Johannes Malalas, drawing on a now-lost 6th-century chronicle by Domininos, recorded that an earthquake struck Antioch at ~4 p.m. on 21 February in a year that is difficult to determine, since the chronological markers he provided are internally inconsistent. These references could indicate 148 BCE, 130 BCE, or perhaps a date in the 1st century BCE. It is also possible that the event is spurious, as no other known authors record this earthquake.

Given the confused nature of Malalas’ chronology, the so-called Malalas Confusion Quake may represent the same event as the Dead Fish and Soldiers Quake of ~142 BCE. Karcz (2004) also suggested that the 17th of Adar Quake might be identical to the Dead Fish and Soldiers Earthquake. Hence, all three accounts may describe the same shock or different phases of a single seismic sequence.