Antioch

Name Tables

**Antioch**
Transliterated Name	Source	Name
Antioch	English
Antioch on the Orontes	English
Antiochia ad Orontem	Greek	Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου
Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou	Greek	Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου
Antiókheia	Greek	Ἀντιόχεια
Antiochia	Latin
Antakya	Turkish
Andiok	Armenian	Անտիոք
Anṭākiya	Arabic	أنطاكية
Theoupolis	Greek
Epiphaneia
Meroe	settlement which pre-dated Antioch

**Daphne**
Transliterated Name	Source	Name
Harbiye	Turkish
Harbiyat	Arabic	حربيات
Harbiye	Arabic	دفنه
Dàphne	Greek	Δάφνη

ChatGPT Introduction

from Chat GPT 5, 18 September 2025
sources: Antioch – Wikipedia

Antioch on the Orontes was one of the great cities of the Hellenistic and Roman world. Founded near the mouth of the Orontes River in what is today southern Turkey, the city commanded fertile plains and trade routes that connected the Mediterranean with inland Syria and Mesopotamia. Its strategic location made Antioch both a commercial hub and a political prize for successive empires.

Established by Seleucus I Nicator in the early 3rd century BCE, Antioch became the capital of the Seleucid Empire and a center of Greek urban culture in the Near East. Its grid-planned streets, colonnaded avenues, and monumental architecture reflected its role as a deliberate counterpart to Alexandria. The city remained under Seleucid control until the mid-1st century BCE, when Roman influence began to dominate.

Under Rome, Antioch grew into the empire’s third city after Rome and Alexandria. It served as the capital of the province of Syria and later as a major imperial residence. The city’s prosperity supported great theatrical, bath, and civic complexes, while its cosmopolitan population included Greeks, Jews, Syrians, and later Christians. Antioch became a vital center of early Christianity, hosting one of the first Christian communities mentioned in the New Testament.

Antioch was repeatedly damaged by earthquakes, floods, and fires, which reshaped its urban fabric. The most catastrophic events included the earthquake of 115 CE, which struck during Trajan’s stay, and the disaster of 526 CE, which killed tens of thousands and was followed by fire. These calamities, alongside invasions, steadily diminished the city’s importance, though it remained a key Byzantine stronghold into the Middle Ages.

In 637 CE Antioch was taken by Arab Muslim forces, marking a major shift in the balance of power in Syria. The city returned briefly to Byzantine hands in the 10th century before falling to the Seljuk Turks. Captured by Crusaders in 1098, Antioch became the capital of the Principality of Antioch, one of the longest-lived Crusader states, until it was conquered by the Mamluks in 1268.

Later incorporated into the Ottoman Empire, Antioch never regained its earlier prominence. Yet its historical layers — Seleucid foundation, Roman metropolis, Christian center, Islamic conquest, and Crusader principality — mark it as one of the most contested and culturally rich cities of the ancient and medieval Near East.

Today, Antioch (modern Antakya) retains remnants of its ancient walls, churches, and mosaics, reminders of its former role as a crossroads of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern history. Its seismic past and political fortunes together shaped a city whose influence extended far beyond the Orontes valley.

Summary of Antioch Excavations

from De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Table 5.1

Summary of Antioch Excavations

De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Maps, Aerial Views, Tables, Sections, Plots, Illustrations, and Photos

Maps

Normal Size

Antioch and surrounding

Antioch and surrounding Region

Kondoleon (2000)

Region from Kondoleon (2000)
Fig. 0.1 Archaeological

Fig. 0.1

Archaeological sites in the Hatay region of Turkey

De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

sites in the Hatay region of Turkey from De Giorgi and Eger (2021)
Map of the Orontes

Map of the Orontes. White lines are country borders, river names are italic on a blue background, current cities or major towns on white backgrounds, other places of significance on orange backgrounds.

Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab

wikipedia - Erp - CC BY-SA 4.0

River from wikipedia
The Ancient City of Antioch

The Ancient City of Antioch

Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab

The Cleveland Art Museum

from The Cleveland Art Museum
Map of Antioch in Roman

Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times

Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab

wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0

and early Byzantine times from wikipedia
Fig. 27.2 Map of earthquake
Fig. 27.2

A map of earthquake damage from the 115 CE earthquake at Antioch (by Stephen Batiuk).

Atrium House, new mosaics after earthquake

Bath C, destroyed after EQ with long break in occupation

House of Trajan's Aqueduct, damaged and abandoned after EQ

19-M, new colonnaded street

Aqueduct of Trajan

Temple Zeus Soter

House of the Drunken Dionysus, earthquake before mosaic ﬂoors

16-P, Street destroyed and repaired after 115

Hippodrome,evidence of capitals for repair after 115

House of the Evil Eye, Lower Level, repairs due to EQ

Villa near Bath B:mosaics / repairs after 115

Theater, later 1st AD destroyed 341 but repaired, persists into 6th c.

Bath E destroyed

Bath F, evidence of capitals for repair after 458 earthquake

13-R Destruction Deposit

15-M Large Building destroyed

16-O vaults over Parmenius

Bath A: abandoned after 526

Stadium on island: this quarter destroyed 526 and thereafter outside Justinian’s city wall

Villa 14-S on Mt Staurin destroyed

House of the Phoenix; late ceramics and coins as TPQ for laying of mosaic here after EQ

House of the Bird Rinceau, coin sealed between successive ﬂoors dates repairs after EQ

House of the Buffet Supper Upper Level, below plaster ﬂoor covering mosaics were coins dating plasterﬂoor to post-526

Kaoussie Church; ﬁnal reconstruction after EQ

Church at Seleucia Pieria destroyed, rebuilt anddamaged again in 528?

17-O Forum of Valens and Nymphaeum.

De Giorgi et al. (2024)
damage from the 115 CE earthquake at Antioch from De Giorgi et al. (2024)

Magnified

Antioch and surrounding

Antioch and surrounding Region

Kondoleon (2000)

Region from Kondoleon (2000)
Fig. 0.1 Archaeological

Fig. 0.1

Archaeological sites in the Hatay region of Turkey

De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

sites in the Hatay region of Turkey from De Giorgi and Eger (2021)
Map of the Orontes

Map of the Orontes. White lines are country borders, river names are italic on a blue background, current cities or major towns on white backgrounds, other places of significance on orange backgrounds.

Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab

wikipedia - Erp - CC BY-SA 4.0

River from wikipedia
The Ancient City of Antioch

The Ancient City of Antioch

Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab

The Cleveland Art Museum

from The Cleveland Art Museum
Map of Antioch in Roman

Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times

Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab

wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0

and early Byzantine times from wikipedia
Fig. 27.2 Map of earthquake
Fig. 27.2

A map of earthquake damage from the 115 CE earthquake at Antioch (by Stephen Batiuk).

Atrium House, new mosaics after earthquake

Bath C, destroyed after EQ with long break in occupation

House of Trajan's Aqueduct, damaged and abandoned after EQ

19-M, new colonnaded street

Aqueduct of Trajan

Temple Zeus Soter

House of the Drunken Dionysus, earthquake before mosaic ﬂoors

16-P, Street destroyed and repaired after 115

Hippodrome,evidence of capitals for repair after 115

House of the Evil Eye, Lower Level, repairs due to EQ

Villa near Bath B:mosaics / repairs after 115

Theater, later 1st AD destroyed 341 but repaired, persists into 6th c.

Bath E destroyed

Bath F, evidence of capitals for repair after 458 earthquake

13-R Destruction Deposit

15-M Large Building destroyed

16-O vaults over Parmenius

Bath A: abandoned after 526

Stadium on island: this quarter destroyed 526 and thereafter outside Justinian’s city wall

Villa 14-S on Mt Staurin destroyed

House of the Phoenix; late ceramics and coins as TPQ for laying of mosaic here after EQ

House of the Bird Rinceau, coin sealed between successive ﬂoors dates repairs after EQ

House of the Buffet Supper Upper Level, below plaster ﬂoor covering mosaics were coins dating plasterﬂoor to post-526

Kaoussie Church; ﬁnal reconstruction after EQ

Church at Seleucia Pieria destroyed, rebuilt anddamaged again in 528?

17-O Forum of Valens and Nymphaeum.

De Giorgi et al. (2024)
damage from the 115 CE earthquake at Antioch from De Giorgi et al. (2024)

Aerial Views

Antioch in Google Earth

Antioch in Google Earth

click on image to explore this site on a new tab in Google Earth

Tables

Church Sites in Antioch and Vicinity

from De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Table 4.1

Known Church Sites in Antioch and Vicinity

De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Summary of Antioch Excavations

from De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Table 5.1

Summary of Antioch Excavations

De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Plots

Antioch Earthquakes

from De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Fig. 0.2

Antioch Earthquakes by year, 250 BC to 1900 CE

De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Sections

Fig. 2.16 The House of

Fig. 2.16

The House of Trajan's aqueduct

Source: Courtesy of the Antioch Expedition Archives, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University; Princeton

De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Trajan's aqueduct from De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Illustrations

Normal Size

1799 Engraving of the walls

View of remains of walls and towers at the southern end of Antioch

(Detail of engraving from Cassas 1799, no. 1, pl. 7 Harvard University Art Museums)

Kondoleon (2000)

of Antioch from Kondoleon (2000)
3D reconstruction of

3D reconstruction of ancient Antioch

Click on image to open in a new tab

Found on es.pinterest

Attributed to OPENPICS.AEROBATIC.IO

ancient Antioch found on es.pinterest and attributed to OPENPICS.AEROBATIC.IO

Magnified

1799 Engraving of the walls

View of remains of walls and towers at the southern end of Antioch

(Detail of engraving from Cassas 1799, no. 1, pl. 7 Harvard University Art Museums)

Kondoleon (2000)

of Antioch from Kondoleon (2000)
3D reconstruction of

3D reconstruction of ancient Antioch

Click on image to open in a new tab

Found on es.pinterest

Attributed to OPENPICS.AEROBATIC.IO

ancient Antioch found on es.pinterest and attributed to OPENPICS.AEROBATIC.IO

Photos

Fig. 2.19 The Remains of

Fig. 2.16

The Remains of Trajan's aqueduct in Antakya

Source: Photograph by Andrea U. De Giorgi

De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Trajan's aqueduct from De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Chronology

Chronology of Antioch

from Downey (1963)

Malalas Confusion Quake (130 BCE ?, 148 BCE ?)

Discussion

References

De Giorgi et al. (2024)

Hellenistic Earthquakes (330–64 BCE)

from Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:436-438)

The earliest earthquake attested at Antioch, probably for the year 130 BCE, is described by the local Antiochene historian John Malalas (c. 490–570 CE) as θεομηνία, or “the wrath of God.

After Demetrianos, Antiochos, grandson of Grylos and son of Laodike, daughter of Ariarathes, emperor of the Cappadocians, reigned for nine years. At that time Antioch the Great suffered from the wrath of God, in the eighth year of his reign, in the time of the Macedonians, 152 years after the original laying of the foundation of the wall by Seleukos Nikator, at the tenth hour of the day, on 21st Peritios-February. It was completely rebuilt, as Domninos the chronicler has written It was 122 years after the completion of the walls and the whole city that it suffered; it was rebuilt better. (Malalas 8.25)

Malalas was a late antique chronographer, a time writer. He recorded events annalistically, year-by year, with only very brief comments or literary structure to evaluate their causes or contexts, in this case some 600 years later. Malalas points to the now-lost chronicler Domninos (c. 300 CE) as his source,⁸ who claimed the city was “entirely rebuilt” (άνενεώθη πάσα) and “rebuilt better” (βελτίων εγένετο). There is confusion and contradiction here, for the when and who – by rulers’ genealogy, years into whoever’s reign, and date since the laying of the city walls – do not agree easily.⁹ Malalas seems to point to Antiochus VI by sequence (r. 148–142/1 BCE) but Antiochus VII (r. 138–129 BCE) is more likely insofar as the earthquake occurred “in the eighth year of Antiochus,” and only Antiochus VII had at least eight years in his reign! Antiochus VII is also remembered later by the epithet Euergetes or “generous,” a term typically connected to beneficence in public construction.¹⁰

Problems in chronology should be a warning to take heed of our primary sources. Whatever our author’s confusion around the year of this event, Malalas also provides a precise time and day by which the 130 BCE earthquake was later remembered to have occurred (“the tenth hour of the day, on 21st Peritios-February”). Malalas lacks any detailed description of the event or its effects, or the nature of state engagement with the reconstruction effort.

Better insight into Hellenistic earthquake recovery, at Antioch or otherwise, can come with wider context. Reports of earlier Classical earth quakes were concerned primarily with these events as portents or warnings, and unusual occurrences during wars (Thucydides I.101.2, I.128.1, III.89.2–5; Diodorus XI.63, XII.59; Plutarch Life of Cimon 16). After the age of Alexander the Great’s successors after 323 BCE, earthquakes were remembered as stimuli for international diplomatic engagement. Notably, an earthquake at Rhodes in 228 BCE causing severe damage and perhaps toppling the famous Colossus, one of the ancient world’s seven wonders, in a city renowned for its naval prowess– brought an influx of wealth into the city from all of Alexander’s competing successors, the tyrants of Sicily, and dynasts from Anatolia and the Levant. Polybius gives a lengthy account of these gifts, including not only money intended for rebuilding gymnasia and temples but also vessels for temples, catapults, statues, 170,000 pounds of wheat, the labor of master builders, and raw materials such as timber for ship buildings, pitch, iron, and lead. Such gifts were not merely magnanimous: they were intended to gain the favor of Rhodes, a critical naval power, during a period of heated warfare in the Eastern Mediterranean (Polybius 5.88–90). Polybius’s account, written several decades later with the benefit of hindsight, also takes the opportunity to shame miserly rulers of his own day (c. 140 BCE) who gave four or five talents after catastrophe, when Ptolemy III had given three hundred to Rhodes in 228 BCE. Polybius also praises the Rhodians for their ability to adroitly “convert this misfortune into an opportunity” (5.88).

Thus, earthquakes entered into the historic and diplomatic record of Mediterranean states after Rhodes in 228 BCE, with relief understood as a means for currying favor or establishing obligation between cities, states, or rulers. Seleucid kings engaged in similar efforts.¹¹ Besides Seleucus’s gift to the Rhodians of duty free passage for their ships in his ports, he had also given substantial quantities of wheat, timber, resin, and hair (Polybius 5.89). Antiochus III had, after an earthquake of 199/8 BCE (Justin 30.4), helped to rebuild a sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandemos at Cos,¹² repaired houses and city walls at Aegean Telos,¹³ a famous sanctuary at Panamara in Caria,¹⁴ and an unnamed temple near Stratonikeia.¹⁵ Such inscriptions point at a minimum toward the sustained interest of Hellenistic monarchs in financial support for the repair of temples and walls after earthquakes, besides the broader support available in extraordinary circumstances as at Rhodes after 228 BCE. Mostly lacking– though our sources would prob ably neglect such details anyway, by nature of their genres– are indicators that the Seleucids or their peers acted to rebuild rural areas, or artisanal zones in cities, or markets.

Records from a later earthquake at Antioch in 69 BCE are similarly thin on details: a later source, Justin, simply gives the improbable number of 170,000 dead (Epitome XL. 1/271), while Pompey Magnus is perhaps more plausibly attributed with reconstruction of the city’s collapsed bouleuterion after he took the city and annexed Syria for the Romans a short time later, in 64 BCE.¹⁶

Footnotes

8 On Domninus’s position among the sources of Malalas, see Van Nuffelen (2017, 263).

9 Downey (1938).

10 Ambraseys (2009, 94) is also therefore incorrect in placing the earthquake in 148 BC

11 Note, especially, Robert (1987) and Ma (1999, 88) for Seleucid inscriptions.

12 Segre (1993, ED178, 31–32) and Habicht (1996:88). This inscription records destruction around the sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandamos. Note the similar text at Samos (Habicht, 1957).

13 IGXII, 3, 30l.6–7 for Telos.

14 Holleaux (1952:209–210)for Panamara.

15 Sahin (1981, 4, l. 16–18) [... συνσεισθέ[ν]των των τεινεων ύπο του σεισμού...].

16 Malalas 8.30: κτίσας τό βουλευτήριον πεσόντα γάρ ην. For Pompey’s arrival at Antioch, see DeGiorgi and Eger (2021,71).

~65 BCE Pompey Quake

Discussion

References

De Giorgi et al. (2024)

Hellenistic Earthquakes (330–64 BCE)

from Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:436-438)

The earliest earthquake attested at Antioch, probably for the year 130 BCE, is described by the local Antiochene historian John Malalas (c. 490–570 CE) as θεομηνία, or “the wrath of God.

