Events, Verisoph

c. 500 BCE Babylon measures the sky in 360 degrees 0 cit. Using their base-60 numbers, Babylonian astronomers divide the circle of the sky into 360 degrees, each degree into 60 minutes of arc, each minute into 60 seconds. Every modern map, clock, and navigation system still uses these Babylonian divisions. science / technology ●●●●

c. 500 BCE 'Panic' comes from the god Pan 0 cit. The Greeks blamed sudden, causeless terror, especially in lonely places, on the goat-god Pan, and called it 'panic'. A modern word for fear is the shadow of a woodland god. culture / religion ●●●

c. 500 BCE 'Volcano' comes from the god Vulcan 0 cit. Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and the forge, was said to work beneath the earth; his name gives us 'volcano'. A term of modern geology is a Roman smith-god. religion / science ●●●

c. 500 BCE The Magi and the word 'magic' 0 cit. The Magi were the Zoroastrian priestly caste; their name gives us the word 'magic', and the wise men who visit the infant Jesus in the Gospel are Magi from the east. A Persian priesthood is woven into the Christian Nativity and the English language alike. culture / religion ●●●

500 BCE Event from 499 BCE rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Historical event from 499 BCE ●●

499 BCE to 449 BCE Greco-Persian Wars 0 cit. no story The Achaemenid Persian Empire twice invades Greece and is repelled by an alliance of Greek city-states at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea. The Greek victory preserves the independent city-state world that produced classical civilization. war ●●●●●

c. 499 BCE The Saoshyant: the world-savior to come 0 cit. Zoroastrianism looked for a Saoshyant, a future savior who would defeat evil, raise the dead, and renew the world in a final judgment. The pattern of a coming redeemer and an end-time victory echoes through later messianic and apocalyptic religion. culture / religion ●●●

c. 496 BCE 'Cereal' comes from the goddess Ceres 0 cit. Ceres, the Roman goddess of grain and the harvest, gives her name to 'cereal'. Every breakfast box carries the name of an ancient corn-goddess. economy / religion ●●●

c. 493 BCE Foedus Cassianum 0 cit. Alliance between the early Roman Republic and the Latin League that ended the Latin War and set terms for shared defense and division of spoils. It anchored Rome's position in Latium for over a century. diplomacy / politics / war ●●

485 BCE Reference to Herodotus rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Herodotus says, speaking of the reasons why animals were deified in Egypt: “If I were to explain these reasons, I should be led to the disclosure of t ●●

485 BCE Birth of the historian Herodotus ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The historian Herodotus was born in 484 BCE and wrote extensively about Egypt and Babylon without mentioning the Israelites ●●

484 BCE Athenian trireme fleet expansion 0 cit. On Themistocles' proposal, Athens used revenue from a newly discovered silver vein at Laurium to build about 200 triremes instead of distributing the money to citizens. The fleet, built ostensibly for a war with Aegina, proved decisive against the Persian invasion two years later. It also made Athens a naval power and shifted political weight toward the citizens who rowed the ships. politics / war ●●●

c. 483 BCE First Buddhist Council 0 cit. Tradition holds that shortly after the Buddha's death, five hundred senior monks gather at Rajagriha to recite and fix his teachings and the monastic rules. The council begins the preservation of the Buddhist canon. religion ●●●●

September 481 BCE Battle of Salamis 0 cit. A Greek fleet built around Athenian triremes defeated the much larger Persian navy in the narrow straits near Salamis. The victory ended the immediate threat of a Persian conquest of mainland Greece and established naval power as central to Greek strategic thinking. It is one of the earliest well-documented decisive naval battles in Western history. war ●●●

479 BCE Event rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story During his lifetime (ssr-479 BCE) , Confucius had been preoccupied with the decline of the Zhou dy nasty. He extolled the virtues of a society based on each person's perfor mance o... ●●

c. 478 BCE Esther Becomes Queen 0 cit. The traditional chronology places Esther's rise as queen of Persia about 478 BC, at the court of Shushan. The book of Esther records the deliverance of the Jews from Haman's plot, remembered at Purim. politics / religion ●●

