450 BC

Centuries:	6th century BC · 5th century BC · 4th century BC
Decades:	480s BC 470s BC 460s BC 450s BC 440s BC 430s BC 420s BC
Years:	453 BC 452 BC 451 BC 450 BC 449 BC 448 BC 447 BC

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Athenian general Cimon sails to Cyprus with two hundred triremes of the Delian League. From there, he sends sixty ships to Egypt to help the Egytians under Amyrtaeos, who is fighting the Persians in the Nile Delta. Cimon uses the remaining ships to aid an uprising of the Cypriot Greek city-states against Persian control of the island. Cimon lays siege to the Persian stronghold of Citium on the south west coast of Cyprus. However, the siege fails and Cyprus remains under Phoenician (and Persian) control.
During the siege Cimon dies and the command of the fleet is given to Anaxicrates, who leaves Citium to engage the Phoenician fleet at the Battle of Salamis in Cyprus. The Greek fleet is victorious against the Persians and their allies and then returns to Athens.
The Athenians reduce the tribute due from their subject city-states (ie members of the Delian League), and each city is allowed to issue its own coinage.
The Temple of Theseus is completed in Athens.
Perdiccas II succeeds Alexander I as king of Macedonia (approximate date).
Myron made bronze Discus Thrower (Discobolus). The Roman copy is now at Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome (approximate date).

The success of the first Decemvirate prompts the appointment of a second Decemvirate which also includes plebians amongst its members. This second decemviri adds two more headings to their predecessor’s ten, completing the Law of the Twelve Tables (Lex Duodecim Tabularum), which will form the centrepiece of Roman law for the next several centuries. Nevertheless, this Decemvirate's rule becomes increasingly violent and tyrannical.

After minor preliminary successes (including the capture of Inessa from its Greek colonists), Ducetius, a Hellenised leader of the Siculi, an ancient people of Sicily, is decisively defeated by the combined forces of Syracuse and Acragas. Ducetius flees to exile in Corinth.