After Demetrianos, Antiochos, grandson of Grylos and son of Laodike, daughter of Ariarathes, emperor of the Cappadocians, reigned for nine years. At that time Antioch the Great suffered from the wrath of God, in the eighth year of his reign, in the time of the Macedonians, 152 years after the original laying of the foundation of the wall by Seleukos Nikator, at the tenth hour of the day, on 21st Peritios-February. It was completely rebuilt, as Domninos the chronicler has written It was 122 years after the completion of the walls and the whole city that it suffered; it was rebuilt better. (Malalas 8.25)

Malalas was a late antique chronographer, a time writer. He recorded events annalistically, year-by year, with only very brief comments or literary structure to evaluate their causes or contexts, in this case some 600 years later. Malalas points to the now-lost chronicler Domninos (c. 300 CE) as his source,⁸ who claimed the city was “entirely rebuilt” (άνενεώθη πάσα) and “rebuilt better” (βελτίων εγένετο). There is confusion and contradiction here, for the when and who – by rulers’ genealogy, years into whoever’s reign, and date since the laying of the city walls – do not agree easily.⁹ Malalas seems to point to Antiochus VI by sequence (r. 148–142/1 BCE) but Antiochus VII (r. 138–129 BCE) is more likely insofar as the earthquake occurred “in the eighth year of Antiochus,” and only Antiochus VII had at least eight years in his reign! Antiochus VII is also remembered later by the epithet Euergetes or “generous,” a term typically connected to beneficence in public construction.¹⁰

Problems in chronology should be a warning to take heed of our primary sources. Whatever our author’s confusion around the year of this event, Malalas also provides a precise time and day by which the 130 BCE earthquake was later remembered to have occurred (“the tenth hour of the day, on 21st Peritios-February”). Malalas lacks any detailed description of the event or its effects, or the nature of state engagement with the reconstruction effort.

Better insight into Hellenistic earthquake recovery, at Antioch or otherwise, can come with wider context. Reports of earlier Classical earth quakes were concerned primarily with these events as portents or warnings, and unusual occurrences during wars (Thucydides I.101.2, I.128.1, III.89.2–5; Diodorus XI.63, XII.59; Plutarch Life of Cimon 16). After the age of Alexander the Great’s successors after 323 BCE, earthquakes were remembered as stimuli for international diplomatic engagement. Notably, an earthquake at Rhodes in 228 BCE causing severe damage and perhaps toppling the famous Colossus, one of the ancient world’s seven wonders, in a city renowned for its naval prowess– brought an influx of wealth into the city from all of Alexander’s competing successors, the tyrants of Sicily, and dynasts from Anatolia and the Levant. Polybius gives a lengthy account of these gifts, including not only money intended for rebuilding gymnasia and temples but also vessels for temples, catapults, statues, 170,000 pounds of wheat, the labor of master builders, and raw materials such as timber for ship buildings, pitch, iron, and lead. Such gifts were not merely magnanimous: they were intended to gain the favor of Rhodes, a critical naval power, during a period of heated warfare in the Eastern Mediterranean (Polybius 5.88–90). Polybius’s account, written several decades later with the benefit of hindsight, also takes the opportunity to shame miserly rulers of his own day (c. 140 BCE) who gave four or five talents after catastrophe, when Ptolemy III had given three hundred to Rhodes in 228 BCE. Polybius also praises the Rhodians for their ability to adroitly “convert this misfortune into an opportunity” (5.88).

Thus, earthquakes entered into the historic and diplomatic record of Mediterranean states after Rhodes in 228 BCE, with relief understood as a means for currying favor or establishing obligation between cities, states, or rulers. Seleucid kings engaged in similar efforts.¹¹ Besides Seleucus’s gift to the Rhodians of duty free passage for their ships in his ports, he had also given substantial quantities of wheat, timber, resin, and hair (Polybius 5.89). Antiochus III had, after an earthquake of 199/8 BCE (Justin 30.4), helped to rebuild a sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandemos at Cos,¹² repaired houses and city walls at Aegean Telos,¹³ a famous sanctuary at Panamara in Caria,¹⁴ and an unnamed temple near Stratonikeia.¹⁵ Such inscriptions point at a minimum toward the sustained interest of Hellenistic monarchs in financial support for the repair of temples and walls after earthquakes, besides the broader support available in extraordinary circumstances as at Rhodes after 228 BCE. Mostly lacking– though our sources would prob ably neglect such details anyway, by nature of their genres– are indicators that the Seleucids or their peers acted to rebuild rural areas, or artisanal zones in cities, or markets.

Records from a later earthquake at Antioch in 69 BCE are similarly thin on details: a later source, Justin, simply gives the improbable number of 170,000 dead (Epitome XL. 1/271), while Pompey Magnus is perhaps more plausibly attributed with reconstruction of the city’s collapsed bouleuterion after he took the city and annexed Syria for the Romans a short time later, in 64 BCE.¹⁶

Footnotes

8 On Domninus’s position among the sources of Malalas, see Van Nuffelen (2017, 263).

9 Downey (1938).

10 Ambraseys (2009, 94) is also therefore incorrect in placing the earthquake in 148 BC

11 Note, especially, Robert (1987) and Ma (1999, 88) for Seleucid inscriptions.

12 Segre (1993, ED178, 31–32) and Habicht (1996:88). This inscription records destruction around the sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandamos. Note the similar text at Samos (Habicht, 1957).

13 IGXII, 3, 30l.6–7 for Telos.

14 Holleaux (1952:209–210)for Panamara.

15 Sahin (1981, 4, l. 16–18) [... συνσεισθέ[ν]των των τεινεων ύπο του σεισμού...].

16 Malalas 8.30: κτίσας τό βουλευτήριον πεσόντα γάρ ην. For Pompey’s arrival at Antioch, see DeGiorgi and Eger (2021,71).

17 CE Earthquake - Background Information - did not affect Antioch

Discussion

References

De Giorgi et al. (2024)

Roman Earthquakes (64 BCE–300 CE)

from Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:438-440)

Roman hegemony brought with it more detailed accounts of rebuilding efforts after earthquakes throughout the Mediterranean. An earthquake in 17 CE that shook cities through out western Asia Minor is especially well documented by primary sources, who report that Augustus decreed widespread remission of taxes, direct financial support, and the visit of imperial officials to assist the affected cities (Tacitus, Annals 2.47 and 4.13.1;Strabo13.4.8).¹⁷ This package of state response set a precedent for later earthquakes (including at Antioch in 37, 41, and 115 CE), and for which local Antiochene perspectives from Malalas are supplemented by inscriptions and historians including Dio Cassius, who wrote from a senator’s perspective back at Rome. Generally, imperial Roman sources were concerned with top-down administrative details of immediate state response and issues of finance: they were less concerned with local casualties, the documentation of events from local perspectives, or even the long-term consequences of catastrophe. Two recorded earthquakes at Antioch followed in quick succession, in 37 and 41 CE.

A description of the 37 CE event during the reign of Caligula survives only in Malalas (10.18). Lacking details of destruction or casualties, the Antiochene account nevertheless preserves three key features of typical Roman earthquake response. First, money was sent directly from the emperor to the city. Second, a larger program of new urban infrastructure was set in motion or stimulated by the disaster: in this case the earthquake was quickly followed by construction of a new aqueduct, baths, and temples. Third, two senators and a prefect were sent from Rome “to protect the city and to rebuild it from the benefactions made by the emperor, and equally to make donations to the city from their private income and to live there.” Malalas adds the interesting detail that– besides a bath complex (the Varium), and a nymphaeum (the Trinymphon) decorated with statues – the senators sent from Romealso “built very many dwellings out of their private incomes.” While governmental attention to public buildings has been typical since the Hellenistic period, the focus on private housing stock seems novel. Apart from the new infrastructure that followed in the 37 CE earthquake’s wake according to Malalas– his testimony has been associated with the remains of a Roman aqueduct coming from Daphne, whose construction technique is consistent with a date in the first century CE¹⁸ – the only archaeological evidence for this event may come from Princeton’s excavations of the so-called Atrium House, where mosaics may be dated to the period after 37 CE.¹⁹

Just four years later in 41 CE, another earthquake during the reign of Claudius was accompanied by further destruction of houses, beside damage to the temples of Artemis, Ares, and Herakles (Malalas 10.23). Malalas again records here the quintessential Roman state response: the remission of local taxes paid from cities to Rome, so that cities affected by earthquakes could use these funds to directly pay for repairs themselves, instead. In the case of the 41 CE earthquake at Antioch, the “emperor Claudius relieved the guilds ... of the public service [or tax] of the kapnikon / καπνικόν, which they were providing to reconstruct the city’s roofed colonnades which had been built by Tiberius Caesar” (Malalas 10.23). Καπνικόν, from καπνός or smoke, is usually translated as a hearth tax, that is to say a tax on chimneys, which were easier to count than people; it appears here in its first instantiation, though the precise mean ing of the passage is unclear. Either the hearth tax which had been supporting the colonnade restoration (presumably after the previous earthquake of 37 CE) was lifted entirely; or the hearth tax’s funds were diverted to restoration of the colonnades (meaning that the guild members still paid, but its funds went to a new purpose).²⁰ The hearth tax appeared rarely throughout the medieval period, before it reappeared more widely in early modern times.²¹ In those later forms, at least, the hearth tax was progressive in the sense that a large house or workshop would have more chimneys (and presumably money) than a smaller household.²²

The first earthquake at Antioch for which we can meaningfully compare textual and archaeological evidence came in 115 CE (see Figure 27.2). It was vividly described by the Roman senatorial historian Dio Cassius (c. 155–235 CE), who was neither an eyewitness nor a contemporary. Dio Cassius recalls, however, the name of a consul who died there, and so presumably he relied on a closer source for his own account (68.24–25). Such unusual details may have been preserved because the emperor Trajan was in residence at Antioch at the time of the earthquake, to manage war with the Parthian Persians. Trajan only narrowly escaped from a collapsing building through a room’s window. He stayed outdoors in the hippodrome throughout the aftershocks. Dio Cassius reports significant destruction of houses and the loss of life – “the crash and breaking of timbers together with tiles and stones ... an inconceivable amount of dust ... The number of those who were trapped in the houses and perished was past finding out ...Great numbers were suffocated in the ruins.”

The participation of survivors in community sponsored offerings of thanksgiving, including even the construction of whole temples, may have fostered community cohesion in future earthquakes. After the 115 CE earthquake, Malalas tells us that “the surviving Antiochenes who remained then built a temple on which they inscribed ‘Those who were saved erected this to Zeus the Savior’” (11.8).

Dio Cassius says little concerning the recovery or reconstruction effort that must have followed the 115 CE earthquake, however. Malalas gives more details, indicating a major construction program sponsored by Trajan that followed the 115 CE earthquake: beginning with the sacrifice of a virgin girl named Kalliope, we are told, Trajan restored the city’s colonnades and built a new aqueduct and bath, named for himself, besides a theater (11.8–11).²³

The Princeton excavators at Antioch understood the 115 CE event as a watershed in the city’s history. Literary sources became a point of reference for interpretation and dating of changes in buildings throughout the city, including damage and repair, but also abandonment or new construction: new mosaics were added in the so-called Atrium House and the House of the Drunken Dionysus,²⁴ repairs were made at the Hippodrome, as suggested by new column capitals dated to the reign of Hadrian,²⁵ and the city cardo was built anew²⁶ while other streets were repaired.²⁷ On the other hand, Bath C was destroyed in the 115 earthquake and abandoned, so too was the so-called House of Trajan’s Aqueduct.²⁸

Leaving aside aspersions of child sacrifice from Christian chronicler Malalas, and the difficulties posed by evaluation of claims made by the Princeton excavators some 90 years later, it still stands that the initiation of significant new infra structure projects and repairs to public or private buildings followed the 115 CE earthquake at Antioch, in a pattern typical for major cities under the Roman empire. We turn now to the Byzantine.²⁹

Footnotes

17 See also Ambraseys(2009).

18 Antioch II, 52; Gatier, Leblanc, and Poccardi (2004,241–242).

19 See Levi(1947, 16).

20 Downey (1961, 196,n. 145).

21 s.v. “HearthTax” and “Kapnikon” in Kazhdan (1991, 906, 1105).

22 Gurrin(2004).

23 Jeffreys (1990, 56) says “much of Malalas’ narrative on Trajan’s activities is uncorroborated by other sources and is probably fictitious.”

24 Levi(1947, 16,40).

25 Antioch III, 150.

26 Antioch V, 30–33.

27 Antioch V,72

28 Levi(1947,289,28).

29 Mordechai and Pickett (2018)

Ambraseys (2009)

AD 17 Lydia

In AD 17 twelve towns in Asia Minor were almost totally destroyed or heavily damaged. Details about the damage are not given in the sources, but this was apparently a major disaster, which fell heaviest on Sardis, then Magnesia, and attracted the attention of the Imperial Office in Rome.

The towns which were badly damaged were Aegae, Apollonis, Cyme, Hierocaesarea, Hyrcania, Mosthene, Myrina, Philadelphia, Temnus and Tmolus, all within an area of a radius of 45 km, which extended for a distance of 140 km along the Hermus valley.

As a result of the earthquake the ground opened up in places and parts of the valley were uplifted and others sank; landslides added to the damage. In the cities the disaster was worsened by the fact that the earthquake happened at night and fires broke out immediately afterwards.

The date of the event can be deduced approximately from the records of classical authors: Strabo, who completed his Geography about AD 20, mentions the destruction of Magnesia ‘by the recent earthquakes’. Eusebius gives the precise date of a.Ab. 2032/Tib.3 = Oct. AD 16/17–Oct. AD 15/18, which fits the sequence of events given in Tacitus. St Jerome (writing during the fourth century) gives a year too high, Ol.199.5 = AD 18.

The earthquake happened in a region where earthquakes were known to be frequent. Philadelphia, for instance, had already suffered from earlier earthquakes before AD 17. It was said that ‘. . . Philadelphia is ever subject to earthquakes; incessantly the walls of the houses are cracked, different parts of the town being thus affected at different times; for this reason but few people live in the town, and most of them spend their lives as farmers in the country; yet one may be surprised at the few, that they are so fond of the place when their dwellings are so insecure’ (Tac. ii. 47).

Reports of the earthquake soon reached Rome, and a senatorial commissioner, accompanied by five lectors, was charged with the relief of the area and sent to assess the destruction and to administer aid. Sardis and Magnesia received considerable financial assistance from Rome, and remission of taxes was given to all the towns damaged or destroyed by the earthquake.

The impact of this earthquake, both physical and political, is reflected in its widespread documentation by contemporary and near-contemporary authors, all of whose accounts substantially agree. Individual authors add significant details. Pliny notes that it happened during the night, which would have increased the death toll, since everyone was indoors. Tacitus, a near contemporary, records the political response, which involved an assessment of damage, and revealed Sardis as the worst hit (note that Strabo says ‘not only Sardis . . .’). Sardis and Magnesia received considerable financial assistance from Rome as well as remission of all contributions to the imperial exchequer for a period of five years. Ten million sesterces were promised to Sardis by the treasury (Tac. ii. 47), while remission of tribute to the public exchequer for the same period was granted to the other towns that were affected, but not necessarily destroyed by the earthquake.

Magnesia ‘ranked second in the extent of . . . losses and indemnity’, according to Tacitus’s account; the other cities received tax remission for the same term, and a sen- atorial commission was sent to examine the damage in each case and to administer relief as necessary. This sug- gests that Sardis received its pay-out as a reaction to the widespread and immediate sympathy, without a senatorial visitation (and also gave the emperor an opportunity for image-enhancement, as is shown by commemorative coins).

In gratitude they erected a colossus next to the temple of Aphrodite in Rome, inscribed with the names of all the cities, including Cibyra and Ephesus, which were probably damaged in later earthquakes.

A second-century author records that ‘many dis- tinguished cities of Asia Minor’ set up a colossus in Rome in gratitude for Tiberius’s generous relief. This has not been found, but an inscription on a pedestal (see Figure 3.6) discovered in Puteoli (Pozzuoli) records Tiberius’s restoration of the twelve Asian cities and of Cibyra and Ephesus (see below), which from the titles ascribed to Tiberius dates from about AD 28–30, sug- gesting that the colossus in Rome dates from about the same time, or shortly thereafter. This might be taken to give some indication of the time taken for the cities to recover, and hence of the gravity of the disaster, but it is more likely that the twelve Asian cities, together with Cibyra and Ephesus, took Tiberius’s reception of a new title as an opportunity to thank him formally.

An inscription from Sardis (CIG ii. 3450/IGR iv. 1514) mentions the restoration of a temple and statue after the earthquake, and another inscription from the same town records the names of those who were cho- sen as representatives to Tiberius in the aftermath of the earthquake, and who evidently pleased him. While the latter inscription does not mention the earthquake, it is hard not to connect it with that disaster because repre- sentatives of all the twelve cities are listed.