475 BCE Start of the Warring States period 0 cit. By around 475 BCE the Zhou realm had fractured into rival states that waged large-scale war for supremacy. The era brought mass infantry armies, reforms, and intense competition. politics / war ●●●●

471 BCE Reference to Socrates rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Among the Greeks, the scholars of the Egyptians, all the higher ideas and severer doctrines on the Divinity, his Sovereign Nature and Infinite Might, ●●

c. 459 BCE Cincinnatus Returns to the Plough 0 cit. According to Roman tradition, the farmer Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was appointed dictator to lead Rome against an invading army, won the campaign in sixteen days, then resigned his absolute power and returned to his farm. Whether or not the story is literally accurate, Romans told it as the ideal of the citizen-soldier who takes up arms only when needed and gives up power willingly. The Cincinnatus figure became a lasting symbol of civilian restraint over military power, invoked centuries later by figures such as George Washington. politics / war ●●

c. 457 BCE Ezra Goes to Jerusalem 0 cit. In the traditional chronology Ezra the scribe leads a second return to Jerusalem in 457 BC, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, to restore the law and order the community. religion ●●●

c. 451 BCE Athens and slavery in ancient Greece 0 cit. Classical Athens depended heavily on enslaved labour in homes, workshops and the silver mines at Laurion. Slaves may have numbered close to a third of the city's population. economy / society ●●●

c. 451 BCE Rome's Twelve Tables put law in writing 0 cit. Rome published its laws on twelve bronze tablets so that rules applied to patricians and plebeians alike. Public written law became a foundation of the republican system. politics / society ●●●

c. 451 BCE Babylon divides the sky into the twelve signs of the zodiac 0 cit. Babylonian astronomers divide the ecliptic into twelve equal signs, creating the zodiac still used in horoscopes today. Their astrology passed to the Greeks and, through them, into Western culture, where the Chaldeans became a byword for astrologers. religion / science ●●●●

451 BCE Event from 450 BCE rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Historical event from 450 BCE ●●

c. 451 BCE Ezra and the shaping of the Torah 0 cit. Tradition credits the scribe Ezra with reestablishing the Torah as the law of the restored Jewish community and reading it publicly in Jerusalem. Many scholars see this era as key to the Torah reaching something like its final form. Study and public reading of scripture grow central to Jewish life. culture / religion ●●

c. 451 BCE Zeno's paradoxes challenge infinity and motion 0 cit. Zeno posed puzzles like Achilles never catching the tortoise, arguing that motion and infinite division lead to contradictions. The paradoxes forced Greek thinkers to be careful about infinity and the infinitely small, questions that stayed open until the calculus. They show early mathematics wrestling with ideas it could not yet make rigorous. culture / science ●●

c. 449 BCE Peace of Callias 0 cit. Reported peace between Athens and the Persian Empire that ended the Greco-Persian Wars, keeping Persian ships out of the Aegean. Its existence is debated by historians. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

c. 445 BCE Nehemiah Rebuilds the Walls 0 cit. In the traditional chronology Nehemiah comes to Jerusalem in 445 BC, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, and rebuilds the city walls in fifty-two days despite opposition. politics / religion ●●●

444 BCE Nehemiah appointed governor of Judaea ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 444 BC Nehemiah, a Babylon-born Jew and former cup-bearer to the Persian king, was made governor of Judaea. He gained permission to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple, a moment tied to the formation of Judaism. ●●

444 BCE Nehemiah reissues the Law of Jubilee ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Facing a debt crisis among the poor, Nehemiah issued a Babylonian-style clean-slate edict and reissued older Jewish law. The most famous was the Law of Jubilee, canceling debts and freeing those held in bondage. ●●

c. 441 BCE The interpretatio graeca reads other pantheons through Greek eyes 0 cit. Greek writers such as Herodotus identified Egyptian and other foreign gods with Greek ones, equating Amun with Zeus and Thoth with Hermes. This habit of matching gods shaped ancient understanding of religion. culture / religion ●●

431 BCE to 404 BCE Peloponnesian War 0 cit. no story Athens and Sparta fight a three-decade struggle for supremacy in Greece. Athens' defeat ends its golden age and exhausts the Greek world. war ●●●●

