AD 745

Plague of 746–747

Plague spreads from Sicily and Calabria into Greece and the Aegean

A Byzantine chronicler compared its movement to a spreading fire: plague crossing from Sicily into Greece in 745/746, probably one of the last gasps of the pandemic that began under Justinian.

A fire moving east across the sea

In the annalistic year 745/746, by the account of the chronicler Theophanes, bubonic plague broke out in Sicily and Calabria and began moving east. He compared its spread to fire. The disease crossed the sea lanes to the Peloponnesian port of Monemvasia, then into mainland Greece and the nearby islands.

This was not the Black Death, which lay six centuries in the future. Modern scholars identify the outbreak as the plague of 746–747, most likely one of the final recurrences of the first plague pandemic that had struck the Mediterranean under Justinian two hundred years earlier.

What the sources can and cannot say

Theophanes wrote decades after the events and organized his chronicle by Byzantine world-years and indictions, which is why the outbreak's start converts to the awkward span 745/746 rather than a clean date. He records that in the following indiction the disease reached Constantinople, where it caused severe mortality during the reign of Constantine V.

The event's traditional framing — a third of Asia Minor's population dead — appears in no consulted source. The route Theophanes describes runs west to east through Greece, not through Asia Minor at all, and no consulted source supports the claim that one-third of Asia Minor's population died.

Plague reaches Constantinople in a later phase

The immediate consequence was that plague stood established in Monemvasia, mainland Greece and the islands, positioned on the sea routes to the capital. The Constantinople phase that followed — dated 747–748 in some reconstructions — caused severe mortality in the city.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 4 sources 1 audit pass Traditional date

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Traditional date. Conventionally dated here; the research places it at ~0745.

What the sources leave uncertain

The fourteenth indiction ran approximately from 1 September 745 to 31 August 746, so a single calendar year cannot be assigned securely.
Theophanes' chronological systems are internally inconsistent in places; 745/746 is a traditional annalistic dating rather than an exact event date.
Ancient DNA confirms Yersinia pestis in first-pandemic burials elsewhere in Europe, but it does not independently establish the pathogen, local mortality, or precise route for this particular Greek outbreak.
No consulted primary or scholarly source supports the listed claim that one-third of Asia Minor's population died.