Other inscriptions refer to the restoration work in Sardis and Thyatira (CIG 3450; Robert 1978, 404, 405), a site not mentioned in the Puteoli inscription, which must have perhaps suffered and been relieved earlier after the earthquake during the period AD 6–13. The inscription from Thyatira, about 30 miles north of Sardis, records the restoration of a statue after an earthquake (CIG ii. 3488/IGR. iv.1237).

Also a sestertius of AD 22 mentions the restora- tion of the cities in Asia (BMC i. Tib. 70).

Archaeological excavations on the east bank of the Pactolus in Sardis have revealed ‘a very complicated system of substructure walls and vaults erected by the Romans’ under the synagogue (Hanfmann and Detweiler 1966). After the earthquake, Sardis was rebuilt on an extensive plan. Archaeological excavations show an unusual type of foundation construction used in the reconstruction of part of the city on the east bank of the river Pactolos. A grid of wooden beams under the foundations was employed, on which the structures were built, presumably to reduce differential settlement (Alkim 1968, 44).

Notes

‘The greatest earthquake in human memory occurred when Tiberius Caesar was emperor, twelve Asiatic cities being overthrown in one night . . .’ (Plin. HN II. 86/LCL. i. 330).

‘In the same year, twelve important cities of Asia collapsed in an earthquake, the time being night, so that the havoc was the less foreseen and the more devastating. Even the usual resource in these catastrophes, a rush to open ground, was unavailing, as the fugitives were swallowed up in yawning chasms. Accounts are given of huge mountains sinking, of former plains seen heaved aloft, of fires flashing out amid the ruin. As the disaster fell heaviest on the Sardians, it brought them the largest measure of sympathy, the Caesar promising ten million sesterces, and remitting for five years their payments to the national and imperial exchequers. The Magnesians of Sipylus were ranked second in the extent of their losses and their indemnity. In the case of the Temnians, Philadelphenes, Aegeates, Apollonideans, the so-called Mostenians and Hyrcanaian Macedonians, and the cities of Hierocaesarea, Myrina, Cyme and Tmolus, it was decided to exempt them from tribute for the same term and to send a senatorial commission to view the state of affairs and administer relief.’ (Tac. Ann. II. 47/LCL. ii. 458–460).

‘And the story of Mt Sipylus and its ruin should not be put down as mythical, for in our own times Magnesia, which lies at the foot of it, was laid low by earthquakes, at the time when not only Sardeis, but also the most famous of the other cities, were in many places seriously damaged. But the emperor restored them by contributing money . . .’ (Str. XII. viii. 18/LCL. v. 516).

‘To the present Aelian cities we must add Aegae, and also Temnus . . . These cities are situated in the mountainous country that lies above the territory of Cyme and that of the Phocians and that of the Smyrnaeans, along which flows the Hermus. Neither is Magnesia, which is situated below Mt Sipulus, and has been adjudged a free city by the Romans, far from these cities. This city too has been damaged by the recent earthquakes.’ (Str. XIII. iii. 5/LCL. vi. 158).

‘. . . recently it [Sardis] has lost many of its buildings through earthquakes. However, the forethought of Tiberius, our present ruler, has, by his beneficence, restored not only this city but many others – I mean all the cities that shared in the same misfortune about the same time.’ (Str. XIII. iv. 8/LCL. vi. 178).

‘The cities in Asia which had been damaged by the earthquakes were assigned to an ex-praetor with five lictors; and large sums of money were remitted from their taxes and large sums were also given them by Tiberius.’ (D.C. LVII. xvii/LCL. vii. 158).

‘Apollonius the grammarian records that during the reign of Tiberius Nero an earthquake occurred and that many distinguished cities of Asia Minor were razed to the ground, which Tiberius then restored out of his own money. In gratitude the cities made him a colossus, which they erected next to the temple of Aphrodite, which is in the Roman agora, and they added to it statues of each city in order.’ (Phleg. 42/621).

‘a.Ab. 2032 Tib.3: Thirteen cities of Asia Minor collapsed in an earthquake, Ephesus, Magnesia, Sardis, Mostene, Aegae, Hierocaesarea, Philadelphia, Tmolus, Temus, Myrina, Cyme, Apollonia Dia and Hyrcania.’ (Eus. Hist. 146).

‘Ol.CXCIX.5: Thirteen cities collapsed in an earthquake, Ephesus, Magnesia, Sardis, Mostene, Aegeae, Hierocaesarea, Philadelphia, Tmolus, Tem[n]us, Myrina, Cyme, Apollonia Dia and Hyrcania.’ (Hieron. Hist. 172).

‘To the divine Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, nephew of Julius Augustus, pontifex maximus and consul for the fourth time, imperator for the eighth time, and tribune for the 32nd time, the Augustan state restored . . . henia, Sardis, Magnesia, Philadelphia, Tmolus, Cyme, Temnus, Cibyra, Myrina, Ephesus, Apollonidea, Hyrcania, Mostene, Aegae, Hierocaesarea.’ (ILS i. 42/CIL x. 1624).

‘Socrates son of Polemaeus equipped the temple of Pardale and erected the Hera. [ . . . ] Julia Lydia his daughter restored them after the earthquake.’ (Robert 1978, 405).

‘Sabinus of Mostene has pleased [the emperor], as have Seleucus son of Nearchus of Cibyra, Claudian of Magnesia, Charmides son of Apollonius [ . . . ], Macedon son of Alexander Jocundus of Apollonidea, [ . . . ] of Hyrcania, Serapion son of Aristodemus of Myrina, and Diogenes son of Diogenes of Tem- nos.’ (CIG ii. 3450/IGR. iv. 1514).

‘Tiberius Claudius Amphimachus, greatest stephano- phoros, was honoured by the setting-up of a statue by the Areni and Nagdemi, after he judged and restituted the [borders of] the villages. And after that, when the statue and its base were damaged by an earthquake, Julia Severina of Stratonicea, his daughter, having provided a pedestal and repaired the statue, had it erected out of her own funds.’ (CIG ii. 3488/IGR. iv. 1237; Robert 1978, 404).

References

Ambraseys, N. N. (2009). Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: a multidisciplinary study of seismicity up to 1900.

Guidoboni et al. (1994)

(079) a night in the year 17 – Aegae, Apollonidea, Cyme, Ephesus?, Hierocaesarea, Hyrcania, Magnesia, Mostene, Myrina, Philadelphia, Sardis, Temnus, Tmolus
Surface Faulting

sources 1

Strabo 12.8.18, 13.3.5, 13.4.8, 13.4.10
Bian. apud Anthol. Pal. 9.423
Vell. 2.126
Sen. NQ 6.1.13; ad Luc. 14.91.9
Plin. n.h. 2.200
Apoll. Gramm. apud Phleg. FGrHist 257 F 36 (xiii)
Tac. Ann. 2.47.1–4
Suet. Tib. 48
Dio Cass. 57.17.7

sources 2

Orac. Sibyll. 5.289
Eus. Hieron. Chron. 172a
Ioh. Lyd. De ost. 53
Sol. 40.5
Georg. Sync. 603
Niceph. Call. 1.17
Chron. A 84
Chron. B 86–7
Matt. Palm. Lib. de temp. 9

inscriptions

CIL 3.7096
CIL 10.1624 = ILS 156 add.
SEG 28.928
IGR 4.1514
Foucart (1887)

coins

BMC K90535 D-36 D

literature

Weismantel (1891)
Spinazzola (1902)
Ambraseys (1971)
Robert (1978)
Mitchell (1987)
Catalogo epigrafi (1989)
Clementoni (1989)
Panessa (1991)

catalogues

Manetti [1457]
Ligorio [1574–7]
Bonito (1691)
von Hoff (1840)
Mallet (1853)
Schmidt (1881)
Shebalin et al. (1974)
Papazachos and Papazachos (1989)
Guidoboni (1989)

Area affected by 17 CE Earthquake

Guidoboni et al. (1994)

On an unidentified night in 17 AD., a very violent earthquake struck the Province of Asia. Its effects were disastrous, particularly in Lydia (now part of western Turkey, opposite the Aegean Sea). The most detailed description of what happened and of the measures taken to help the victims, is to be found in the Roman historian Tacitus. He tells us that the city of Sardis suffered the worst damage, followed by Magnesia on Mt.Sipylus, the number of victims being the greater because of outbreaks of fire in the ruins, and because, since the disaster happened at night, those who tried to flee to open ground fell into fissures opened up by the earthquake. Tacitus writes:

In the same year, twelve important cities in Asia collapsed in an earthquake. It happened at night, with the result that the havoc was the less fore-seen and the more devastating. Even the usual resource in these catastrophes of rushing out into the open was unavailing, as the fugitives were swallowed up in yawning chasms. Accounts are given of huge mountains sinking, of former plains seen heaved aloft, and of fires flashing out amid the ruins. As the disaster fell heaviest on the Sardians, it brought them the largest measure of sympathy, the emperor promising ten million sesterces, and exempting them from payments to the national and imperial exchequers for five years. The Magnesians of Sipylus were ranked second as to the extent of their losses and their indemnity. In the case of the Temnians, Philadelphians, Aegeates, Apollonideans, the so-called Mostenians and Hyrcanian Macedonians, and the cities of Hierocaesarea, Myrina, Cyme, and Tmolus, it was decided to exempt them from tribute for the same period and to send a senatorial commissioner to assess the situation on the spot and administer relief. M.Ateius, a former praetor, was chosen for this purpose, because Asia was governed by a former consul, and this avoided problems arising from rivalry between equals.

Eodem anno duodecim celebres Asiae urbes conlapsae nocturno motu terrae, quo improvisior graviorque pestis fuit. Neque solitum in tali casu effugium subveniebat in aperta prorumpendi, quia diductis terris hauriebantur. Sedisse immensos montis, visa in arduo quae plana fuerint, effulsisse inter ruinam ignis memorant. Asperrima in Sardianos lues plurimum in eosdem misericordiae traxit: nam centies sestertium pollicitus Caesar, et quantum aerario aut fisco pendebant, in quinquennium remisit. Magnetes a Sipylo proximi damno ac remedio habiti. Temnios, Philadelphenos, Aegeatas, Apollonidenses, quique Mosteni aut Macedones Hyrcani vocantur, et Hierocaesariam, Myrinam, Cymen, Tmolum levari idem in tempus tributis mittique ex senatu placuit, qui praesentia spectaret refoveretque. Delectus est M.Ateius e praetoriis; ne consulari obtinente Asiam aemulatio inter pares et ex eo impedimentum oreretur.

Many other Greek and Latin writers record the earthquake, though their descriptions are much briefer than that of Tacitus. Nearest in time to the earthquake was Strabo, and he was also well aware of the seismicity of the region. There are three passages in his work where the earthquake is mentioned. At 12.8.18 he writes:

for even today earthquakes have destroyed Magnesia at the foot of this mountain, when they also destroyed Sardis and the most famous cities in many other areas; but the emperor [Tiberius] had them rebuilt, after granting them tax exemptions.

καί γάρ ννν τήν Μαγνησίαν τήν υπ' αυτω κατέβαλον σεισμοί, ήνίκα καί Σάρδεις καί τών άλλων τας έπιφανεστάτας κατά πολλά μέρη διελυμήναντο• έπηνώρθωσε δ' ό ήγεμών, χρήματα έπιδους.

(13.3.5)

It [Magnesia] too was reduced to ruins in the recent earthquakes.

καί ταντην δ' έκάκωσαν οί νεωστί γενόμενοι σεισμοί.

(13.4.8)

The city [of Sardis...] recently lost many houses in earthquakes; but the present emperor, Tiberius, generously contributed to the restoration of this and many other cities which had shared the same fate in the same circumstances.

ή πόλις [...] νεωστί υπό σεισμών άπέβαλε πολλήν τής κατοικίας. ή δέ τον Τιβερίον πρόνοια, τον καθ' ημάς ήγεμόνος, καί ταντην καί τών άλλων συχνάς ανέλαβε τας ευεργεσίαις, όσαι περί τόν αυτόν καιρόν έκοινώνησαν τον αυτού πάθους.

In the Palatine Anthology, there is an epigram by the Bithynian poet Bianor which recalls the tragic fate of Sardis:

Alas, wretched Sardis [...], you were totally overtaken by a single catastrophe when you plunged into a chasm created by an immense split in the earth. Helice and Bura were swamped by the sea; but although you were on dry land, you suffered the same fate as they did in the deep waters.

Σάρδιες [...] ννν δή όλαι δνστηνοι ές έν κακόν άρπασθείσαι ές βυθόν έξ αχανούς χάσματος ήρίπετε. Βονρα καθ' ή θ' `Ελίκη κεκλυσμέναι• αϊ δ' ένί χέρσω Σάρδιες έμβυθίαις είς έν 'ίκεσθε τέλος.

The power of the earthquake is made clear in Pliny's Naturalis historia:

The greatest earthquake in human memory occurred when Tiberius Caesar was emperor, for twelve Asian cities were destroyed in a single night.

Maximus terrae memoria mortalium exstitit motus Tiberii Caesaris principatu, xmurbi-bus Asiae una nocte prostratis.

Seneca also mentions it, not only in his Naturales Quaestiones:

Asia Minor lost twelve cities at the same time.

But also, in passing, in a letter to Lucilius:

How many cities in Asia Minor, [...] were reduced to ruins in a single earthquake?

Quotiens Asίae, [...] urbes unο tremοre cecίderunt.

Suetonius mentions the help given by the emperor Tiberius. He writes:

Tiberius was not liberal with aid even to the provinces, except in the case of Asia Minor, since the cities there had been destroyed in an earthquake.

Ne provincias quidem liberalitate ulla sublevavit, excepta Asia, disiectis terrae motu civitatibus.

Dio Cassius records also tax exemptions which were granted by the emperor to the damaged cities:

A man of consular rank with five lictors was put in charge of the cities of Asia Minor which had been damaged in an earthquake, and in addition many tax exemptions were granted by Tiberius, as well as generous sums of money.

Τας τε έν τή 'Ασιι πόλεσι ταίς υπο τοϋ σεισμοϋ κακωθείσαις cινήρ έστρατηγηκώς σύν πέντε ραβδοϋχοις προσετcίθη, καί χρήματα πολλά μέν έκ τών φόρων άνείθη πολλά δέ καί παρά τον Τιβερίου έδόθη.

Another anecdote about the earthquake —dating to not long after it occurred — is contained in a fragment from Apollonius Grammaticus (1st century AD ) preserved in Phlegon of Tralles (2nd century AD.):

Apollonius Grammaticus tells us that there was an earthquake during the reign of Tiberius Nero, and that many famous cities in Asia were almost totally destroyed. Later on Tiberius rebuilt them at his own expense. Consequently, they built and dedicated to him a colossal statue next to the Temple of Venus in the Roman Forum, and each of the cities subsequently put up statues.

'Απολλώνιος δέ ό γραμματικός ϊστορεί έπί Τιβερίου Νέρωνος σεισμόν γεγενήσθαι καί πολλάς καί όνομαστάς πόλεις τής 'Ασίας άρδην άφανισθήναι, ας ϋστερον ό Τιβέριος οϊκεία δαπάνη πάλιν άνώρθωσεν. άνθ' ών κολοσσόν τε αυτώ κατασκευάσαντες ανέθεσαν παρά τώ τής 'Αφροδίτης ίερώ, ό έστιν έν τή 'Ρωμαίων αγορά, καί τών πόλεων έκάστης έφεξής ανδριάντας παρέστησαν.

The generosity shown by Tiberius towards the cities which had suffered in the earthquake was also commemorated in a series of sesterces bearing the image of the emperor himself.

Since the cities damaged in the earthquake were assisted by Tiberius, they erected a monument to him. It was rectangular in shape, and the base was discovered at Pozzuoli in 1693. It bears the following inscription (cm 10.1624 = Hs 156 add.), which can be dated to 30 A.D. on the basis of the titles attributed to the emperor:

To Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the emperor Augustus, nephew of the emperor Julius, pontifex maximus, consul for the fourth time, emperor for the eighth time, granted tribunician power for the thirty-second time, the Augustales. The city authority restored [...] Sardis [...], [Magneslia, Philadelphia, Tmolus, Cyme, Temnus, Cibyra, Myrina, Ephesus, Apollonidea, Hyrca[nia], Mostene, [Aeg]ae and [Hieroc]aesarea.

Ti(berio) Caesari divi / Augusti f(ilio) divi / Iu n(epoti) Augusto / pontif(ici) maximo co(n)s(uli) irrl / imp(eratori) viii trib(unicia) potestat(e) z / Augustales res publica I restituit. I [---]ihenia Sa[rdels Moron, [Magnes ]ia I Philadelphea, Tmolus, Cyme I Temnos, Cibyra, Myrina, Ephesos, Apollonidea, Hyrca[nia] I Mostene, Meg-kw, [Hieroc]aesarea.

