Emperor Wu of Han sends the diplomat Zhang Qian west to form an alliance with the Yuezhi against the Xiongnu. Wu does this after learning from Xiongnu defectors that the Xiongnu had defeated and killed the king of the Yuezhi, had expelled the Yuezhi from their lands and were using their king's skull as a wine goblet. The Yuezhi had subsequently migrated further west.
Soon after his departure for the west, Zhang Qian is detained by Junchen Chanyu of the Xiongnu. He would remain in Xiongnu custody for more than ten years and would be given a Xiongnu wife.[1]
Wei Zifu enters Emperor Wu's palace as a concubine and becomes pregnant. Enraged, Liu Piao, the mother of the childless Empress Chen Jiao (wife of Emperor Wu), kidnaps Zifu's brother Wei Qing, who is rescued by Gongsun Ao. Wu responds by advancing the careers of members of the Wei family.[2]
Grand Empress Dowager Dou, the grandmother of Emperor Wu of Han, purges the high administration of officials to consolidate her power. Among those dismissed are Prime Minister Dou Yong and her own half-brother, the General-in-Chief Tian Fen. Two of the young emperor's closest advisors, Zhao Wan and Wang Zang, are arrested and commit suicide.[3]
Hymn to Apollo is written and inscribed on stone in Delphi; it is the earliest surviving notated music, in a substantial and legible fragment, in the western world.
Scipio Aemilianus, victor of Carthage, takes command in Spain against the Numantians. He recruits 20,000 men and 40,000 allies, including Numidian cavalry under Jugurtha. Scipio, an expert in sieges, builds a ring of seven forts and a ditch palisade before beginning the Siege of Numantia. The perimeter of the circumvallations is twice as long as that of the city. The river Durius (Douro), enables the defenders to be supplied by small boats.
Caius Fulvius Flaccus, as consul, is sent against the slaves. Uprising of 4,000 slaves crushed at Sinuessa, in Campania.[citation needed] Slave uprisings repressed in Attic silver mines and on the island of Delos.
Scipio Aemilianus captures Numantia,[12] after a siege of eight months, suffering famine and pestilence. The remnant population of 4,000 citizens, surrender and set their city on fire. Thus ends the Numantine War.
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, is elected tribune of the people. He attempts to pass a law to redistribute the public land to benefit small landowners. Opposed by wealthier factions in the Roman Senate, he is killed by a group of senators and their followers that same year.
The Kingdom of Pergamum is deeded to Rome, Aristonicus starts a rebellion against this.
June – A large army of the Han dynasty, under the overall command of Han Anguo, attempts to ambush the Xiongnu leader Junchen Chanyu in the Battle of Mayi. By pretending to betray the city of Mayi, a Han official had lured Junchen onto Han soil. However, a captured Chinese officer tips off Junchen, and so he avoids the ambush. The episode abrogates the Xiongnu-Han treaty (called heqin 和親 or "harmonious kinship") and marks the beginning of Emperor Wu's Han-Xiongnu War.
Foreign Minister Wang Hui, who, against the opposition of Han Anguo, had advocated for war, fails to attack the retreating supply column of the Xiongnu and is sentenced to death. He commits suicide.[13]
^Hung, Hing Ming (2020). The Magnificent Emperor Wu: China's Han Dynasty. p. 135. ISBN978-1628944167.
^Marvin Perry et al., eds. Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society (Cengage Learning, 2008) p135
^Mayor, Adrienne: "The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy" Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009, ISBN978-0-691-12683-8
^Duggan, Alfred: He Died Old: Mithradates Eupator, King of Pontus, 1958
^Ford, Michael Curtis: The Last King: Rome's Greatest Enemy, New York, Thomas Dunne Books, 2004, ISBN0-312-27539-0
^McGing, B.C.: The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus (Mnemosyne, Supplements: 89), Leiden, Brill Academic Publishers, 1986, ISBN90-04-07591-7 [paperback]
^Hansen, Esther V. (1971). The Attalids of Pergamon. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press; London: Cornell University Press Ltd. ISBN0-8014-0615-3.
^Kosmetatou, Elizabeth (2003) "The Attalids of Pergamon," in Andrew Erskine, ed., A Companion to the Hellenistic World. Oxford: Blackwell: pp. 159–174. ISBN1-4051-3278-7. text
^Simon Hornblower and Tony Spawforth, Who's Who (Classical World), pg. 61.
