Disasters and epidemics

Byzantine chroniclers and historians are fond of recording impressive physical phenomena and natural disasters such as earthquakes. Several towns on Crete were destroyed when a powerful earthquake accompanied by a tidal wave struck the island on 9^th July 365. Another major earthquake on 6^th September 448 wrought destruction on the island capital at Gortyn, demolishing among other things a public building with twelve cupolas "built by Julius Caesar" (Theocharis Detorakis, History of Crete, trans. J.C. Davis, Heraklion 1994, p. 113). The island suffered further destruction from powerful quakes in 531 and on 7^th April 795.

The plague epidemics which tormented medieval populations were also common. One such epidemic struck Crete in the mid-8^th century, having a devastating effect on the island population.