On the four sides of the base are representations of the cities which were struck by the earthquake: Sardis, Magnesia, Philadelphia, Tmolus, Cyme, Temnus, Cibyra, Myrina, Ephesus, Apollonidea, Hyrcania, Mostene, Aegae and Hierocaesarea.

This raises a problem, because Ephesus and Cibyra have to be added to Tacitus' list, giving not twelve but fourteen cities. The problem of Cibyra could be solved in terms of Tacitus' evidence that it was destroyed shortly before 23 AD.; and so the base from Pozzuoli could include the thanks of the cities struck by the earthquakes of 23 AD as well as 17 AD. There remains the problem of Ephesus, however, for it does not figure in Tacitus' list of twelve cities. Archaeologists do not yet seem to have found clear traces of an earthquake at Ephesus at this period; and any such evidence would inevitably be limited, because we lack a comprehensive epigraphic and archaeological study of the reconstruction of buildings in the region, such as might lead to a future regional study of the seismicity of western Asia Minor.

Given the above considerations, we can formulate at least three possible solutions to the problem:

Ephesus as well as Cibyra may have been struck by the earthquake of 23 AD. This may seem the most reasonable solution to the problem, but certain doubts remain; for if there had indeed been an earthquake at Ephesus at that date, why did a careful source like Tacitus fail to mention such an important city? This did not escape the notice of Th.Mommsen in his edition of the inscription in cu 10.1624 (published in 1883). In his opinion, the Ephesus earthquake must have occurred shortly before the Pozzuoli inscription was made: roughly between 28 AD. and 30 AD. But the only earthquake we know of dating to about that time is one in Pontus and Bithynia; and in any case, Mommsen does not support his opinion with convincing evidence.

Both Cibyra and Ephesus may have been only partly damaged in 17 AD., and may have been struck shortly before 23 AD. by another tremor, which reduced them to such a serious state that tax exemption became necessary.

Both Cibyra and Ephesus may have been struck only by the earthquake of 17 AD., without the damage they suffered being so serious as to cause Tiberius to grant them tax exemption. The two cities may have made a later request to Rome for tax exemption, and this may have been granted in 23 AD.

A further difficulty lies in the decipherment of the two names which immediately pre-cede and follow Sardis. Spinazzola (1902, p.119ff.) suggests [Tydrenia Sa[rde]s Peloponnesos, referring to the legend according to which Tyrrhenus and Pelops were born at Sardis. He also suggests identifying the boy on the left of the representation of the city as Tyrrhenus, and the variously interpreted object in his left hand as the child Pelops. This difference in the way the name of the city is expressed suggests that the base of the monument was altered, perhaps after the earthquake which accompanied the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD., or that of 62. The Pozzuoli monument was in fact a slightly different and smaller copy of a colossal statue of Tiberius which stood in the Forum of Caesar in Rome, but of which no trace has so far been discovered.

There exists a very interesting dedicatory inscription to Tiberius (31-37 AD.), which describes him as conditor of the twelve cities destroyed in the earthquake (cll, 3.7096):

[Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the emperor Augustus, nephew of the emperor Julius, pontifex] maximus, granted [...] tribunician power, [c]onsul for the fifth time, founder at one and the same ti[me of the twelve] cities s[truck] by the [e]arthquake.

[Ti(berius) Caesar divi Augusti f(ilius) divi Iu n(epos) Aug(ustus), p(ontifex)] m(axi-mus), tr(ibunicia) p(otestate) clo(n)s(u1) v, conditor uno tem[pore xu civitatium t]errae motu ve[xatarum].

The inscription appears on four fragments of the architrave of a building, whose position has not been identified, in the Turkish town of Nemrud Kalesi (ancient Aegae). A very similar inscription in Greek (see Foucard 1887, pp.89-90), dating to 34-35 AD., came to light amongst the ruins of the city of Mostene, which was also damaged in the earthquake. The inscription records that Tiberius rebuilt the twelve Asian cities struck by the earthquake of 17 AD , and describes the emperor as κτίστης ένί και/ρώ δνδεκα πό/λεων (founder at one and the same time of twelve cities) — the same cities as those mentioned by Tacitus.

Another inscription (sEG 28.928) records the restoration of a temple at Sardis which had been damaged in an earthquake:

"Socrates, son of Polemeus Pardalas, built the temple and dedicated it to Hera. [---] His niece Julia Lydia restored it after the earthquake".

Σωκράτης Πολεμαίον / Παρδαλάς τόν ναόν κατε/σκενασεν καί τήν ` Ηραν άνε /Θηκεν [---] Ιουλία Λυδία ή ύωνή / αντον μετα τόν σεισμόν / έπεσκεύασεν.

And finally, there is an incomplete inscription (IGR 4.1514), which records that representatives of the twelve cities struck by the earthquake met at Sardis to discuss ways of expressing their gratitude to Tiberius.

References

Guidoboni, E., et al. (1994). Catalogue of Ancient Earthquakes in the Mediterranean Area up to the 10th Century. Rome, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica.

37 CE Earthquake

Discussion

References

De Giorgi et al. (2024)

Roman Earthquakes (64 BCE–300 CE)

from Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:438-440)

Roman hegemony brought with it more detailed accounts of rebuilding efforts after earthquakes throughout the Mediterranean. An earthquake in 17 CE that shook cities through out western Asia Minor is especially well documented by primary sources, who report that Augustus decreed widespread remission of taxes, direct financial support, and the visit of imperial officials to assist the affected cities (Tacitus, Annals 2.47 and 4.13.1;Strabo13.4.8).¹⁷ This package of state response set a precedent for later earthquakes (including at Antioch in 37, 41, and 115 CE), and for which local Antiochene perspectives from Malalas are supplemented by inscriptions and historians including Dio Cassius, who wrote from a senator’s perspective back at Rome. Generally, imperial Roman sources were concerned with top-down administrative details of immediate state response and issues of finance: they were less concerned with local casualties, the documentation of events from local perspectives, or even the long-term consequences of catastrophe. Two recorded earthquakes at Antioch followed in quick succession, in 37 and 41 CE.

A description of the 37 CE event during the reign of Caligula survives only in Malalas (10.18). Lacking details of destruction or casualties, the Antiochene account nevertheless preserves three key features of typical Roman earthquake response. First, money was sent directly from the emperor to the city. Second, a larger program of new urban infrastructure was set in motion or stimulated by the disaster: in this case the earthquake was quickly followed by construction of a new aqueduct, baths, and temples. Third, two senators and a prefect were sent from Rome “to protect the city and to rebuild it from the benefactions made by the emperor, and equally to make donations to the city from their private income and to live there.” Malalas adds the interesting detail that– besides a bath complex (the Varium), and a nymphaeum (the Trinymphon) decorated with statues – the senators sent from Romealso “built very many dwellings out of their private incomes.” While governmental attention to public buildings has been typical since the Hellenistic period, the focus on private housing stock seems novel. Apart from the new infrastructure that followed in the 37 CE earthquake’s wake according to Malalas– his testimony has been associated with the remains of a Roman aqueduct coming from Daphne, whose construction technique is consistent with a date in the first century CE¹⁸ – the only archaeological evidence for this event may come from Princeton’s excavations of the so-called Atrium House, where mosaics may be dated to the period after 37 CE.¹⁹

Just four years later in 41 CE, another earthquake during the reign of Claudius was accompanied by further destruction of houses, beside damage to the temples of Artemis, Ares, and Herakles (Malalas 10.23). Malalas again records here the quintessential Roman state response: the remission of local taxes paid from cities to Rome, so that cities affected by earthquakes could use these funds to directly pay for repairs themselves, instead. In the case of the 41 CE earthquake at Antioch, the “emperor Claudius relieved the guilds ... of the public service [or tax] of the kapnikon / καπνικόν, which they were providing to reconstruct the city’s roofed colonnades which had been built by Tiberius Caesar” (Malalas 10.23). Καπνικόν, from καπνός or smoke, is usually translated as a hearth tax, that is to say a tax on chimneys, which were easier to count than people; it appears here in its first instantiation, though the precise mean ing of the passage is unclear. Either the hearth tax which had been supporting the colonnade restoration (presumably after the previous earthquake of 37 CE) was lifted entirely; or the hearth tax’s funds were diverted to restoration of the colonnades (meaning that the guild members still paid, but its funds went to a new purpose).²⁰ The hearth tax appeared rarely throughout the medieval period, before it reappeared more widely in early modern times.²¹ In those later forms, at least, the hearth tax was progressive in the sense that a large house or workshop would have more chimneys (and presumably money) than a smaller household.²²

The first earthquake at Antioch for which we can meaningfully compare textual and archaeological evidence came in 115 CE (see Figure 27.2). It was vividly described by the Roman senatorial historian Dio Cassius (c. 155–235 CE), who was neither an eyewitness nor a contemporary. Dio Cassius recalls, however, the name of a consul who died there, and so presumably he relied on a closer source for his own account (68.24–25). Such unusual details may have been preserved because the emperor Trajan was in residence at Antioch at the time of the earthquake, to manage war with the Parthian Persians. Trajan only narrowly escaped from a collapsing building through a room’s window. He stayed outdoors in the hippodrome throughout the aftershocks. Dio Cassius reports significant destruction of houses and the loss of life – “the crash and breaking of timbers together with tiles and stones ... an inconceivable amount of dust ... The number of those who were trapped in the houses and perished was past finding out ...Great numbers were suffocated in the ruins.”

The participation of survivors in community sponsored offerings of thanksgiving, including even the construction of whole temples, may have fostered community cohesion in future earthquakes. After the 115 CE earthquake, Malalas tells us that “the surviving Antiochenes who remained then built a temple on which they inscribed ‘Those who were saved erected this to Zeus the Savior’” (11.8).

Dio Cassius says little concerning the recovery or reconstruction effort that must have followed the 115 CE earthquake, however. Malalas gives more details, indicating a major construction program sponsored by Trajan that followed the 115 CE earthquake: beginning with the sacrifice of a virgin girl named Kalliope, we are told, Trajan restored the city’s colonnades and built a new aqueduct and bath, named for himself, besides a theater (11.8–11).²³

The Princeton excavators at Antioch understood the 115 CE event as a watershed in the city’s history. Literary sources became a point of reference for interpretation and dating of changes in buildings throughout the city, including damage and repair, but also abandonment or new construction: new mosaics were added in the so-called Atrium House and the House of the Drunken Dionysus,²⁴ repairs were made at the Hippodrome, as suggested by new column capitals dated to the reign of Hadrian,²⁵ and the city cardo was built anew²⁶ while other streets were repaired.²⁷ On the other hand, Bath C was destroyed in the 115 earthquake and abandoned, so too was the so-called House of Trajan’s Aqueduct.²⁸

Leaving aside aspersions of child sacrifice from Christian chronicler Malalas, and the difficulties posed by evaluation of claims made by the Princeton excavators some 90 years later, it still stands that the initiation of significant new infra structure projects and repairs to public or private buildings followed the 115 CE earthquake at Antioch, in a pattern typical for major cities under the Roman empire. We turn now to the Byzantine.²⁹

Footnotes

17 See also Ambraseys(2009).

18 Antioch II, 52; Gatier, Leblanc, and Poccardi (2004,241–242).

19 See Levi(1947, 16).

20 Downey (1961, 196,n. 145).

21 s.v. “HearthTax” and “Kapnikon” in Kazhdan (1991, 906, 1105).

22 Gurrin(2004).

23 Jeffreys (1990, 56) says “much of Malalas’ narrative on Trajan’s activities is uncorroborated by other sources and is probably fictitious.”

24 Levi(1947, 16,40).

25 Antioch III, 150.

26 Antioch V, 30–33.

27 Antioch V,72

28 Levi(1947,289,28).

29 Mordechai and Pickett (2018)

Guidoboni et al. (1994)

(084) the morning of 23 March 37

Antioch
Daphne

sources 1

Mal. 243

literature

Schenk von Stauffenberg (1931)

catalogues

Sieberg (1932 a)
Amiran (1950-51)
Guidoboni (1989)

Malalas records an earthquake at Antioch:

"During the first year of his reign [that of Caligula], Antioch the Great suffered the effects of divine wrath for the second time since the arrival of the Macedonians. It happened on 23 Dystrus, that is to say March, in the eighty-fifth year of the era of Antioch, early in the morning. The Daphne area was also damaged, and Gaius [Caligula] gave a great deal of money to the city and its surviving inhabitants".

'Εν δέ τώ πρώτω έτει τής βασιλείας αύτο έπαθεν υπό θεομηνίας 'Αντιόχεια ή μεγάλη μηνί δύστρυι τιi καί μαρτίω κγ' περί τό ανγος τό δεύτερον αυτής πάθος τούτο τό μετά τούς Μακεδόνας, έτους χρηματίζοντος πε' κατά τούς 'Αντιοχείς. έπαθε δέ καί μέρος Δάφνης· κάι πολλά χρήματα παρέσχεν ό βασιλεύς Γάίος τή αυτή πόλει καί τοίς ζήσασι πολίταις.

References

Guidoboni, E., et al. (1994). Catalogue of Ancient Earthquakes in the Mediterranean Area up to the 10th Century. Rome, Istituto nazionale di geofisica.

Ambraseys (2009)

AD 37 Apr Antioch

A destructive earthquake in the region of Antioch, which occurred at dawn, ruined the city and a part of Daphne, one of its suburbs, with great loss of life. A landslide may have ensued on the hill of Orontes by Antioch.

This was the second destruction of Antioch since the arrival of the Macedonians (c. 300 BC), and the damage was apparently so great that the emperor Gaius responded with substantial amounts of relief and a building programme. He had public baths built ‘near the hill of Gaius Caesar’, bringing water to the baths by cutting an aqueduct through the hill, and he also built temples.

The principal source for the details of this event is Malalas, who, although writing much later in the sixth century AD, probably drew on earlier public records in Antioch. Although an earthquake is not mentioned specifically in Malalas’s account, it seems reasonable to assume that he was referring to one, since there was no war going on at the time that might have resulted in similar damage, and Claudius’s benefactions are typical of the aftermath of an earthquake.

The Slavonic version of Malalas may refer to land- slides along the River Orontes, close to Antioch: ‘there occurred on the hill of Orontes a second fall’, although this text is known to be corrupted. Malalas nowhere men- tions the first disaster since the arrival of the Macedo- nians, though it may be the earthquake, which occurred during the occupation of Syria by Tigranes (c. 69 BC).

The date of this earthquake is given very clearly by Malalas, as 23 Dystrus (March) in the first year of Gaius’s reign and the 85th year of the Antiochene era, which is 9 April AD 37. Modern scholars erroneously give 23 March, failing to translate the date.

Notes

‘In the first year of his (Gaius’s) reign, Antioch the great suffered under divine wrath on the 23rd of the month Dystrus and March about dawn, the second time it had suffered this after the Mace- donians, in the 85th year of the Antiochene era. The district of Daphne also suffered. Gaius gave much money to the city and to the surviving citizens. And he built a public bath there, near the hill of Gaius Caesar, having sent the prefect Salianus from Rome to Antioch to build the bath there; and by cutting through the mountain he built an aqueduct from Daphne to bring water to the baths which were built beside the hill. He also built temples.’ (Mal. 243/372).

‘During the first year of his (Gaius’s) reign Antioch the Great suffered by the wrath of God; there occurred on the hill of Orontes a second fall. And having sent [money] the czar rebuilt it.’ (Mal. S. 243/53).

References

Ambraseys, N. N. (2009). Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: a multidisciplinary study of seismicity up to 1900.

Earthquake during the reign of Emperor Claudius (41-54 CE)

Discussion

References

De Giorgi et al. (2024)

Roman Earthquakes (64 BCE–300 CE)

from Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:438-440)

Roman hegemony brought with it more detailed accounts of rebuilding efforts after earthquakes throughout the Mediterranean. An earthquake in 17 CE that shook cities through out western Asia Minor is especially well documented by primary sources, who report that Augustus decreed widespread remission of taxes, direct financial support, and the visit of imperial officials to assist the affected cities (Tacitus, Annals 2.47 and 4.13.1;Strabo13.4.8).¹⁷ This package of state response set a precedent for later earthquakes (including at Antioch in 37, 41, and 115 CE), and for which local Antiochene perspectives from Malalas are supplemented by inscriptions and historians including Dio Cassius, who wrote from a senator’s perspective back at Rome. Generally, imperial Roman sources were concerned with top-down administrative details of immediate state response and issues of finance: they were less concerned with local casualties, the documentation of events from local perspectives, or even the long-term consequences of catastrophe. Two recorded earthquakes at Antioch followed in quick succession, in 37 and 41 CE.

