In the middle of the 2nd century BCE the Seleucid Empire was shaken by a struggle between rival monarchs and their supporting generals. Two commanders, Sarpedon and Diodotus Tryphon, brought their armies into conflict near Dor on the Phoenician coast. As Tryphon’s army marched northward along the coast1, a sudden tsunami is reported to have struck the shoreline and drowned parts of the force, leaving behind what later authors described as a scene of dead fish and soldiers scattered along the coast.
The report appears to derive ultimately from the lost writings of the Stoic philosopher and historian Posidonius (~135 BC – ~51 BC). His account was later preserved indirectly by classical writers. Strabo repeated the story in his Geographicum, while Athenaeus of Naucratis included a similar description in The Deipnosophistae. The two accounts are broadly similar but differ slightly in the reported location of the event. Athenaeus wrote that the tsunami struck near Akko, whereas Strabo placed it between Akko and Tyre. Neither author explicitly states that an earthquake accompanied the wave. However, after describing the phenomenon, Strabo speculated that the displacement of the sea may have resulted from the earth moving upward or downward, which may hint that Posidonius or another earlier source had associated the event with seismic activity.
The precise date of this supposed earthquake remains uncertain. Both Strabo and Athenaeus of Naucratis indicate that the tsunami occurred soon after the battle at Dor, yet the battle itself is difficult to date. Ambraseys (2009) noted that “this battle probably took place about six years after Alexander Balas’ death in 145 BC (Clinton 1830, v, 327),” which would suggest a date around 139 BCE. At the same time, Ambraseys (2009) also observed that the sequence of political events following Alexander’s death might place the episode more broadly between 138 and 125 BC (Pauly-Wissowa, iv, 2, col. 2800).
Karcz (2004) further constrained the chronological range of the battle to the period between the beginning of Diodotus Tryphon’s revolt in 145/144 BCE and his suicide in 138/137 BCE.
Karcz (2004) also suggested that if the Dead Fish and Soldiers Quake and the Seventeenth of Adar Quake refer to the same historical event, then the tsunami described in the classical sources might correspond to an earthquake occurring in 143/142 BCE. This date coincides with the campaign of the Hasmonean ruler Jonathan, who fought the Zabadeans while still allied with Diodotus Tryphon ( 1 Maccabees 12:30).
A narrower chronological window was proposed by Triantafyllou et al. (2022:8), who suggested a date between 138 and 135 BCE. However, this tighter dating relies heavily on passages attributed to John of Antioch, a source whose chronological reliability for this particular episode is extremely doubtful. For this reason the narrow chronological window proposed by Triantafyllou et al. (2022:8) appears unrealistic. Notably, Guidoboni et al. (1994) did not include this event in their earthquake catalogue.
Independent archaeological and paleoseismic evidence may provide corroboration for a mid-2nd-century BCE earthquake. Well-dated archaeoseismic evidence from Tel Ateret has been interpreted as reflecting seismic activity around ~142 BCE. In addition, several Dead Sea sedimentary sequences contain thick and brecciated seismites dating to approximately the same period. Because an earthquake on the Phoenician coast would probably have been too distant to produce such strong sediment deformation in the Dead Sea basin, it is possible that more than one earthquake occurred. In such a scenario a southern event could have triggered or been followed closely by a northern earthquake, or vice versa. The seismite layers tend to thicken toward the south, and additional paleoseismic evidence from the Taybeh trench in the Araba suggests a potential epicentral region in the southern Dead Sea basin or the northern Araba. Mass-transport deposits identified in the Gulf of Aqaba have also been dated to approximately the same period.
It is therefore possible that several historically recorded earthquakes — including the Dead Fish and Soldiers Quake, the Malalas Confusion Quake, the Seventeenth of Adar Quake, and/or the Posidonius Quake — may represent different textual traditions referring to the same seismic episode.
Finally, Josephus in The Jewish War, Book 1 appears to refer to Diodotus Tryphon — whom he calls Trypho — and a battle at Dor that may correspond to the same historical episode.
