48 BC

Millennium:	1st millennium BC
Centuries:	2nd century BC – 1st century BC – 1st century
Decades:	70s BC  60s BC  50s BC  – 40s BC –  30s BC  20s BC  10s BC
Years:	51 BC 50 BC 49 BC – 48 BC – 47 BC 46 BC 45 BC

48 BC by topic

Politics

State leaders – Sovereign states

Birth and death categories

Births – Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments – Disestablishments

48 BC in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	48 BC
Ab urbe condita	706
Armenian calendar	N/A
Bahá'í calendar	-1891 – -1890
Bengali calendar	-640
Berber calendar	903
Buddhist calendar	497
Burmese calendar	-685
Byzantine calendar	5461 – 5462
Chinese calendar	壬申年 (2589/2649) — to — 癸酉年 (2590/2650)
Coptic calendar	-331 – -330
Ethiopian calendar	-55 – -54
Hebrew calendar	3713 – 3714
Hindu calendars
- Bikram Samwat	9 – 10
- Shaka Samvat	N/A
- Kali Yuga	3054 – 3055
Holocene calendar	9953
Iranian calendar	669 BP – 668 BP
Islamic calendar	690 BH – 689 BH
Japanese calendar
Korean calendar	2286
Thai solar calendar	496

Year 48 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Vatia (or, less frequently, year 706 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 48 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Events

By place

Rome

• Consuls: Gaius Julius Caesar, Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus.
• Civil War:
  • January 4—Caesar lands at Dyrrhachium (Durazzo).
  • March—Mark Antony joins Caesar.
  • April—Siege of Dyrrhachium, Caesar builds a fortified line of entrenchments and besiege Pompey.
  • May—Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus, co-consul with Julius Caesar, destroys Caelius's magistrate's chair on his tribunal.
  • July 10—Battle of Dyrrhachium, Julius Caesar barely avoids a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in Macedonia; he retreats to Thessaly.
  • August 9—Battle of Pharsalus: Caesar decisively defeats Pompey at Pharsalus and Pompey flees to Egypt. Pompey's army by and large pardoned.
  • September 28—Pompey the Great is assassinated on orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt after landing in Egypt (may have occurred September 29, records unclear).
  • October—Julius Caesar reached Alexandria, city founded by Alexander the Great. He is met by an Egyptian delegation from Ptolemy XIII. The Egyptians offered him gifts: the ring of Pompey and his head.
  • Caesar is named consul for a period of five years.
  • Roman temple to Bellona on the Capitolinus outside Rome is burnt to the ground.
  • Siege of Alexandria, Queen Cleopatra VII returned to the palace rolled into a Persian carpet and had it presented to Caesar by her servant. The Egyptian princess only twenty-one years old becomes his mistress.
  • Pharnaces, King of Bosporus defeats the Caesarian Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus in the Battle of Nicopolis (or Nikopol).
  • December—Battle in Alexandria, Egypt between the forces of Caesar and his ally Cleopatra VII and those of rival King Ptolemy XIII of Egypt and Queen Arsinoe IV. The latter two are defeated and flee the city, but during the battle part of the Library of Alexandria catches fire and is burned down.

Asia

• Yuan becomes emperor of the Han Dynasty.

Births

• Lucius Calpurnius Piso, consul under Caesar Augustus (d. 32 AD)
• Consort Ban, Chinese concubine of Emperor Cheng of Han, also a female poet and scholar (d. 6 BC)

Deaths

• September 28—Pompey, Roman politician (assassinated) (b. 106 BC)
• Titus Annius Milo, Roman politician (died in exile)