A description of the 37 CE event during the reign of Caligula survives only in Malalas (10.18). Lacking details of destruction or casualties, the Antiochene account nevertheless preserves three key features of typical Roman earthquake response. First, money was sent directly from the emperor to the city. Second, a larger program of new urban infrastructure was set in motion or stimulated by the disaster: in this case the earthquake was quickly followed by construction of a new aqueduct, baths, and temples. Third, two senators and a prefect were sent from Rome “to protect the city and to rebuild it from the benefactions made by the emperor, and equally to make donations to the city from their private income and to live there.” Malalas adds the interesting detail that– besides a bath complex (the Varium), and a nymphaeum (the Trinymphon) decorated with statues – the senators sent from Romealso “built very many dwellings out of their private incomes.” While governmental attention to public buildings has been typical since the Hellenistic period, the focus on private housing stock seems novel. Apart from the new infrastructure that followed in the 37 CE earthquake’s wake according to Malalas– his testimony has been associated with the remains of a Roman aqueduct coming from Daphne, whose construction technique is consistent with a date in the first century CE¹⁸ – the only archaeological evidence for this event may come from Princeton’s excavations of the so-called Atrium House, where mosaics may be dated to the period after 37 CE.¹⁹

Just four years later in 41 CE, another earthquake during the reign of Claudius was accompanied by further destruction of houses, beside damage to the temples of Artemis, Ares, and Herakles (Malalas 10.23). Malalas again records here the quintessential Roman state response: the remission of local taxes paid from cities to Rome, so that cities affected by earthquakes could use these funds to directly pay for repairs themselves, instead. In the case of the 41 CE earthquake at Antioch, the “emperor Claudius relieved the guilds ... of the public service [or tax] of the kapnikon / καπνικόν, which they were providing to reconstruct the city’s roofed colonnades which had been built by Tiberius Caesar” (Malalas 10.23). Καπνικόν, from καπνός or smoke, is usually translated as a hearth tax, that is to say a tax on chimneys, which were easier to count than people; it appears here in its first instantiation, though the precise mean ing of the passage is unclear. Either the hearth tax which had been supporting the colonnade restoration (presumably after the previous earthquake of 37 CE) was lifted entirely; or the hearth tax’s funds were diverted to restoration of the colonnades (meaning that the guild members still paid, but its funds went to a new purpose).²⁰ The hearth tax appeared rarely throughout the medieval period, before it reappeared more widely in early modern times.²¹ In those later forms, at least, the hearth tax was progressive in the sense that a large house or workshop would have more chimneys (and presumably money) than a smaller household.²²

The first earthquake at Antioch for which we can meaningfully compare textual and archaeological evidence came in 115 CE (see Figure 27.2). It was vividly described by the Roman senatorial historian Dio Cassius (c. 155–235 CE), who was neither an eyewitness nor a contemporary. Dio Cassius recalls, however, the name of a consul who died there, and so presumably he relied on a closer source for his own account (68.24–25). Such unusual details may have been preserved because the emperor Trajan was in residence at Antioch at the time of the earthquake, to manage war with the Parthian Persians. Trajan only narrowly escaped from a collapsing building through a room’s window. He stayed outdoors in the hippodrome throughout the aftershocks. Dio Cassius reports significant destruction of houses and the loss of life – “the crash and breaking of timbers together with tiles and stones ... an inconceivable amount of dust ... The number of those who were trapped in the houses and perished was past finding out ...Great numbers were suffocated in the ruins.”

The participation of survivors in community sponsored offerings of thanksgiving, including even the construction of whole temples, may have fostered community cohesion in future earthquakes. After the 115 CE earthquake, Malalas tells us that “the surviving Antiochenes who remained then built a temple on which they inscribed ‘Those who were saved erected this to Zeus the Savior’” (11.8).

Dio Cassius says little concerning the recovery or reconstruction effort that must have followed the 115 CE earthquake, however. Malalas gives more details, indicating a major construction program sponsored by Trajan that followed the 115 CE earthquake: beginning with the sacrifice of a virgin girl named Kalliope, we are told, Trajan restored the city’s colonnades and built a new aqueduct and bath, named for himself, besides a theater (11.8–11).²³

The Princeton excavators at Antioch understood the 115 CE event as a watershed in the city’s history. Literary sources became a point of reference for interpretation and dating of changes in buildings throughout the city, including damage and repair, but also abandonment or new construction: new mosaics were added in the so-called Atrium House and the House of the Drunken Dionysus,²⁴ repairs were made at the Hippodrome, as suggested by new column capitals dated to the reign of Hadrian,²⁵ and the city cardo was built anew²⁶ while other streets were repaired.²⁷ On the other hand, Bath C was destroyed in the 115 earthquake and abandoned, so too was the so-called House of Trajan’s Aqueduct.²⁸

Leaving aside aspersions of child sacrifice from Christian chronicler Malalas, and the difficulties posed by evaluation of claims made by the Princeton excavators some 90 years later, it still stands that the initiation of significant new infra structure projects and repairs to public or private buildings followed the 115 CE earthquake at Antioch, in a pattern typical for major cities under the Roman empire. We turn now to the Byzantine.²⁹

Footnotes

17 See also Ambraseys(2009).

18 Antioch II, 52; Gatier, Leblanc, and Poccardi (2004,241–242).

19 See Levi(1947, 16).

20 Downey (1961, 196,n. 145).

21 s.v. “HearthTax” and “Kapnikon” in Kazhdan (1991, 906, 1105).

22 Gurrin(2004).

23 Jeffreys (1990, 56) says “much of Malalas’ narrative on Trajan’s activities is uncorroborated by other sources and is probably fictitious.”

24 Levi(1947, 16,40).

25 Antioch III, 150.

26 Antioch V, 30–33.

27 Antioch V,72

28 Levi(1947,289,28).

29 Mordechai and Pickett (2018)

Ambraseys (2009)

AD 41–54 Antioch

An earthquake caused heavy damage in Antioch. The temples of Artemis, Ares and Hercules were ‘rent asunder’, and many houses of important persons collapsed, as did the city’s roofed colonnades, which had been built by Tiberius. The emperor Claudius relieved Antioch’s guilds of the hearth tax so that the colonnades could be rebuilt.

Malalas (Greek version) mentions this event immediately after the Ephesus and Smyrna earthquake: ‘at that time (tote) Antioch the great was shaken . . .’ (Mal. CS 246). This could be taken to mean that Antioch was hit by an earthquake at the same time as Smyrna and Ephesus, but the Greek tote, ‘then’, can have two meanings, just as ‘then’ in English can mean either ‘at the exact same time’ or ‘next’. The latter meaning is more typical of Malalas.

Downey’s interpretation is that the same earthquake damaged Antioch, Smyrna, Ephesus and the other cities, but Antioch is 900 km from these cities. This would require an earthquake of improbable size, which would have had to have destroyed many important cities in Caria and Lycia as well (Downey 1961a, 196).

Note that the Slavonic version of Malalas does not mention that Antioch was struck by ‘the wrath of God’: it has the earthquake in Ephesus and Smyrna ‘and many cities of Asia’ and then mentions Claudius’s tax-relief measures for the Antiochenes ‘for the restoration of [the] roofed colonnades’: presumably therefore Antioch is included among the ‘other cities’ (Mal. 246/376 and S. 246/55).

The earthquake is also mentioned by an earlier source, which, however, does not help date the event better than sometime between AD 48 and 54. Philostratus writes that an earthquake occurred when there was discord among the citizens of Antioch: from the context, this happened during the reign of Claudius, so it was probably this event.

Note

‘The ruler of Syria had plunged Antioch into a feud, disseminating among the citizens suspicions such that when they met in assembly they all quarrelled with one another. But a violent earthquake happening to occur, they were all cowering, and as is usual in the case of heavenly portents, praying for one another.’ (Philostr. VA VI. 38/LCL. ii. 130).

(See also under AD 41–54 Asia Minor.)

References

Ambraseys, N. N. (2009). Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: a multidisciplinary study of seismicity up to 1900.

Guidoboni et al. (1994)

(085) c. 47 Antioch

sources 1

Philostr. V Apo 6.38
Mal. 246

sources 2

Georg. Sync. 632

literature

Downey (1961)

catalogues

Schmidt (1881)
Sieberg (1932 a)
Guidoboni (1989)

Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius, mentions an earthquake at Antioch:

"The ruler of Syria had plunged Antioch into a feud, by disseminating among the citizens suspicions such that when they met in assembly they all quarrelled with one another. But when a violent earthquake occurred, they all cowered in fear and, as is usual in the case of heavenly portents, prayed to one another."

Στασιάζοντος δέ τήν 'Αντιόχειαν τον τής Συρίας άρχοντος καί καθιέντος ές αυτους ϋπαιμίας, ϋφ' ών δι.ειστήκεσαν έκκλησιαζομένη πόλις, σεισμού δέ γενναίού προσπεσόντος, έπτηξαν καί. όπερ έν διοσημίαις ε'ίωθεν, υπέρ άλλήλων ηνξαντο.

The Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus can present interpretive difficulties, when used as a historical source. In this case, however, the information he provides can be accepted with greater confidence, because there is another source in Malalas who, although a late writer (6th century AD.), is of fundamental importance; and where events in Antioch and Syria are concerned, he was using primary sources — probably the Antioch city chronicles. Malalas records an earthquake at Antioch during the reign of Claudius for a date that can be established as about 47 AD.:

"The great city of Antioch was also shaken by an earthquake at that time. Cracks appeared in the temples of Artemis, Ares and Heracles, and famous palaces collapsed as well. The emperor Claudius himself waived the tax which was normally paid by his Antiochene subjects, for the reconstruction of the arcades which had been built in the time of Tiberius Caesar."

'Εσείσθη δέ τότε καί ή μεγάλη 'Αντιόχεια πόλις, καί, διερράγη ό ναός τής 'Αρτέμιδος καί τοϋ "Αρεως καί του `Ηρακλέος καί οίκοι φανεροί έπεσαν, ό δέ αυτός βασιλεύς Κλαύδιος έκούφισεν απο των συνεργιών, ήτοι συστημάτων, τής 'Αντιοχέων πόλεως τής Συρίας τήν λειτουμγίαν ήν παρεϊχον υπέρ καπνού, εϊς άνανέωσιν τιϊίν υπορόφων εμβόλων αυτής των κτισθέντων ϋπό Τιβερίου Καίσαρος.

References

Guidoboni, E., et al. (1994). Catalogue of Ancient Earthquakes in the Mediterranean Area up to the 10th Century. Rome, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica.

115 CE Trajan Quake

Discussion

References

De Giorgi and Eger (2021)

Earthquakes, Trajan, and Antioch in the second century CE

from De Giorgi and Eger (2021:99-106)

It is no overstatement that Antioch became virtually the second imperial capital under the reign of Trajan (98-117 CE). Cassius Dio's vivid description of the city at the time of the 115 CE earthquake, which opens this chapter, gives us a glimpse of the city's size and degree of urbanization.¹⁷⁹ The event must have reached a high magnitude, killing thousands of people; again, the words of the historian capture the gravity of the drama:

There had been many thunderstorms and portentous winds, but no one would ever have expected so many evils to result from them. First there came, on a sudden, a great bellowing roar, and this was followed by a tremendous quaking. The whole earth was upheaved, and buildings leaped into the air; some were carried aloft only to collapse and be broken in pieces, while others were tossed this way and that as if by the surge of the sea, and overturned, and the wreckage spread out over a great extent even of the open country. The crash of grinding and breaking timbers together with tiles and stones was most frightful and an inconceivable amount of dust arose, so that it was impossible for one to see anything or to speak or hear a word.

Trajan himself miraculously escaped the fury of the event; in all likelihood he resided on the Island and then sought shelter in the hippodrome. To appease the gods, he offered a generous thanksgiving in Daphne. Yet the numbers of Antiochenes killed by the earthquake must have been staggering. Klaudia may have been one of the casualties, or, if she chanced to survive, may have been an eyewitness of the calamity (Figure 2.15). The laconic, succinct text of her epitaph "Farewell, you are now without pain (ALUPE XAIRE)" leaves a lot of room for the imagination. Further, the formulaic early second-century CE iconography hardly reveals anything meaningful about Klaudia's life. Yet one could imagine that it was people like her who experienced those momentous days and contributed to rebuilding Antioch, once the rattles had subsided. Indeed, the surviving Antiochenes wasted no time in recovering from the earthquake and quickly tapped into provincial funds for the reconstruction of the city. After hastily offering their thanksgiving in a new shrine to Zeus Soter in Daphne, they went on to deploy efforts and labor in the areas where assistance was most needed. How the relief effort was coordinated we are not in position to tell, nor is the financial output from the imperial authorities known.

But the earthquake of 115 CE did not only elicit large-scale, state-sponsored responses and top-down optimism. Countless citizens of Antioch had lost their homes, goods, and bonds across generations. They were living now in that sort of estrangement, having lost the perception of belonging to a recognized and recognizable place, while entering the realm of the displaced. Facing a traumatizing field of ruins in lieu of a densely inhabited space, some decided to part company with the place that had framed their lives for many decades.

The so-called House of Trajan's Aqueduct (26-L) may be a good representative of buildings that were abandoned after the earthquake (Figure 2.16).¹⁸⁰ Heavily damaged around that time and subsequently buried by a landslide, this house, unlike other units in the district, was never reoccupied. Its foundations rested on the vaulting of the Trajanic aqueduct that from Daphne flows all the way to the lower slopes of Mt. Silpius, serving a reservoir and a host of baths. Two weathered pavements with decoration of shaded cubes and a winged female figure are the only remaining decor of a house that may have been in use for a few decades only. While the aqueduct was restored after the earthquake, the house was abandoned to its fate of ruins.

But In the context of widespread destruction, some people conversely resorted to reconstructing their emotional and material dimension, both public and private. The House of the Calendar (15-R), on the slope of Mt. Staurin, brings testimony to new expressions of resistance; through its reconstruction and aggrandizing, the domestic unit becomes the locus where nature and natural disasters are questioned while new modes of understanding human frailty are enabled. This house of Hellenistic origin was presumably razed by the 115 CE earthquake. Its debris, ashes, and broken mosaic pavements formed the bedding for the construction of a new, larger unit provided with a triclinium, colonnaded portico, and pool. The eccentric visual program of the triclinium is of interest, for it accommodated, among panels with apotropaic symbols and marine deities, the representation of a calendar. Though weathered, only the winter and spring quadrants survive; the composition includes names of the months in Greek (Dustros, Xanthikos, Artemeisios, Daisios) and personified seasons (Spring-Trope Earine) (Figure 2.17).

In his analysis of the iconography of this pavement, Doro Levi stressed the allusions to divinities and rituals suggested by the personified months, carrying paterae (vessels), torches, and pouring libation.¹⁸¹ While this angle should not be discounted, it is apparent that what mattered the most to the patrons and the artists of the House of the Calendar was illustrating the cyclical alternation of the seasons and months at a critical moment in the history of the city. More poignantly, they aimed at celebrating the overall restoration of the course of nature against the catastrophe.

The main artery of traffic, that is the colonnaded street, formerly paved by Herod the Great and embellished architecturally by Tiberius, in the aftermath of the earthquake was in all likelihood no longer serviceable. Of course, in a context of widespread destruction, ease of movement along the main axis of traffic is vital, whether for hauling away heaps of rubble or simple movement of goods and people. How Antioch quickly reacquired mobility and used reconstruction to mint a new version of the main thoroughfare can be gleaned thanks to the 1930s excavation data sets.

Amid sparse investigations in the territory of Antioch, the Princeton Excavations in 1934 devised a thoughtful, albeit complicated, plan of "street digs" with large and deep soundings loosely following Antakya's Kurtulus Caddesi, the modern reincarnation of the cardo.¹⁸² Soundings 19-M and 16-P documented the stratigraphy of the main road, and altogether its "biography." Narrow and redolent with cultural phases, these sounding had to be peeled off from twelfth-century houses all the way down to the Hellenistic levels. However, these excavations illustrated one fundamental aspect of the issue at stake; the dismantling of the street of Herod and Tiberius and the wholesale replacement of it with a new, monumental axis of traffic in the aftermath of the earthquake. This enterprise entailed clearing heaps of debris for at least a 40 m width.¹⁸³

The new road of Trajan was grounded in deep foundations, essentially a 1 m layer — thick with debris and rubble. The road alone was 9.25 m wide and flanked by porticoes and tabernae (shops) each 16 m wide, as apparent in sector 19-M (Figure 2.18).

