304 BC

By place

Greece

• Demetrius shows ingenuity in devising a new siege engine: a wheeled siege tower named Helepolis, which stands 40 meters tall and 20 meters wide and weighs 180 tons.
• The Siege of Rhodes ends after a year.
• Demetrius Poliorcetes and the Rhodians come to a truce, with the agreement that the city should be autonomous, should keep its own revenue and that the Rhodians should be allies of Antigonus unless he is at war with Ptolemy.
• Antigonus then concludes a peace treaty and an alliance with the island state, guaranteeing it autonomy and neutrality in his conflicts with Ptolemy.
• Cassander invades Attica and besieges Athens. Demetrius Poliorcetes drives Cassander out of central Greece and liberates Athens. In return, the Athenians bestow on him a new religious honour, synnaos of the temple of the goddess Athena.

  Roman Republic

• The second Samnite war formally ends with a peace agreement in which the Samnites obtain peace on terms that are severe but not as crushing as those agreed by the Romans with the Etruscans four years earlier. Under the peace, Rome gains no territory, but the Samnites renounce their hegemony over Campania. Rome is also successful in ending the revolts amongst the tribes surrounding Roman territory.

  Sicily

• The tyrant Agathocles takes on the title of King of Sicily. He extends his influence into southern Italy and the Adriatic.

  India

• The Mauryan emperor Chandragupta defeats Seleucos I as he tries to invade India.

  Births

• Ashoka, Indian emperor and ruler of the Maurya Empire in present-day Eastern India 273-232 BC
• Erasistratus, Greek anatomist and physician

  Deaths