429 BCE Reference to Plato rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story It was taught by Timæsus, Plato, Speusippus, Iamblichus, Macrobius, Marcus Aurelius, and Pythagoras ●●

421 BCE Peace of Nicias 0 cit. Treaty between Athens and Sparta intended to end the first phase of the Peloponnesian War for fifty years. It quickly unraveled and fighting resumed within a few years. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

421 BCE Mass slave escape from the Athenian mines ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Thucydides claimed that 20,000 slaves escaped from the Athenian silver mines in 421 BC. The figure is likely exaggerated, but thousands worked the mines shackled in brutal conditions. ●●

c. 412 BCE Oligarchy and rule by the few 0 cit. In oligarchies a small group, often the wealthy, held political power and excluded the many. Greek writers contrasted it with democracy and warned it served the rulers rather than the whole city. politics ●●●

c. 410 BCE The world's first personal horoscope 0 cit. A Babylonian scribe casts the earliest known horoscope for an individual, recording the positions of the planets at a child's birth to read its fate. Astrology turns from the fate of kingdoms to the fate of persons, the form it still takes today. religion / science ●●●●

405 BCE Event from 404 BCE rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Historical event from 404 BCE ●●

c. 401 BCE Samhain shapes Halloween and All Saints' customs 0 cit. The Celtic festival of Samhain marked the end of harvest and a night when the dead drew near, celebrated at the start of November. Its themes fed into the folk customs of Halloween. culture / religion ●●●

c. 401 BCE Beltane and May Day keep the old spring fire festival 0 cit. The Celtic festival of Beltane greeted summer with bonfires and cattle rites at the start of May. Its customs survive in May Day celebrations with maypoles and flowers. culture / religion ●●

c. 401 BCE Hippocratic medicine separates disease from the divine 0 cit. The texts gathered under the name of Hippocrates argued that illness had natural causes and could be studied through observation of the patient. The works were written by many hands over generations, not one man. Their theory of four humors was wrong, but the method of careful bedside observation endured. culture / science ●●

c. 400 BCE The 19-year cycle fixes the calendar 0 cit. Babylonian astronomers regularize a 19-year cycle in which 7 leap months keep the lunar calendar in step with the solar year. The same cycle, later named for the Greek Meton, still sets the date of the Jewish calendar and of Easter. religion / science ●●●

400 BCE Event from 399 BCE rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Historical event from 399 BCE ●●

399 BCE Socrates is tried and executed in Athens 0 cit. Athens condemns Socrates to death for impiety and corrupting the youth, largely for what he said and taught. He becomes the founding martyr of the idea that speech and inquiry should not be punished by the state. politics / society ●●●●

c. 397 BCE Malachi and the Close of the Old Testament 0 cit. The traditional chronology places Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets, about 397 BC. With him the Old Testament canon closes and the tradition counts four centuries of prophetic silence. religion ●●●

395 BCE to 387 BCE Corinthian War 0 cit. no story Sparta fights a coalition of Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Argos backed by Persia. The war ends with the King's Peace, which leaves Sparta dominant but under Persian oversight. war ●●

388 BCE Plato sold into slavery near Aegina ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Around 388/387 BC Plato was captured and sold on a slave auction block near Aegina, then at war with Athens. He was later ransomed and freed. ●●

387 BCE Peace of Antalcidas 0 cit. Also called the King's Peace, this settlement dictated by Persia ended the Corinthian War and recognized Persian control over the Greek cities of Asia Minor. It made the Persian king arbiter of Greek affairs. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

387 BCE Plato founds the Academy in Athens 0 cit. Plato established the Academy in a grove outside Athens around 387 BC. It became a lasting center for philosophy and mathematics and is often called the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. culture / science ●●●●

385 BCE Reference to Aristotle rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story And this opinion of Achilles Tatius, Diodorus, Chrysippus, Aristotle, Plato, Heraclides of Pontus, Theophrastus, Simplicius, Macrobius, and Proclus, t ●●

c. 380 BCE Plato's Republic imagines the ideal state 0 cit. In the Republic, Plato argued that a just city should be ruled by wise philosopher-kings rather than the many. He also ranked and criticized the forms of government he saw around him. culture / politics ●●●●

c. 372 BCE Mencius develops Confucian thought 0 cit. Mencius argued that human nature is fundamentally good and that rulers must govern benevolently or lose the Mandate of Heaven. He became the most influential Confucian after Confucius himself. culture / religion ●●●