Put simply, after the 115 earthquake, to planners and architects it seemed more expeditious and cost-effective building a new colonnaded street from scratch rather than seeking to repair the old one. In so doing, the overall width of the operations must have exceeded 40 m of width in clearing of structures for the entire length of the cardo, approximately 7 km.

Ultimately, the project almost doubled the size of the previous road and poticoes, and presumably went on until the mandate of Antoninus Pious (138-161 CE),¹⁸⁴ when the decoration of the colonnade was officially completed. Through this project, however, Antioch was presented with a new logic of space for vehicles, pedestrians, and retail. The monumental aesthetics and functionality of the time brought to bear an architectural configuration that was going to change life in Antioch. More to the point, the imposing size of this undertaking resonated with the solutions that Trajanic planners and builders had adopted around the same time in Rome at the Markets of Trajan. In particular, the realization of the great hemicycle and its lining of small barrel vaulted tabernae, curvilinear configuration aside, reverberates with the same bent for stimulating movement along and behind these retail spaces, fueling commerce and fostering a new sense of community. It should be stressed, though, that with the exception of a few fragments of entablature and columns, not a scrap of the ancient boulevard survives, thus making its volumetric and monumental appearance impossible to determine. Tenuous traces of basalt slabs and red and gray granite columns are all that is left of this magnificent axis of traffic.

In Trajan's view, Antioch's new thoroughfare was the centerpiece of an organic plan that included the Mese Pule, the middle gate near the Temple of Ares and spanning the Parmenius. Presumably, this served a celebratory purpose only, for it was located on the slope of Mt. Silpius near the space that in the late fourth century became forum of Valens. It may have been conspicuous and visible from a distance, though. Moreover, its decorative apparatus could not be more telling: on it was a relief of the she-wolf of Rome's founding legend.¹⁸⁵

Overall, Trajan's tenure also had positive effects, inasmuch as the emperor commissioned the construction of a number of other monumental projects, some of which may have started before the 115 CE cataclysm. In that vein, the frenzy of repairs and new building programs also included the construction of new baths as well as completion of the theater.¹⁸⁶ The latter's sculptural program deserves attention: on the proscenium was apparently a nymphaeum with the sculptural Kalliope group. Malalas's detailed description makes plain that this statue replicated that of the Tyche, with the addition of kings Seleucus and Antiochus bestowing a crown upon her. More to the point, the legendary powers of the city were still being referenced in the sixth century and beyond.¹⁸⁷

The suburb of Daphne, too, received post-earthquake assistance, and the re-construction of the temple of Artemis must be seen in this context.¹⁸⁸ Major repairs and, presumably, new feeders and ramifications of the aqueduct of Daphne were also undertaken at this time. The 8 km-long and 1 km-wide valley separating Antioch from Daphne was then traversed by another major system of tunnels, bridges, and conduits. Again, extrapolating the exact agency amid a mesh of waterworks spanning the Seleucid to Crusader periods is complicated. The 1930s archaeologists identified at least three systems on the ground when conditions and visibility were optimal,¹⁸⁹ but whether these belong to Seleucus, Caligula, or Trajan, respectively, remains to be established. Nevertheless, it appears that the series of bridges overcoming the roughness of the valley between Antioch and Daphne may be assigned to Trajan's project. To reduce the velocity of water (100 m of fall over 8 km) and thus enable a steady and regular flow downstream into, presumably, a terminal castellum, the builders resorted to a winding pattern of curves at right angles. A first, heavily battered segment of this aqueduct survives in Antioch between Yayla Sokak and Dere Sokak over the Phyrminus gorge in the Bagriyanik quarter. Possibly connected to it are the remains of a large reservoir, very similar to one in the Havuzlar quarter. A second surviving stretch of the aqueduct survives in the Siimerler area, near Dere Sokak (Figure 2.19).

New beginnings and a city rising from its ashes: it is no overstatement that Trajan acted as new founder of Antioch.

Central though the earthquake may have been, it nevertheless represents but one episode in the complicated mesh of events occurring in the city during Trajan's reign. Malalas, for instance, informs us of a Persian coup in the days preceding the military campaign against the Persians in 113 CE.¹⁹⁰ The city at that time probably harbored a not-so-latent pro-Persian sentiment, with the presumably vast constituency of local Easterners keen on handing the city over to Persia's Arsacid rulers. But as soon as Trajan entered the city, it became a "base" for the emperor and accommodated the logistics of a massive expedition. Ultimately, the war against the Parthians produced two new appendices to the Roman Empire: the provinces of Mesopotamia and Armenia. Though abortive in a few years, these novel entities required a conspicuous investment in the military and in the logistics of the supply system, especially considering the numbers of troops entering the province and the equally high number of captives.¹⁹¹ As Denis van Berchem points out, the naval base at Seleucia and the military headquarters of the expedition in Antioch were working at full swing between 113 and 116 CE.¹⁹² The output of the Antioch mint, too, was critical in sustaining the demands of the military; fittingly, the volume and diversity of types replicated those of Vespasian. Recourse to other mints, namely Tyre and Caesarea in Cappadocia, proved effective in meeting the challenges of the provincial government. There were also important ties with the mint of Alexandria, as shown by the resemblance of several tetradrachms and at least one die link.¹⁹³

Altogether, Trajan resided in Antioch between 114 and 117 CE; at that juncture, the city became a de facto military headquarters for the Roman army, a tradition that continued under emperors Lucius Verus, Pescennius Niger, and Caracalla.¹⁹⁴ Violence against Christians is reported during Trajan's sojourn. Their community was no doubt enjoying momentous growth; incidentally, the gospel of Matthew, presumably written in the city during the 80/90s BCE, attests to the local reception of Christ's message and stresses the role of the ekklesia, that is the assembly.¹⁹⁵ Under Trajan, the pastoral guide of Ignatius set the example for the role that the ecclesiastical authority was to have in the following centuries, with regard to the enforcement of theological doctrines and the configuration of the local church. From the matyrdom of Ignatius, later to be elevated as saint, to five virtuous Antiochene women who were burned alive in front of Trajan, it is nevertheless apparent that the imperial administration flexed its muscles in front of a fast-growing Christian community.¹⁹⁶ The violence pitted against Antioch's church also spawned new legends and examples to follow: the myth of Saint Thecla and her extraordinary virtues in making proselytes once again placed Antioch prominently on the map of early Christianity.¹⁹⁷

Footnotes

179 Dio Cass. 68. 24. 1-2 (transl. by E. Cary and H. B. Foster):

For as Trajan was wintering there, and many soldiers had gathered there as well as many civilians, whether for judicial hearings or on embassies or as traders or out of curiosity, there was not a province or a community which remained unharmed, and thus in Antioch the whole world under the Romans suffered disaster.

180 Levi, Pavements, 34-36.

181 Levi, Pavements, 36.

182 Antioch V, 146.

183 See especially ibid., 41—81.

184 Malalas 11.24.

185 Malalas 11.9.

186 Dio Cass. 8.404-409; on the water infrastructure, see Leblanc and Poccardi 2004, 239-256; Levi, Pavements, 1.34. Stretches of the aqueduct survive between Harbiye and Antakya; see Pamir 2014a.

187 Malalas 11.9. See also Lib. 1. 102-103.

188 Malalas 11.11.

189 Antioch Archives, Diary 1934-1937.

190 Malalas 11.3.4.

191 Millar 1993, 103.

192 Van Berchem 1985, 47-87.

193 McAlee, Coins 2003, 187. Silver issues of Trajan radiating from Antioch, following the so-called "Antioch style," began in 108/109 CE. Of interest is the interplay with the Rome mint, with the latter striking coins for the East in the early part of Trajan's reign. See Butcher 2004, 88-91.

194 Dio Cass. 69.18; SHA, life of Marcus Aurelius 8.12; Dio Cass. 71.2.2; 75.8-9; 78.20; 79.4-7. Antioch's continuous role as military base continued, albeit in an intermittent way, until the campaigns of Heraclius in 634 CE.

195 Harvey 2000, 39.

196 John of Nikiu 72, 1-12. In this context of persecution the earthquake of 113 CE reads like a sign of the "wrath of God."

197 Acts of Thecla, Hennecke and Schneemelcher 1965, 2: 353-364.

Downey (1961)

The Earthquake Of A.D. 115; Trajan's Buildings In Antioch

from Downey (1961:213-218)

While the emperor was thus passing the winter in Antioch between his campaigns, the city suffered one of the most severe of its many earthquakes. The disaster began at dawn on 13 December A.D. 115.⁵⁹ Because of the emperor's presence, the city was filled with soldiers and with civilians who had come for business or for pleasure.⁶⁰ The shocks continued for several days and nights, and the destruction, both in Antioch and in Daphne, appears to have been considerable. Many people were killed, including M. Pedo Vergilianus, one of the consuls for the year.⁶¹ Trajan himself escaped with a few slight injuries; he had, it was said, been led to safety through a window of the room in which he was staying by a being of supernatural size. During the remainder of the earthquake he lived in the open in the circus.⁶² The future Emperor Hadrian, who was then governor of Syria, was likewise in the city when the earthquake occurred.⁶³ After the disaster, the survivors, in gratitude for their preservation, built a temple to Zeus Soter in Daphne.⁶⁴

Apparently the Christians were accused of having been responsible for the earthquake, which Malalas calls a theomenia, a "sign of divine wrath." Elsewhere is given an account of how Ignatius, the bishop of the city, was arrested, condemned, and sent to Rome, where he was executed by being exposed to wild beasts. Other executions took place in Antioch itself.⁶⁵

Whether most of Trajan's varied building activity in Antioch was occasioned by the damage caused by the earthquake cannot be determined.⁶⁶ The restoration of the colonnades along the main street almost certainly followed earthquake damage.⁶⁷

One of the principal works was the Μεση Πνλη, which appears to have been a monumental arch (not a real city gate) bearing the group of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, traditional symbol of Roman citizenship.⁶⁸ This stood near the torrent Parmenios which ran down from the mountain into the Orontes, flowing under the principal street at a point where there was a slight change in the direction of the thoroughfare. The arch is also said to have been near the Temple of Ares and "very close" to the Macellum, which are associated with the basilica of Julius Caesar and with the site that later became the Forum of Valens. These data suggest two possible locations for the arch: astride the principal street at the point where the thoroughfare, crossing Parmenius, changed its course slightly or to one side of the main street, astride the transverse avenue which ran from the main street up toward the mountain, parallel with Parmenius, and past the Temple of Ares and the Macellum.⁶⁹

Another major work of Trajan, apparently not connected with the earthquake, was the completion of the unfinished theater. This theater is presumably the one which had been rebuilt by Julius Caesar. It had been enlarged by Agrippa, in the time of Augustus, because of the increase in the population of the city, and again enlarged under Tiberius, but left incomplete.⁷⁰ We are not told precisely what the completion involved, and in particular whether it included an enlargement of the seating capacity.

In the theater, Trajan placed a statue of Calliope.⁷¹ This Muse ranked with Zeus and Apollo as a tutelary deity of the city.⁷² Libanius repeatedly speaks of her as presiding over the life of Antioch, and mentions her temple, which was in the central part of the city, as one of the principal shrines of Antioch; he also alludes particularly to the honor that was paid to her in the theater, referring presumably to the rhetorical exhibitions that took place there.⁷³ Trajan's statue was of gilded bronze and showed the Muse in the guise of the Tyche of Antioch, seated above the Orontes river, being crowned by Seleucus and Antiochus (evidently to symbolize the honor that had been paid to Calliope at Antioch from earliest times).⁷⁴ The group was placed, Malalas says, "above four columns in the middle of the nymphaeum of the proscenium." This nymphaeum may have been a deep, semicircular exedra of the type used in other theaters of the Roman period.⁷⁵

It has been supposed that Trajan also built a nymphaeum which was a separate building, not identical with the "nymphaeum" in the theater mentioned, and that this nymphaeum of Trajan stood near a temple of Calliope. The evidence for such a building is, however, far from certain, and it seems more likely that a separate nymphaeum was not built.⁷⁶

The final work of Trajan's to be recorded is the construction of a Temple of Artemis at Daphne, mentioned by Malalas. Taken at its face value, the chronicler's notice would mean that the original temple had been destroyed in the earthquake and had to be replaced. However, Malalas' procedures are such that he might describe as a new undertaking work that was only repair of an existing monument. Thus we cannot be sure whether Trajan built a new temple, or repaired the old one.⁷⁷

In addition to the emperor's own contributions toward the restoration of the city after the earthquake, work was carried out by P. Aelius Hadrianus (later the Emperor Hadrian), the emperor's ward and nephew by marriage, who was governor of Syria at the time, and by a number of Roman senators who were in the city with the emperor when the disaster occurred. These were all ordered by the emperor to build houses and baths, presumably with their own money.⁷⁸

In the reign of Trajan we find one of the few pieces of evidence for the koinon or provincial assembly of Syria, in the form of a bronze coin among the local municipal issues of the mint.⁷⁹

Footnotes

59 A vivid description of the catastrophe is preserved in the account of Dio Cassius 68.24-25; Malalas records the disaster more briefly, 275.3-10. A passage in Juvenal, Sat. 6.411, appears to refer to this earthquake. The date, which is given by Malalas, has been disputed. Since the day of the week on which Malalas says the disaster occurred does not agree with his other chronological data, scholars have either rejected the whole date, or emended parts of it. However, it seems plain that the weekday is an addition which was wrongly introduced into the date from another source, and that its inaccuracy need not invalidate the remainder of the chronological data. See the detailed discussion of the problem by Lepper, Trajan's Parthian War 54-83, whose conclusion is adopted here. Malalas lists this as the "third" earthquake at Antioch in a series of disasters to which he assigns numbers. Presumably this means that it was the third major disaster, for there is independent evidence for other earthquakes at Antioch which the chronicler either does not mention or does not include in his numbered series; see Downey, "Seleucid Chronology" 107, 119, n. 2.

60 Beurlier, "Koinon de Syrie" 289, followed by Dieudonne, "Monnaies grecques de Syrie" 9, suggests that the crowding that Dio Cassius mentions was caused by the arrival of visitors who had come for the games o€ the koinon of Syria. It seems im¬plausible that such games would be held in the middle of the winter (this considera¬tion may not have occurred to Beurlier and Dieudonne, who speak only of the year of the earthquake and do not mention the month). It seems clear that the presence of the emperor and of his staff and army would have attracted all kinds of people to the city for a variety of reasons. Dio Cassius (68.24.1), giving the reasons why so many people had come to the city, says that some of them had come Karl Oewptay. Beurlier and Dieudonne take theoria to refer to games and spectacles, but the word would equally well be taken to mean "sightseeing," e.g. in connection with the arrival of the emperor. On the games of the koinon, see above, n. 36.

61 Although Dio Cassius 68.25.2 calls Pedo 6 (Swarm, it is not clear whether he was acting as consul at the time of his death, or whether he had already ceased to be consul and had become a consular (uraT,K6s). See Lepper, Trajan's Parthian War 84-87.

62 Muller is mistaken in stating (Antiq. Antioch. 88) that the circus in which Trajan found refuge was in cameo extra urbem. The only circus at Antioch for which there is evidence at this period is that on the island (see above, Ch. 6, ,§3). Trajan's seeking safety there might be taken to mean that the building in which he was staying was on the island, and this might suggest, in turn, that what was called the palace, or the building which emperors occupied on their visits, was located on the island. However, there is no real evidence for the existence of such a building at Antioch before the time of Diocletian (see Ch. 22, §2), and it would be hazardous to find in the circumstances of Trajan's escape evidence for both the existence and the location of a palace.

63 Malalas 278.20ff.

64 Malalas (275.9-10) gives an ostensible quotation of the inscription which was placed on it: [Greek Text].

65 See the history of the early church at Antioch, below Ch. 1, §4.

66 Malalas places his description of Trajan's buildings after his account of the earthquake, but this need not be taken to indicate sequence in time; see above, n. 51. One may speculate whether some of Trajan's work at Antioch may have been executed by his famous architect, Apollodorus of Damascus; see the account of his career by Fabricius, "Apollodoros," no. 73, RE I (1894) 2896.

67 Malalas (275.21-22) says only that Trajan "raised the two great emboloi." These must have been the colonnades along the main street, which were the colonnades par excellence at Antioch; we hear of no others which were so important that they could be mentioned thus without more exact description.

68 Malalas 275.13ff. A statue of the she-wolf with Romulus and Remus had been placed on the Eastern Gate, which was traditionally ascribed to Tiberius; on this gate and on the symbolism of the statue, see Ch. 8, nn. 87-88. Trajan's Middle Gate was presumably not a central city gate because so far as we know there was no city wall in the region where it stood. Stauffenberg (Malalas 477480 is mistaken in supposing that the Middle Gate was at the south of the city and that it was identical with the main gate in the southern wall of the city; the maps of the city which were available to him were not correctly oriented, and it was not until 193r, the year in which Stauffenberg's book was published, that jacquot's map, the first properly oriented one, was published (see Excursus 8-9).

