480 BC

Millennium:	1st millennium BC
Centuries:	6th century BC – 5th century BC – 4th century BC
Decades:	510s BC 500s BC 490s BC – 480s BC – 470s BC 460s BC 450s BC
Years:	483 BC 482 BC 481 BC – 480 BC – 479 BC 478 BC 477 BC

480 BC by topic
Politics
State leaders – Sovereign states
Birth and death categories
Births – Deaths
Establishments and disestablishments categories
Establishments – Disestablishments

480 BC in other calendars
Gregorian calendar	480 BC
Ab urbe condita	274
Armenian calendar	N/A
Assyrian calendar	4271
Bahá'í calendar	-2323–-2322
Bengali calendar	-1072
Berber calendar	471
English Regnal year	N/A
Buddhist calendar	65
Burmese calendar	-1117
Byzantine calendar	5029–5030
Chinese calendar	庚申年 (2157/2217) — to — 辛酉年 (2158/2218)
Coptic calendar	-763–-762
Ethiopian calendar	-487–-486
Hebrew calendar	3281–3282
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	-423–-422
- Shaka Samvat	N/A
- Kali Yuga	2622–2623
Holocene calendar	9521
Iranian calendar	1101 BP – 1100 BP
Islamic calendar	1135 BH – 1134 BH
Japanese calendar
Korean calendar	1854
Minguo calendar	2391 before ROC 民前2391年
Thai solar calendar	64

Year 480 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Vibulanus and Cincinnatus (or, less frequently, year 274 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 480 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Events

By place

Greece

May – King Xerxes I of Persia marches from Sardis and onto Thrace and Macedonia.
The Greek congress decides to send a force of 10,000 Greeks, including hoplites and cavalry, to the Vale of Tempe, through which they believe the Persian army will pass. The force includes Lacedaemonians led by Euanetos and Athenians under Themistocles. Warned by Alexander I of Macedon that the vale can be bypassed elsewhere and that the army of Xerxes is overwhelming, the Greeks decide not to try to hold there and vacate the vale.
August 11 – The Battle of Thermopylae ends in victory for the Persians under Xerxes. His army engulfs a force of 300 Spartans and 700 Thespiae under the Spartan King, Leonidas I. The Greeks under Leonidas resist the advance through Thermopylae of Xerxes' vast army. For two days Leonidas and his troops withstand the Persian attacks; he then orders most of his troops to retreat, and he and his 300-member royal guard fight to the last man.
A member of the Agiad royal family, and the son of King Cleombrotus and nephew of King Leonidas, Pausanias becomes regent for Leonidas' son, Pleistarchus, after Leonidas I is killed at Thermopylae.
Phocis and the coasts of Euboea are devastated by the Persians. Thebes and most of Boeotia join Xerxes.
King Alexander I of Macedon is obliged to accompany Xerxes in a campaign through Greece, though he secretly aids the Greek allies. With Xerxes' apparent acquiescence, Alexander seizes the Greek colony of Pydna and advances his frontiers eastward to the Strymon, taking in Crestonia and Bisaltia, along with the rich silver deposits of Mount Dysorus.
The Athenian soldier and statesman, Aristides, as well as the former Athenian archon Xanthippus, return from banishment in Aegina to serve under Themistocles against the Persians.
August – The Persians achieve a naval victory over the Greeks in an engagement fought near Artemisium, a promontory on the north coast of Euboea. The Greek fleet holds its own against the Persians in three days of fighting but withdraws southward when news comes of the defeat at Thermopylae.
Breaking through the pass at Thermopylae from Macedonia into Greece, the Persians occupy Attica.
September 21 – The Persians sack Athens, whose citizens flee to Salamis and then Peloponnesus.
September 28 – The Battle of Salamis brings victory to the Greeks, whose Athenian general Themistocles lures the Persians into the Bay of Salamis, between the Athenian port-city of Piraeus and the island of Salamis. The Greek triremes then attack furiously, ramming or sinking many Persian vessels and boarding others. The Greeks sink about 200 Persian vessels while losing only about 40 of their own. The rest of the Persian fleet is scattered, and as a result Xerxes has to postpone his planned land offensives for a year, a delay that gives the Greek city-states time to unite against him.
An eclipse of the sun discourages the Greek army from following up the victory of Salamis. Xerxes returns to Persia leaving behind an army under Mardonius, which winters in Thessaly.

Roman Republic

Roman troops march against the Veintes.

Sicily

Xerxes encourages the Carthaginians to attack the Greeks in Sicily. Under the Carthaginian military leader, Hamilcar, Carthage sends across a large army.
The Greek city of Himera in Sicily, in its quarrel with Akragas, enlists Carthaginian support. With the help of Gelo, the tyrant of Syracusae, and Theron of Akragas, the Carthaginians are defeated in the Battle of Himera. After the defeat, Hamilcar kills himself.

Persian empire

The Imperial treasury at the Persepolis Palace is completed after a building time of thirty years.

By topic

Arts

The archaic period of sculpture ends in Greece and is succeeded by the Severe (Early Classical) period (approximate date).
A sculpture of a Dying warrior is made in the left corner of the east pediment of the Temple of Aphaea in Aegina (approximate date). Today, it is preserved at the Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek in Munich, Germany.
The sculpture of a Kritios Boy is made on Acropolis, Athens (approximate date). It is now preserved in the Acropolis Museum in Athens.
Work begins on the detail Musicians and Dancers on a wall painting in the Tomb of the Lionesses in Tarquinia. It is finished some ten years later.

Births

Euripides, Greek playwright (d. 406 BC)
Antiphon, Attic orator (d. 411 BC)
Philolaus, Greek mathematician and philosopher (d. c. 405 BC)

Deaths

August 11 – Leonidas I, Agiad King of Sparta (died at Thermopylae)
Xenophanes, Greek philosopher (b. 570 BC)
Hamilcar, Carthaginian general (suicide after his defeat in the Battle of Himera)