Year 280 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Laevinus and Coruncanius. The denomination 280 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Dominicalendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Events
By place
Seleucid Empire
Antiochus makes his eldest son, Seleucus, king in the east, but he proves to be incompetent.
Nicomedes, King of Bithynia, is threatened with an invasion from Antiochus who has already made war upon his father, Zipoites. Antiochus actually invades Bithynia but withdraws again without risking a battle.
Antiochus is unable to bring under his control the Persian dynasties that rule in Cappadocia.
The Achaean League is reformed by twelve towns in the northern Peloponnesus and will later grow to include non-Achaean cities. It has two generals, a federal council with proportional representation of members and an annual assembly of all free citizens. The League achieves a common coinage and foreign policy and the member cities pool their armed forces.
Rhodes, rising in prosperity, becomes head of an Island League and helps to keep the peace and freedom of the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.
Roman commander and statesman, Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, is sent to negotiate the ransom and exchange of prisoners. Pyrrhus is so impressed by Fabricius refusing to accept a bribe, that Pyrrhus releases the prisoners without the requirement of a ransom. Following his victory, Pyrrhus advances as far north as Latium.
By topic
Astronomy
Aristarchus of Samos uses the size of the Earth's shadow on the Moon to estimate that the Moon's radius is one-third that of the Earth. He proposes, for the first time, a heliocentric view of the Solar System, but is ignored due to the lack of evidence of the Earth's motion.
Births
Han Fei, Chinese philosopher who has developed Xun Zi's philosophy
Li Si, influential prime minister of the feudal state and later of the dynasty of Qin
Demetrius of Phaleron, Athenian orator, statesman, and philosopher, who has become prominent at the court of Ptolemy I, enjoying a high reputation as an orator
Herophilus, Alexandrian physician who has been an early performer of public dissections on human cadavers; often called the father of anatomy