69 The Forum of Valens and the topography of this region will be described below in Excursus 12. Malalas relates that at the construction of the Middle Gate, Trajan sacrificed a maiden. This tale and its significance are discussed below in n. 71.

70 Malalas describes the completion of the theater, 276.3-9. On the site of the theater and its "building" by Caesar, see Ch. 7, §2. Its enlargements by Agrippa and Tiberius are mentioned above, Ch. 8, §2.

71 Malalas (275.19-21) states that when Trajan built the Μεση Πνλη he sacrificed a maiden named Calliope, "in expiation and for the purification of the city," and that he made a [Greek text] for her. Later the chronicler records (276.3-9) that the emperor set up in the theater a statue of the slain maiden, in gilded bronze, seated above the Orontes river, being crowned by Seleucus and Antiochus, "in the fashion of the Tyche of the city" ([Greek text]). The group stood, Malalas says, "in the middle of the nymphaeum of the proscenium" of the theater. It is impossible, of course, that Trajan should have performed a human sacrifice of this kind. The numerous stories that appear in Malalas of such immolations, accompanying the foundation of cities or the erection of buildings, are Christian legends, designed to cast discredit on pagan practices; see Muller, Antiq. Antioch. 27, n. 2 and 71, n. 6; Weber, Studien 48, n. 5; Stauffenberg, Malalas 158-159, 216-217, 469-470. It is sometimes possible to see, in the name of the victim or in the circumstances of the supposed incident, the origin of the legend. In the present case it seems plain that the story was connected with the statue in the theater. Muller (Antiq. Antioch. 40) believed that the figure Trajan set up in the theater was the original Tyche of the city, which Trajan removed from its original location to the theater. However, it seems more natural to believe, with Stauffenberg (Malalas 471-473), that the statue was of Calliope, represented, as Malalas says, in the guise of the Tyche; certainly (as Stauffenberg points out) there would be more reason to place a statue of Calliope in the theater than to set up a Tyche there. In another place (158-159) Stauffenberg writes that the statue was a Tyche. One must suppose that the opinion which he expresses on pp. 471-473 represents a conclusion reached after he had written pp. 158-159. In his text of Malalas, Stauffenberg is mistaken in placing a comma after [Greek text] and omitting a comma after roxews (275.20), for according to this punctuation, the sentence would mean (to Stauffenberg) that Trajan "sacrificed . . . Calliope, building a nymphagogia for her for the atonement and purification of the city." Apparently Stauffenberg believes that the meaning is that the nymphagogia was built as an atonement for the sacrifice of Calliope; but it seems more likely that the passage means that Calliope was sacrificed for the atonement and purification of the city after the earthquake, and that the nymphagogia was built in memory or in honor of her. This interpretation is supported by the fact that Malalas says that when Perseus founded Tarsus he sacrificed a maiden named Parthenope [Greek text] (37.5-6), and that when Augustus built walls about Arsinoe and changed its name to Ancyra he sacrificed a maiden named Gregoria [Greek text] (221.22). It is necessary therefore to follow the punctuation of Dindorf's edition, in which a comma is placed after [Greek text]. [Greek text] here means "bridal procession," not "nymphaeum" or "aqueduct"; see below, n. 76.

72 Julian Misop. 357 C; Libanius Ep. 1317 W. = 1182 F.

73 Libanius Or. 1.102; Or. 15.152; Or. 20.53; Or. 31.40; Or, 60.13 (location of temple). With reference to the statue in the theater, Stauffenberg (Malalas 473) cites a passage in a letter of Libanius (Epist. 722 W. = 811 F.) in which there is an allusion to sacrifices offered to Calliope in the theater. Stauffenberg appears to think that this means that actual rites of sacrifice to the Muse were performed in the theater. Libanius' phrase is, however, more probably metaphorical, referring to literary exhibitions presented in the theater during the Olympic games, which would be, symbolically, offerings in honor of the Muse; see further remarks on the same subject in Libanius, Epist. 1311 W. = 1175 F. and Epist. 1317 W. = 1182 F., and the discussions of the subject by Sievers, Leben des L ibanius 1o2-103, 119, and by Seeck, Brie/c des Libanius 423.

74 The statue presumably resembled that of Eutychides (on which see above, Ch. 4, nn. 92-94) the difference being, as Stauffenberg points out (Malalas 472), that the statue of Calliope, since the Muse was shown being crowned by Seleucus and Antiochus, would have lacked the turreted crown that the Tyche of Eutychides wore. See also Toynbee, Hadrianic School 131-133.

75 On the use in Roman theaters of the nymphaeum as an architectural decoration, see 0. Reuther, "Nymphaeum," RE 17 (1937) 1517-3524, especially 1522.

76 Muller (Antiq. Antioch. 88, n. 4) and Stauffenberg (Malalas 159) take Malalas' statement (275.21) that Trajan made a [Greek text] for Calliope ([Greek text]) to mean that the emperor built a nymphaeum, possibly in the neighborhood of the Temple of Calliope (the evidence for which has been cited above, n. 73). This seems unlikely. In the Latin translation that accompanied the Oxford edition of Malalas, [Greek text] is rendered Nymphaeum, and this sense is accepted by Muller and Stauffenberg. However, the word ordinarily means a bridal procession, and the present writer has been unable to find any instance of its use to mean a building; Reuther, in his collection of material on the nymphaeum cited above (n. 75), cites only [Greek text] and [Greek text] as designations of the building. In speaking of the setting in which the statue was placed in the theater, Malalas (276.5) writes [Greek text]. Thus it seems clear that in writing [Greek text] he was not referring to a building, but to a "bridal procession" which formed a part of the ceremony in which the maiden was sacrificed.

77 Malalas 277.11. On the chronicler's methods, see above, Ch. 2, §4. On the original Temple of Artemis, see above, Ch. 3, .n. 8.

78 Malalas 278.20-279.2 (in the account of Hadrian's reign).

79 See D. B. Waage, "Coins" 38-39; Beurlier, "Koinon de Syrie" 288, and Dieu-donne, "Monnaies grecques de Syrie" 8-9. On the games of the Koinon, which appear in the reign of Domitian, see above, n. 36.

De Giorgi et al. (2024)

Roman Earthquakes (64 BCE–300 CE)

from Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:438-440)

Fig. 27.2

A map of earthquake damage from the 115 CE earthquake at Antioch (by Stephen Batiuk).

Atrium House, new mosaics after earthquake
Bath C, destroyed after EQ with long break in occupation
House of Trajan's Aqueduct, damaged and abandoned after EQ
19-M, new colonnaded street
Aqueduct of Trajan
Temple Zeus Soter
House of the Drunken Dionysus, earthquake before mosaic ﬂoors
16-P, Street destroyed and repaired after 115
Hippodrome,evidence of capitals for repair after 115
House of the Evil Eye, Lower Level, repairs due to EQ
Villa near Bath B:mosaics / repairs after 115
Theater, later 1st AD destroyed 341 but repaired, persists into 6th c.
Bath E destroyed
Bath F, evidence of capitals for repair after 458 earthquake
13-R Destruction Deposit
15-M Large Building destroyed
16-O vaults over Parmenius
Bath A: abandoned after 526
Stadium on island: this quarter destroyed 526 and thereafter outside Justinian’s city wall
Villa 14-S on Mt Staurin destroyed
House of the Phoenix; late ceramics and coins as TPQ for laying of mosaic here after EQ
House of the Bird Rinceau, coin sealed between successive ﬂoors dates repairs after EQ
House of the Buffet Supper Upper Level, below plaster ﬂoor covering mosaics were coins dating plasterﬂoor to post-526
Kaoussie Church; ﬁnal reconstruction after EQ
Church at Seleucia Pieria destroyed, rebuilt anddamaged again in 528?
17-O Forum of Valens and Nymphaeum.

De Giorgi et al. (2024)

Roman hegemony brought with it more detailed accounts of rebuilding efforts after earthquakes throughout the Mediterranean. An earthquake in 17 CE that shook cities through out western Asia Minor is especially well documented by primary sources, who report that Augustus decreed widespread remission of taxes, direct financial support, and the visit of imperial officials to assist the affected cities (Tacitus, Annals 2.47 and 4.13.1;Strabo13.4.8).¹⁷ This package of state response set a precedent for later earthquakes (including at Antioch in 37, 41, and 115 CE), and for which local Antiochene perspectives from Malalas are supplemented by inscriptions and historians including Dio Cassius, who wrote from a senator’s perspective back at Rome. Generally, imperial Roman sources were concerned with top-down administrative details of immediate state response and issues of finance: they were less concerned with local casualties, the documentation of events from local perspectives, or even the long-term consequences of catastrophe. Two recorded earthquakes at Antioch followed in quick succession, in 37 and 41 CE.

A description of the 37 CE event during the reign of Caligula survives only in Malalas (10.18). Lacking details of destruction or casualties, the Antiochene account nevertheless preserves three key features of typical Roman earthquake response. First, money was sent directly from the emperor to the city. Second, a larger program of new urban infrastructure was set in motion or stimulated by the disaster: in this case the earthquake was quickly followed by construction of a new aqueduct, baths, and temples. Third, two senators and a prefect were sent from Rome “to protect the city and to rebuild it from the benefactions made by the emperor, and equally to make donations to the city from their private income and to live there.” Malalas adds the interesting detail that– besides a bath complex (the Varium), and a nymphaeum (the Trinymphon) decorated with statues – the senators sent from Romealso “built very many dwellings out of their private incomes.” While governmental attention to public buildings has been typical since the Hellenistic period, the focus on private housing stock seems novel. Apart from the new infrastructure that followed in the 37 CE earthquake’s wake according to Malalas– his testimony has been associated with the remains of a Roman aqueduct coming from Daphne, whose construction technique is consistent with a date in the first century CE¹⁸ – the only archaeological evidence for this event may come from Princeton’s excavations of the so-called Atrium House, where mosaics may be dated to the period after 37 CE.¹⁹

Just four years later in 41 CE, another earthquake during the reign of Claudius was accompanied by further destruction of houses, beside damage to the temples of Artemis, Ares, and Herakles (Malalas 10.23). Malalas again records here the quintessential Roman state response: the remission of local taxes paid from cities to Rome, so that cities affected by earthquakes could use these funds to directly pay for repairs themselves, instead. In the case of the 41 CE earthquake at Antioch, the “emperor Claudius relieved the guilds ... of the public service [or tax] of the kapnikon / καπνικόν, which they were providing to reconstruct the city’s roofed colonnades which had been built by Tiberius Caesar” (Malalas 10.23). Καπνικόν, from καπνός or smoke, is usually translated as a hearth tax, that is to say a tax on chimneys, which were easier to count than people; it appears here in its first instantiation, though the precise mean ing of the passage is unclear. Either the hearth tax which had been supporting the colonnade restoration (presumably after the previous earthquake of 37 CE) was lifted entirely; or the hearth tax’s funds were diverted to restoration of the colonnades (meaning that the guild members still paid, but its funds went to a new purpose).²⁰ The hearth tax appeared rarely throughout the medieval period, before it reappeared more widely in early modern times.²¹ In those later forms, at least, the hearth tax was progressive in the sense that a large house or workshop would have more chimneys (and presumably money) than a smaller household.²²

The first earthquake at Antioch for which we can meaningfully compare textual and archaeological evidence came in 115 CE (see Figure 27.2). It was vividly described by the Roman senatorial historian Dio Cassius (c. 155–235 CE), who was neither an eyewitness nor a contemporary. Dio Cassius recalls, however, the name of a consul who died there, and so presumably he relied on a closer source for his own account (68.24–25). Such unusual details may have been preserved because the emperor Trajan was in residence at Antioch at the time of the earthquake, to manage war with the Parthian Persians. Trajan only narrowly escaped from a collapsing building through a room’s window. He stayed outdoors in the hippodrome throughout the aftershocks. Dio Cassius reports significant destruction of houses and the loss of life – “the crash and breaking of timbers together with tiles and stones ... an inconceivable amount of dust ... The number of those who were trapped in the houses and perished was past finding out ...Great numbers were suffocated in the ruins.”

The participation of survivors in community sponsored offerings of thanksgiving, including even the construction of whole temples, may have fostered community cohesion in future earthquakes. After the 115 CE earthquake, Malalas tells us that “the surviving Antiochenes who remained then built a temple on which they inscribed ‘Those who were saved erected this to Zeus the Savior’” (11.8).

Dio Cassius says little concerning the recovery or reconstruction effort that must have followed the 115 CE earthquake, however. Malalas gives more details, indicating a major construction program sponsored by Trajan that followed the 115 CE earthquake: beginning with the sacrifice of a virgin girl named Kalliope, we are told, Trajan restored the city’s colonnades and built a new aqueduct and bath, named for himself, besides a theater (11.8–11).²³

The Princeton excavators at Antioch understood the 115 CE event as a watershed in the city’s history. Literary sources became a point of reference for interpretation and dating of changes in buildings throughout the city, including damage and repair, but also abandonment or new construction: new mosaics were added in the so-called Atrium House and the House of the Drunken Dionysus,²⁴ repairs were made at the Hippodrome, as suggested by new column capitals dated to the reign of Hadrian,²⁵ and the city cardo was built anew²⁶ while other streets were repaired.²⁷ On the other hand, Bath C was destroyed in the 115 earthquake and abandoned, so too was the so-called House of Trajan’s Aqueduct.²⁸

Leaving aside aspersions of child sacrifice from Christian chronicler Malalas, and the difficulties posed by evaluation of claims made by the Princeton excavators some 90 years later, it still stands that the initiation of significant new infra structure projects and repairs to public or private buildings followed the 115 CE earthquake at Antioch, in a pattern typical for major cities under the Roman empire. We turn now to the Byzantine.²⁹

Footnotes

17 See also Ambraseys(2009).

18 Antioch II, 52; Gatier, Leblanc, and Poccardi (2004,241–242).

19 See Levi(1947, 16).

20 Downey (1961, 196,n. 145).

21 s.v. “HearthTax” and “Kapnikon” in Kazhdan (1991, 906, 1105).

22 Gurrin(2004).

23 Jeffreys (1990, 56) says “much of Malalas’ narrative on Trajan’s activities is uncorroborated by other sources and is probably fictitious.”

24 Levi(1947, 16,40).

25 Antioch III, 150.

26 Antioch V, 30–33.

27 Antioch V,72

28 Levi(1947,289,28).

29 Mordechai and Pickett (2018)

Guidoboni et al. (1994)

(110) the morning of 13 December 115 •Antioch, •Mt.Casius •landslide?

Sources 1

Dio Cass. 68.24, 25.6 = Zon. 11.22.18
Eus. Hieron. Chron. 196c
Mal. 275

Sources 2

Oros. Hist. 7.12.5
Evagr. 2.12
Georg. Sync. 657

Inscriptions

CIL 14.4542

Literature

Schenk von Stauffenberg (1931)
Downey (1961)
Barbieri (1970)
Burnand (1984)
Catalogo epigrafi (1989)

Catalogues

Manetti [1457]
Ligorio [1574–7]
Bonito (1691)
von Hoff (1840)
Mallet (1853)
Schmidt (1881)
Sieberg (1932a)
Hermann (1962)
Ben-Menahem (1979)
Guidoboni (1989)

Antioch was struck by a violent earthquake during a visit by Trajan, and some of his retinue were killed. Dio Cassius provides a detailed and dramatic description of its effects:

While he [Trajan] was visiting Antioch, there was an unusually powerful earthquake. Many cities were badly damaged, but Antioch suffered the worst destruction [...]. First of all there came a sudden bellowing roar, which was followed by a tremendous quaking, and the whole earth heaved up, so that even buildings were thrown into the air. Some came crashing back down in pieces, while others were tossed about as if by the surge of the sea, and their wreckage was scattered over large areas of open country. There was a fearful din of splitting and breaking timbers and tiles, and such vast quantities of dust arose that it was impossible to see or say or hear anything at all. Many people were hurt, even though some were outside their houses: they were snatched up, tossed violently about, and then dashed to the ground as though they had fallen from a cliff. Some were injured and others killed. Even trees, with all their roots, were thrown into the air. It was impossible to calculate the numbers of those who were trapped in their houses and killed [...] Even Mt. Casius was so badly shaken that its peaks seemed to lean over and break off, and to be falling right on the city.

