How earthquakes, tsunamis shook ancient Greece and Rome

The Greek poet Cunagoras of Mytilene (1st century BC – 1st century afternoon) once tackled a small poem to an earthquake. He asked the earthquake not to destroy his house:

“Earthquake, the most of all shocks … spare my new house built, because I do not know any terror equal to the tremor of the earth.”

Like us, the ancients had a lot to say about natural disasters. So what information has they left us and what can we learn from them?

The story of Nicomedia

One of the oldest old accounts of an earthquake is in the writings of the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330–395 after JC).

On August 24, 358 AD, there was a huge earthquake in Nicomedia, a city in Asia Minor.

As Ammianus says: “A formidable earthquake completely overturned the city and its suburbs … Since most of the houses were transported on the slopes of the hill, they fell on each other, while everything sounds with the vast roar of their destruction.”

The human effect was devastating.

Most people were “killed at a time,” said Ammianus. Others, he tells us, were “imprisoned unscathed in inclined house roofs, to be consumed by the agony of famine”.

Hidden in the rubble “with fractured skulls or amputated arms or legs,” the injured survivors “hovered between life and death”, but most could not be recovered “, despite their plea and their protests” resounding under the rubble, according to Ammianus.

Famous natural disasters in the ancient world

A number of natural disasters involving earthquakes and tsunamis were particularly famous in the ancient and Roman Greek era.

In 464 BC, in Sparta, there was a huge earthquake. People at the time said it was greater than any earthquake that had ever occurred before.

According to the Greek Plutarch writer (c. 46-119 after JC), the earthquake “tore the land of lacedonians in many chasms”, collapsed the summits of the surrounding mountains and “demolished the whole city with the exception of five houses”.

In 373 to 372 BC, the Greek coastal cities of Helice and Buris were destroyed by tsunamis. They were permanently overwhelmed under the waves.

An anonymous Greek poet wrote in an evocative way that the walls of these cities, which had once prospered with many people, were now silent under the waves, “coated with thick shit”.

But undoubtedly the most famous ancient tsunami occurred on July 21, 365 AD, on the north coast of Africa, at the time controlled by the Romans.

Again, according to Ammianus, early in the morning, there was a huge earthquake. Then, shortly after, the water withdrew from the shore: “The sea with its hilly waves was pushed back and withdrew from the earth, so that in the abyss of the depths, people thus revealed many types of sea creatures glued quickly in the slime … and vast mountains and deep valleys, which nature had hidden in the unsolved depths.”

Then, suddenly, the sea returned with revenge. As Ammianus tells us, he broke the earth destroying everything on his way:

“The large mass of waters killed several thousand people while drowning … The lifeless bodies of shipwrecked people were lying on the back or on the face … Large ships, driven by crazy explosions, landed on the top of the buildings, and some were driven by almost two miles inside the land.”

The earthquakes were famous for their sound. The Roman scholar Pliny, the elder (23–79 AD), explained that earthquakes have a “terrible sound” – like “the begging of cattle or the cries of human beings or the shock of weapons struck together.”

Ancient ideas on what causes earthquakes and tsunamis

Like today, the ancients wanted to know what caused these phenomena. There were different different theories.

Some people thought Poseidon, God of the sea, earthquakes and horses, was responsible.

While the Greek writer Greek Plutarch (c. 46-119 after JC), “men sacrifice themselves in Poseidon when they wish to put an end to earthquakes.”

However, other people have looked beyond divine explanations.

An interesting theory owned by the philosopher Anaximenes (6th century BC) was that the earth itself was the cause of earthquakes.

Depending on the anaximens, huge parts of the earth under the ground can move, collapse, detach or tear yourself away, causing tremors.

“Huge waves,” said Anaximenes, “produced by weight [of falling earth] crash into the [waters] From above. “”

Ancient people knew nothing about tectonic plates and continental drift. These were discovered much later, mainly through the pioneering works of Alfred Wegener (1880-1930).

Prepare natural disasters

The Greeks and the ancient Romans had little way of predicting or preparing earthquakes and tsunamis.

The Phericks of Samos (6th century BC) predicted an earthquake “from the appearance of water from a well”, according to the Roman statesman Cicero (106–43 BC).

For the most part, however, ancient people had to live at the mercy of these occurrences.

Like the anonymous author of a treaty entitled on the cosmos once written, natural disasters are part of life on earth: “violent earthquakes have already torn many parts of the earth; the monstrous storms of the rain have broken out and submerged; the incursions and withdrawals of waves often made dry and dry soil …”

Although our understanding of these events (and our ability to prepare them and recover later) has improved considerably since ancient times, earthquakes and tsunamis are things that we will always have to face.

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