356 BCE Legalist reforms of Shang Yang in Qin 0 cit. The statesman Shang Yang imposed strict laws, rewards, and punishments and reorganized Qin society for military and agricultural strength. These Legalist reforms made Qin the most powerful of the warring states. economy / politics ●●●●

c. 351 BCE Aristotle's physics, four elements, and Earth at the center 0 cit. Aristotle built a vast system in which everything on Earth was made of earth, water, air, and fire, and the heavens turned around a motionless Earth. His work was a huge advance in systematic reasoning and biology, based on real observation of animals. It also fixed several wrong ideas, like geocentrism and objects needing a constant push to move, that would take almost two thousand years to overturn. culture / science ●●●

c. 350 BCE Aristotle's Politics classifies forms of rule 0 cit. Aristotle sorted governments by who rules and in whose interest, naming monarchy, aristocracy, and polity as good forms and tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy as their corrupt versions. His typology shaped political thought for centuries. culture / politics ●●●●●

c. 350 BCE Mathematical astronomy: Systems A and B 0 cit. Babylonian scholars develop purely mathematical schemes, known to scholars as System A and System B, to compute the future positions of the moon and planets with columns of numbers. It is arithmetic prediction of the heavens, centuries before Greek geometry. science / technology ●●●●

343 BCE to 290 BCE Samnite Wars 0 cit. no story Rome fights three wars against the Samnites and their allies for control of central Italy. Victory makes Rome the dominant power of the Italian peninsula. war ●●

c. 340 BCE Kidinnu measures the year and the moon 0 cit. The Babylonian astronomer Kidinnu (known to the Greeks as Cidenas) calculates the length of the year and the moon's motion with an accuracy not matched in Europe until the modern era. His constants passed into Greek astronomy. science / society ●●●

339 BCE Event from 338 BCE rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Historical event from 338 BCE ●●

336 BCE to 323 BCE Wars of Alexander the Great 0 cit. no story Alexander of Macedon conquers the Persian Empire and campaigns as far as Egypt and India in eleven years. His conquests spread Greek culture across the Near East and open the Hellenistic age. war ●●●●●

336 BCE Founding of the Macedonian Empire of Alexander 0 cit. Alexander the Great inherited the throne of Macedon and launched a conquest of the Persian Empire. Within a decade he built an empire reaching from Greece to India. politics / war ●●●●●

335 BCE Aristotle founds the Lyceum 0 cit. Aristotle established the Lyceum around 335 BC, where his followers studied logic, natural science, and politics. Its research on many subjects at once shaped how later schools organized knowledge. culture / science ●●●

335 BCE Alexander the Great destroys Persepolis ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Alexander's invasion brings destruction to the Persian Empire, with the conqueror sacking and burning the great ceremonial capital of Persepolis. ●●

332 BCE Judea Passes to the Greeks 0 cit. Alexander the Great conquers the Persian empire in 332 BC and Judea passes under Greek rule. Later tradition, following Josephus, told of Alexander being shown the prophecies of Daniel at Jerusalem. politics / war ●●

1 October 332 BCE Battle of Gaugamela 0 cit. Alexander the Great destroys the Persian army of Darius III, ending the Achaemenid Empire. Greek language and culture spread across the Near East, shaping the Hellenistic world for centuries. politics / war ●●●●

332 BCE Alexander the Great Conquers the Levant 0 cit. Alexander the Great's conquest brought Judea under Hellenistic rule. Greek culture and later dynasties, the Ptolemies and Seleucids, governed the region. culture / war ●●

c. 332 BCE Alexander is hailed as son of Zeus-Ammon 0 cit. At the oasis of Siwa, Alexander the Great was greeted as the son of Ammon, whom the Greeks equated with Zeus. The blended god Zeus-Ammon shows how conquest spread the mixing of pantheons. politics / religion ●●

