542

By place

Byzantine Empire

• Plague of Justinian: Bubonic plague, spread from Egypt, kills at least 230,000 in Constantinople, and perhaps two million or more in the rest of the empire. Emperor Justinian I contracts the disease but recovers.
• Lazic War - Justinian I sends a Byzantine army to Armenia. The Persians, severely outnumbered, are forced to retreat, but at Dvin the Byzantines are defeated by a force of 4,000 men in an ambush, and are completely routed.

  Europe

• Spring - Battle of Faventia: King Totila scatters with 5,000 men the Byzantine forces near Faventia, beginning the resurgence of Gothic resistance to the reconquest of Italy.
• Battle of Mucellium: Totila marches down into Tuscany and defeats the Byzantines at Florence, in the valley of Mugello. He treats his prisoners well, and many are induced to join his banner.
• March - Totila bypasses Rome and begins his expedition in Southern Italy. He captures Beneventum and receives the submission of the provinces of Apulia, Lucania and Bruttium.
• Siege of Naples: Totila besieges the city of Naples in Campania. A Byzantine relief force from Sicily is intercepted and almost destroyed by Gothic warships.
• King Childebert I and his brother Chlothar I invade Visigothic Spain. They capture Pamplona, but Zaragoza withstands a siege and the Franks retreat to Gaul. From this expedition Childebert brings back to Paris a relic, the tunic of Saint Vincent.

  By topic

Religion

• Brendan establishes a monastic settlement on Eileach an Naoimh.

  Literature

• Gildas, British monk, writes his work "De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae".