240 BC

Millennium:	1st millennium BC
Centuries:	4th century BC – 3rd century BC – 2nd century BC
Decades:	270s BC  260s BC  250s BC  – 240s BC –  230s BC  220s BC  210s BC
Years:	243 BC 242 BC 241 BC – 240 BC – 239 BC 238 BC 237 BC

240 BC in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	240 BC CCXXXIX BC
Ab urbe condita	514
Ancient Egypt era	XXXIII dynasty, 84
- Pharaoh	Ptolemy III Euergetes, 7
Ancient Greek era	135th Olympiad (victor)¹
Assyrian calendar	4511
Bengali calendar	−832
Berber calendar	711
Buddhist calendar	305
Burmese calendar	−877
Byzantine calendar	5269–5270
Chinese calendar	庚申年 (Metal Monkey) 2457 or 2397     — to — 辛酉年 (Metal Rooster) 2458 or 2398
Coptic calendar	−523 – −522
Discordian calendar	927
Ethiopian calendar	−247 – −246
Hebrew calendar	3521–3522
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	−183 – −182
- Shaka Samvat	N/A
- Kali Yuga	2862–2863
Holocene calendar	9761
Iranian calendar	861 BP – 860 BP
Islamic calendar	887 BH – 886 BH
Julian calendar	N/A
Korean calendar	2094
Minguo calendar	2151 before ROC 民前2151年
Seleucid era	72/73 AG
Thai solar calendar	303–304

Year 240 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Centho and Tuditanus (or, less frequently, year 514 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 240 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

Carthage

• Two of Carthage's mercenary commanders – Spendius and Mathos – convince the Libyan conscripts in the mercenary army, that is currently occupying the Carthaginian city of Tunis, to accept their leadership. They persuade the native Libyans that Carthage will take revenge against them for their part in the conflict once the foreign mercenaries are paid and sent home. They then convince the combined mercenary armies to revolt against Carthage and convince the various native Libyan towns and cities to back the revolt. Spendius and Mathos then take the Carthaginian commander Gesco as a hostage. What has started as an argument over pay owed to soldiers by the Carthaginian Government, explodes into a full-scale revolt, known as the Mercenary War.
• The Libyan forces loyal to the mercenaries besiege the towns of Utica and Hippacritae, which refuse to defect to the mercenaries.
• Hanno the Great is given command of the Carthaginian forces. However, the mercenaries defeat the Carthaginian armies in the Battle of Utica.
• Carthage decides to give Hamilcar Barca joint command with Hanno the Great. Hamilcar Barca is able to end the siege of Utica by the mercenaries. He is then placed in complete command of the Carthaginian forces and defeats the mercenaries in the Battle of the Bagradas River.
• After the Numidian mercenary leader Narawas defects to Hamilcar Barca, Numidian reinforcements (about 2,000 men) help him defeat the mercenaries again. Hamilcar pardons his captured prisoners, accepting into his army anyone who will fight for Carthage, and exiling anyone who will not.

Roman Republic

• Rome takes over full control of Sicily and stations a legion there.

By topic

Literature

• The first Latin tragedy by Livius Andronicus, Achilles, is first produced.

Astronomy

• May 25 – Chinese astronomers make the first recorded observation of Halley's Comet.
• The Hellenistic period Mathematician Eratosthenes estimated the radius of Earth's circumference to be 252, 000 Stadia, a figure between 2%-20% off modern measurements.

Births

• Prusias I Chlorus, king of Bithynia (d. 182 BC)

Deaths

• Aratus, Greek poet from Soli in Cilicia, best remembered for his poem on astronomy Phaenomena (b. c. 315 BC)
• Zou Yan, Chinese philosopher (b. 305 BC)