330 BCE Battle of the Persian Gate on the Mountain wikidata 0 cit. no story battle between Alexander the Great and Ariobarzanes near Persepolis in a small mountainpass known as the Persian gate along the Royal road ●●

330 BCE Fall of the Achaemenid Empire 0 cit. In 330 BC the armies of Alexander the Great overran the Persian heartland, and the last Achaemenid king, Darius III, was killed by his own officers. The empire that had ruled from the Aegean to the Indus came to an end. politics / war ●●●●●

330 BCE Aristotle theorizes the origin of money ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Around 330 BC Aristotle speculated in his Politics about how money emerged from household specialization and exchange. His account prefigured later barter-origin stories. ●●

329 BCE Battle of Jaxartes wikidata 0 cit. no story 329 BCE battle ●●

326 BCE Abolition of debt bondage in Rome ai_extracted 1 cit. no story According to Livy, Rome abolished debt bondage in 326 BC. The trigger was the case of a young man, Caius Publilius, put in bondage over an inherited debt and beaten for refusing his creditor. ●●

323 BCE Event from 322 BCE rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Historical event from 322 BCE ●●

c. 322 BCE to c. 281 BCE Wars of the Diadochi 0 cit. no story Alexander's generals fight over his empire for four decades after his death. The wars carve the Hellenistic world into the Ptolemaic, Seleucid, and Antigonid kingdoms. politics / war ●●●

c. 321 BCE Founding of the Maurya Empire 0 cit. Chandragupta Maurya overthrew the Nanda dynasty and unified most of the Indian subcontinent. The Maurya state became the first empire to control nearly all of India. politics ●●●●●

c. 321 BCE Mauryan Empire and the Arthashastra 0 cit. Chandragupta Maurya built a large centralized empire in India managed by a trained bureaucracy and spy network. The Arthashastra, linked to his adviser Kautilya, set out a detailed theory of statecraft and administration. politics ●●●●

c. 316 BCE Rome adopts the manipular legion 0 cit. During the Samnite Wars, Rome reorganized its army from a Greek-style phalanx into smaller, more flexible units called maniples, arranged in three lines by age and experience (hastati, principes, triarii). This gave Roman armies far greater tactical flexibility on broken terrain than a rigid phalanx allowed. The manipular legion remained Rome's basic fighting formation for more than two centuries. war ●●

c. 312 BCE The Roman aqueduct 0 cit. Rome built long gravity fed channels to carry fresh water into cities, starting with the Aqua Appia. Aqueducts supplied baths, fountains and homes and supported large urban populations. technology ●●●

c. 312 BCE Founding of the Seleucid Empire 0 cit. Seleucus I Nicator secured Babylon and the eastern provinces after Alexander's death. His empire ruled a vast stretch of the Near East and Central Asia. politics ●●●●

310 BCE Battle of Lake Vadimo wikidata 0 cit. no story 310 BCE battle ●●

305 BCE Founding of the Ptolemaic Kingdom 0 cit. Ptolemy I Soter took the title of king and established a Greek dynasty ruling Egypt. Alexandria became a leading center of learning and commerce. politics ●●●●

c. 301 BCE Rome adopts and identifies with the Greek pantheon 0 cit. As Rome absorbed Greek culture, it matched its own gods to the Olympians, so Jupiter answered to Zeus and Venus to Aphrodite. Greek myths were retold with Roman names and became the standard classical mythology. culture / religion ●●●

c. 301 BCE Greek and Roman gods are treated as the same deities 0 cit. Zeus and Jupiter, Aphrodite and Venus, Hermes and Mercury came to be seen as one and the same gods under two names. This merging gave the classical world a shared mythology across languages. culture / religion ●●●

c. 301 BCE Serapis is created to unite Greek and Egyptian worship 0 cit. The Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt promoted Serapis, a god blending Osiris and the Apis bull with Greek gods like Zeus and Hades. He was meant to bind Greek and Egyptian subjects in a common cult. politics / religion ●●

c. 301 BCE Hellenistic culture blends the gods of many peoples 0 cit. After Alexander, Greek, Egyptian, and Near Eastern religions mixed freely, producing blended gods and shared mystery cults. This wide syncretism prepared the ground for religions that crossed old borders. culture / religion ●●

