom of Naples between them.
1503 Tournament between French and Italian knights, known as the "Sfida di Barletta."
1504 Frederick IV dies of grief, and Ferdinand the Catholic becomes King of Naples and Sicily.
1515 Joan III, daughter of Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella his wife, succeeds her father.
1516 Pope Leo X almost captured by the Barbary pirates.
1516 Joan III abdicates in favour of her son Charles IV, afterwards the Emperor Charles V.
1519 Charles V elected to the empire of Germany, for which Francis I is also a candidate.
1524 Battle of Sesia, between the French and Italians, at which the Chevalier Bayard is slain.
1525 Charles V defeats and captures Francis I of France at the battle of Pavia.
1529 Treaty of peace at Cambrai, by which Francis I abandons his claim to Italy.


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