581
year
Year 581 (DLXXXI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 581 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
Byzantine Empire
Byzantine–Sasanian War: A Byzantine army commanded by Maurice, and supported by Ghassanid forces under King Al-Mundhir III, fails to capture the Persian capital, Ctesiphon, along the Euphrates.
Maurice accuses Mundhir III of treason, and brings him to Constantinople to face trial. Emperor Tiberius II Constantine treats him well, and allows Mundhir with his family a comfortable residence.
Al-Nu'man VI, son (de facto) of Mundhir III, revolts with the Ghassanids against the Byzantine Empire, after his father is treacherously arrested.
Europe
Palace coup in Austrasia: New advisors break the peace treaty with King Guntram, and make a new alliance with his half brother Chilperic I, in which Childebert II, age 11, is recognized as Chilperic's heir.
The Lombards under Zotto, Duke of Benevento, sack the abbey of Monte Cassino near Naples. The Benedictine monks who survive flee to Rome, but they return to the site, and rebuild the monastery.
The Göktürks under Taspar Qaghan besiege the city of Chersonesos Taurica (modern Ukraine), located at the Black Sea; their cavalry keep plundering the steppes of the Crimean Peninsula until 590.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “581” as year. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as year. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q32247. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. 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
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “581”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 581 primary sources, 581 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “581” 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.