301 BCE Astronomical epoch - Sun in Aries rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Pike notes that 300 years before Christ, the Sun entered Aries at the Vernal Equinox due to the precession of the equinoxes. He uses this to explain changes in astrological symbolism. ●●

c. 301 BCE Euclid's Elements and the axiomatic method 0 cit. Euclid gathered the geometry and number theory of his age into thirteen books built from a handful of definitions, postulates, and step-by-step proofs. The Elements set the model for how mathematics is done, starting from stated assumptions and deducing everything else, and it served as a textbook for over two thousand years. Little is known of Euclid himself, and much of the content he organized rather than discovered. culture / science ●●●●

c. 301 BCE The Stoics make the Logos divine reason 0 cit. The Stoics described the Logos as a rational, fiery principle pervading the cosmos, of which each human mind held a spark. Living well meant living in accord with this universal reason. ●●

c. 301 BCE Zeno of Citium founds the Stoa 0 cit. A merchant turned philosopher, Zeno of Citium began teaching in the Stoa Poikile, the painted porch on the Athenian agora that gave Stoicism its name. He taught that the good life meant living in accord with reason and nature. ●●

294 BCE 293 BCE rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story tes of mobilization were even lower in early modern Europe. 4 Casualties were also of unprecedented scale. Livy reports that the Roman Republic lost ap proximately 50,000 soldiers in their defeats at Lake Trasimene and Cannae; a Chinese memorialist c ●●

293 BCE Buddhism established in the Punjab candidate ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Buddhism was established in and north of the Punjab as early as 292 BCE according to some authorities ●●

280 BCE to 275 BCE Pyrrhic War 0 cit. no story King Pyrrhus of Epirus wins costly battles against Rome on behalf of the Greek cities of southern Italy but cannot sustain the war. His withdrawal leaves Rome master of Italy and gives the language the term Pyrrhic victory. war ●●

c. 280 BCE Berossus carries Babylonian astrology to the Greeks 0 cit. The Babylonian priest Berossus writes the Babyloniaca in Greek, transmitting Mesopotamian history, myth, and astronomy to the Hellenistic world. He is remembered as a founder of astrology in the Greek and later Roman imagination. culture / science ●●

c. 280 BCE 'Museum' and 'music' come from the Muses 0 cit. The Mouseion of Alexandria was a shrine to the Muses, the goddesses of the arts, and gave us 'museum'; from the same goddesses comes 'music'. Two words for high culture are named for minor deities. culture / religion ●●●

c. 277 BCE The Septuagint Begun legendary 0 cit. According to tradition the Hebrew scriptures begin to be translated into Greek at Alexandria about 277 BC, under Ptolemy Philadelphus. This Septuagint became the Bible of Greek-speaking Jews and later of the early church. culture / religion ●●

c. 269 BCE 'Money' comes from the goddess Juno Moneta 0 cit. Rome mints its coins at the temple of Juno Moneta, and her title Moneta gives us both 'money' and 'mint'. The most everyday word in finance is the name of a Roman goddess. economy / religion ●●●●

c. 268 BCE Reign of Ashoka the Great 0 cit. Ashoka expanded the Maurya Empire to its greatest extent and later promoted Buddhism across Asia. His edicts on pillars and rocks spread ideas of moral governance. politics / religion ●●●●

264 BCE to 241 BCE First Punic War ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Rome and Carthage fight a twenty-three-year war, largely at sea, after Rome intervenes in Sicily. ●●●●

c. 262 BCE to c. 261 BCE Kalinga War 0 cit. no story The Mauryan emperor Ashoka conquers Kalinga at enormous human cost. Remorse over the slaughter leads him to embrace Buddhism and promote its spread across Asia. religion / war ●●●

c. 260 BCE Ashoka embraces Buddhism 0 cit. After the bloody conquest of Kalinga, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka turns to Buddhism and promotes it through edicts and missionaries. His patronage transforms Buddhism from a regional sect into a pan-Asian religion. politics / religion ●●●●