256
year
Year 256 (CCLVI) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Claudius and Glabrio (or, less frequently, year 1009 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 256 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
Roman Empire
February 28 – Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 3035, a warrant for the arrest of a Christian, is written.
The Goths invade Asia Minor. Dacia is lost for the Roman Empire, and the Goths appear at the walls of Thessalonica.
The Franks cross the Rhine; the Alemanni reach Mediolanum (Milan) (disputed date).
In Africa, the Berbers massacre Roman colonists.
King Shapur I of the Sasanian Empire invades Mesopotamia and Syria. He conquers and plunders Antioch, destroys Dura-Europos, and sacks the Anatolian city of Zeugma on the Euphrates.
The public source identifies “256” as year. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around year.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “256”, the useful work is to connect “year” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q31712. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1009.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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- Expand the search: follow 256 primary sources, 256 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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This entry incorporates text from “256” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.