Διατρίβοντος δέ αύτού έν 'Αντιοχεία σεισμός έξαίσιος γίνεται• καί πολλοί μέν έκαμαν πόλεις, μάλιστα δέή 'Αντιόχεια έδνστύχησεν [...] πρώτον μέν γάρ μύκημα έξαπίνηc μέγα έβρνχήσατο, έπειτα βρασμός έπ' αύτώ βιαιότατος έπεγένετο, καί άνω μέν ή γη πάσα άνεβάλλετο, άνω δέ καί τά οϊκοδομήματα άνεπήδα, καί τά μέν ανέκαθεν έπαιρόμενα συνέπιπτε καί κατερρήγνυτο, τά δέ καί δεύρο καί έκείσε κλονούμενα ώσπερ έν σάλω περιετρέπετο, καί έπί πολύ καί τον ύπαίθρου προσκατελάμβανεν. ό τε κτύπος Θρανομένων καί καταγννμένων ξύλων όμού κεράμων λίθων έκπληκτικώτατος έγίνετο, καί ή κόνις πλείστη όση ήγείρετο, ώστε μήτε ίδείν τινα μήτε εϊπείν μήτ' άκούσαί τι δύνασθαι. τών δέ δή ανθρώπων πολλοί μέν καί έκτός τών οϊκιών όντες έπόνησαν• άναβαλλόμενοί τε γάρ καί άναρριπτούμενοι βιαίως, είθ' ώσπερ άπό κρημνού φερόμενοι προσηράσσοντο, καί οϊ μέν έπηρούντο οϊ δέ έθνησκον. καί τινα καί δένδρα αύταίς ρίζαις άνέθορε. τών δέ έν ταίς οϊκίαις καταληφθέντων άνεξεύρετος αριθμός άπώλετο [...] έσείσθη δέ καί αύτό τό Κάσιον ούτως ώστε τά άκρα αύτού καί έπικλίνεσθαι καί άπορρήγννσθαι καί αύτήν τήν πόλιν έσπίπτειν δοκείν.

Eusebius dates the earthquake to 113 A.D. Malalas writes:

During the reign of the most sacred Trajan, Antioch the Great, near Daphne, suffered its third disaster, on Sunday 13 Apellaius/December, just after cockcrow in the year 164 according to the era of Antioch, two years after the arrival of the most sacred emperor Trajan in Anatolia. Those survivors who remained in the city built a temple at Daphne with this inscription: “Those who were saved erected this to Zeus the Saviour.”

'Επί δέ τής βασιλείας τον αύτον Θειοτάτον Τράίανού έπαθεν 'Αντιόχεια ή μεγάλη ή πρός Δάφνην τό τρίτον αύτής πάθος μηνί άπελλαίω τά? καί δεκεμβρίω ιγ', ήμέρα α', μετά άλεκτρνόνα, έτους χρηματίζοντος ρξδ' κατά τούς αύτούς 'Αντιοχείς, μετά δέ β' έτη τής παρουσίας τον θειότάτου. βασιλέως Τράίανον τής έπί τήν 'Ανατολήν. ώ δέ 'Αντιοχείς οί άπομείναντες καί ζήσαντες τότε ίερόν έκτισαν έν Δάφνη, έν ι;ι έπέγραμιαν- οί συίθέντες άνέστησαν• Διί σωτήρι.

There may be a reference to this earthquake at Antioch in the very incomplete Fragment xxxv in the Fasti Ostienses:

[---] Vestal virgin [---] there was an [earthqu]ake [---], of Quintus Asinius Mar[cellus ---].

[---]rinu[---] / v(irgo) V(estalis) / [terrae m]otus fuit [---] / Q(uinti) Asini Mar[celli ---] / [---].

Barbίerί (1970, ρρ.263-5, 272-3, 276) has studied this much debated fragment and the substantial earlier bibliography in extreme detaίl, and suggests completίng its five lines as set out beloω. He thinks the first line refers to a consul from the thίrd and last pair for the year 115, namely Pompeίus Μacrίnus — whο is probably also referred to in the Fasti Potentini (from Potenza Pίcena, near Ροrtο Recanati), though it, toο, is a very fragmentary document:

[Οn the Calends of September] Μ. Pomp[eius Μac]rinu[s, ---]". [k. Sept.] Μ. Pomp[eius Μac]rinu[s, ---}.

The second line seems to refer to the death or sentencing of an unidentified Vestal virgin. Barbieri has suggested the Lepida in CIL 6.5477, but there are other possibilities, since the form of the first letter οf the name suggests either an Ι or an Ν.

Τhe earthquake referred to in the third line seems to be the one whίch struck Antίoch in that same year 115, and it is probably recorded in the inscrίptίon because it caused the death of a number ο± people in the retinue οf the emperor Trajan. It is unlikely, therefore, to be the hypothetίcal earthquake in the Ostia area — whίch is in any case not attested in any other sources — as prevίously suggested by Burnand (1984, ρρ.176-7, nο.10) and in Cata1ogo epigrafi (1989, ρ.144).

Τhe fourth and fifth lines are taken 1to record the death οf the praefectus urbi, Q. Asinίus Μarcellus, and his replacement by Q. Baebίus Μacer:

Q.Baebίus Μacer ωαs appointed 1:ο replace Q.Asinius Μarcellus as praefectus urbi

in locu]m Q. Asini Μαr[celli praef. urb. [(actus) Q. Bae/bius Μace]r.

Barbieri has read the last: letter οf the fifth line as an R, whereas it had previously been interpreted as an Α (CIL. 14.4542) or an Χ.

References

Guidoboni, E., et al. (1994). Catalogue of ancient earthquakes in the Mediterranean area up to the 10th century. Rome, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica

Ambraseys (2009)

AD 115 Dec 13 Antioch

An earthquake in the Orontes valley during the morning of 13 December AD 115 almost totally destroyed Antioch, Daphne and four other cities, including Apamea. This was the third time that Antioch had been destroyed by an earthquake.

A great roar preceded the shock. People standing in the open were thrown down and trees were uprooted and toppled. Almost all structures in Antioch were damaged, and three quarters of the city collapsed, killing a large number of people, including the consul Pedo Vergilianus. The exact number of deaths is unknown, but it must have been exceedingly high because the emperor Trajan was wintering there with his troops at the time, and his presence had attracted many litigants, embassies and sightseers; in addition to that, since the earthquake occurred first thing in the morning, many people would still have been indoors. Very few of those in Antioch went unscathed, and the Emperor himself, trapped in the ruins of his residence, made his way out through a window of the room in which he was staying, with slight injuries. During the remainder of the period he lived in the open, in the hippodrome.

Antioch was covered with a thick cloud of dust thrown up from collapsing buildings, and rescue work was hampered by strong aftershocks, which continued for several days. Many of the rescuers were killed by falling debris, and all those who were left trapped in the vaulted colonnades apparently died of hunger.

Damage extended to the suburb of Daphne; the whole town collapsed and its reconstruction was on a par with that of the capital of the province. The Temple of Artemis was heavily damaged and had to be rebuilt. The destruction extended over a large area and included Apamea on the Orontes, 90 km south of Antioch, which suffered the same damage as Antioch.

The other cities damaged are not named in the sources, but it seems that the earthquake was strong further south of Antioch, where it caused considerable concern (Krauss 1914).

In places, the names of which are not given, the ground settled and new springs of water appeared while many streams dried up. Landslides from the hills on the banks of the Orontes River and rock falls from Mt Casius added to the destruction. Aftershocks continued for many days.

It seems that after the earthquake Trajan embarked on a massive reconstruction programme: the Median gate was erected near the temple of Ares, and above the temple he placed an effigy of the She-Wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, to show that the rebuilt Antioch was a Roman foundation. In addition he built the Nymphaeum or Nymphagoria in honour of a virgin whom he sacrificed for the city’s future safety: this complex was adorned with bronzes. Trajan also re-erected two great architraves, and built the Baths of Trajan, which were fed from Daphne by an aqueduct. In addition there is evidence that the theatre was damaged, and it is possible that this earthquake damaged the Temple of Artemis in Daphne, which had to be rebuilt.

In addition to the emperor’s own contribution towards the restoration of Antioch, work was also carried out by Hadrian (Mal. CS 275–278), and by a number of Roman senators. Also in Apamea, Trajan rebuilt the colonnade, the public bath and the water supply of the city (Balty 1988).

A major building programme about this time in Apamea, in the Orontes valley, has been connected with this earthquake, but there is in fact no firm evidence that it was occasioned by seismic disturbance.

A much later writer mentions an edict issued by Trajan after the earthquake, restricting the height of new buildings to no more than 60 feet (Berryat 1761, 498); but no earlier source for this detail could be found.

A rhetorical account of the earthquake is given by the near-contemporary Dio Cassius, who, although he omits details of reconstruction, adds the important information that the earthquake occurred during the consulship of Pedo Vergilianus.

Malalas (writing during the sixth century) is an important source, both for details of Trajan’s building programme in Antioch and for the date. Downey believes that the building works might not all have been occasioned by the earthquake (Downey 1961a, 215), and, since the reference to Trajan’s foundation of the Temple of Artemis at Daphne comes separately, after the account of a martyrdom, it may have merely been an instance of improvement or repairs. Also, it is unlikely that Trajan really sacrificed ‘a beautiful Antiochene virgin called Calliope’. Since Roman human sacrifices were unheard of by this time, one is inclined to agree with Downey’s interpretation that this was a Christian legend told to discredit Trajan (Downey 1961a, 216 n. 71) (and this would fit neatly with the martyrdom which follows the earthquake account), Calliope the nymph being a tutelary deity of Antioch.

Although Malalas’s chronology is notoriously confused, in this instance the chronological elements are in fact consistent: (a) Antiochene year 164 (October AD 115– September AD 116); (b) two years after Trajan’s arrival in the East (generally agreed as winter AD 113–114); (c) December, when Pedo could be described as consul (Lepper 1948, 71). Malalas puts the event on a Sunday at the same time as the martyrdom of St Ignatius of Antioch. For this reason Clinton rejects Malalas’s date completely and dates the event to January or February AD 115, on a reconstruction of the itinerary of St Ignatius, beginning with his arrest, which he mistakenly places in February AD 115 (cf. Downey 1961b, 292). According to St John Chrysostom, St Ignatius’ martyrdom took place on 20 December 116, which was a Saturday: apparently the martyrdom continued till 6 am on Sunday (Ioann. Chrys. S. Ignat. 594). Hence it may well be that 13 December 115 for the earthquake is correct, in view of the other corroborated data; Malalas has merely moved the date of St Ignatius’s death back (Essig 1986; Lepper 1948, 54–85; Downey 1961b, 216, 218, 292).

Many other chroniclers record this event. Eusebius (third–fourth century) dates it a.A. (year of Abraham) 2130.17 (AD 113), while the Armenian version claims that only a third of the city was destroyed; however, St Jerome, who dates the event Ol.CCXXIII.16 (AD 112), says that almost the whole city was destroyed. The earthquake is also noted by Orosius and by numerous later Syriac chroniclers, who add no further information (Oros. vii. 12; Ps.Dion. 123/i. 92; Chr. 724, 121/95; Mich. Syr. vi. 4/i. 17). In addition, it is thought that Juvenal alludes to this earthquake in his Sixth Satire (cf. Downey 1961a, 213 n. 59).

Balty connects a major public building programme in Apamea with this earthquake on the evidence of an inscription found at the baths, which states that the governor Gaius Iulius Quadratus Bassus ‘bought ground at his own expense and founded the baths, the basilica inside them and the portico of the street in front, with all their decoration and bronze works of art’ (Balty 1988, 91ff.). From the fact that Hadrian superseded Bassus for a few months as governor before his accession to the imperium, the inscription can be dated AD 116. Since no mention is made of an earthquake, however, there seems little evidence to connect it with the Antioch disaster. Indeed, given that Bassus bought the land, the bath was clearly a new venture, not repair work, and it was very common for governors to embark on lavish construction programmes at their own expense in order to win promotion.

Notes

‘While the emperor was tarrying in Antioch a terrible earthquake occurred; many cities suffered injury, but Antioch was the most unfortunate of all. Since Trajan was passing the winter there and many soldiers and many civilians had flocked thither from all sides in connection with law-suits, embassies, business or sight-seeing, there was no nation or people that went unscathed; and thus in Antioch the whole world under Roman sway suffered dis- aster. There had been many thunderstorms and portentous winds, but no one would ever have expected so many evils to result from them. First there came, on a sudden, a great bellowing roar, and this was followed by a tremendous quaking. The whole earth was upheaved, and buildings leaped into the air; some were carried aloft only to collapse and be broken in pieces, while others were tossed this way and that as if by the surge of the sea, and over- turned, and the wreckage spread out over a great extent even of the open country. The crash of grinding and breaking timbers together with tiles and stones was most frightful and an incon-ceivable amount of dust arose, so that it was impossible for one to see anything or to speak or hear a word. As for the people, many even who were outside the house were hurt, being snatched up and tossed violently about and then dashed to the earth as if falling from a cliff; some were maimed and others killed. Even trees in some cases leaped into the air, roots and all. The num-ber of those who were trapped in the houses and perished was past finding out; for multitudes were killed by the very force of the falling debris, and great numbers were suffocated in the ruins. Those who lay with a part of their body buried under the stones or timbers suffered terribly, being able neither to live any longer nor to find an immediate death.

Nevertheless, many even of these were saved, as was to be expected in such a countless multitude; yet not all such escaped unscathed. Many lost legs or arms, some had their heads bro-ken, and still others vomited blood; Pedo the consul was one of these, and he died at once. In a word, there was no kind of violent experience that those people did not undergo at that time. And as Heaven continued the earthquake for several days and nights, the people were in dire straits and helpless, some of them crushed and perishing under the weight of the buildings pressing upon them, and others dying of hunger, whenever it so chanced that they were left alive either in a clear space, the timbers being so inclined as to leave such a space, or in a vaulted colonnade. When at last the evil had subsided, someone who ventured to mount the ruins caught sight of a woman still alive. She was not alone, but had also an infant; and she had survived by feeding both herself and her child with her milk. They dug her out and resuscitated her together with her babe, and after that they searched the other heaps, but were not able to find in them anyone still living save a child sucking at the breast of its mother, who was dead. As they drew forth the corpses they could no longer feel any pleasure even at their own escape.

So great were the calamities that had overwhelmed Anti- och at this time. Trajan made his way out through a window of the room in which he was staying. Some being, of greater than human stature, had come to him and led him forth, so that he escaped with only a few slight injuries; and as the shocks extended over several days, he lived out of doors in the hippodrome. Even Mt Casius itself was so shaken that its peaks seemed to lean over and break off and to be falling upon the very city. Other hills also settled, and much water not previously in existence came to light, while many streams disappeared.’ (Dio Cass. LXVIII. xxiv– xxv/LCL. ix. 404).

‘In the reign of the same most divine Trajan Antioch the Great, situated near Daphne, suffered for the third time in the month of Apellaeus and December 13, the first day, after cock-crow, in the Antiochene year 164, and two years after the arrival of Trajan in eastern parts. The Antiochenes who remained behind and survived erected an altar in Daphne, on which they wrote, “The survivors erected this to their saviour Zeus.”

On the same night as Antioch the Great suffered, the island city of Rhodes, being a city of the Hexapolis, suffered under the wrath of God for the second time. But the most pious Trajan, having founded it once already, erected the Median Gate near the temple of Ares, where the Parmenius flows in winter, close to what is now called Macellus; and above it he inscribed an effigy of the She- Wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus, so that posterity might know that this was a Roman foundation. He sacrificed there a beautiful Antiochene virgin called Calliope as an expiatory and cleansing sacrifice for the city, in whose honour he built the Nymphagoria. And then he re-erected the two great architraves, and built many other things in Antioch, including a public bath, and an aqueduct, drawing the water from the springs of Daphne to the so-called Agriae, giving his own name to the baths and aqueduct. And the Theatre of Antioch, which was not yet finished, he completed, and placed in it, above, four columns; and in the middle of the Proscenium of the Nymphaeum he put a bronze statue of the virgin he had slaughtered, and on the upper side a bronze of the Orontes river was placed, being crowned by the kings Seleucus and Antiochus. The Emperor Trajan him-self was in the city when the earthquake happened. St Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, was martyred in his reign.’ (Mal. 275– 276/416–417).

‘The emperor also founded the Temple of Artemis in the middle of the grove in Daphne.’ (Mal. 277/420).

‘The Emperor Hadrian, while he was still a private cit- izen and a senator, was staying with Trajan (whose nephew he was) in Antioch when the great city suffered under the wrath of God.’ (Mal. 278/421).

‘a.A. 2130.17 Antioch collapsed when Trajan was there.’ (Eus. Hist. 164, Greek).

‘There was an earthquake at Antioch, and just under a third of the city was ruined.’ (Eus. Hist. 164, Armenian).

‘Ol.CCXXIII.16: An earthquake in Antioch destroyed almost the entire city.’ (Hieron. Hist. 196).

‘... cities are tottering, the land subsides ...’ (Juv. VI. 411/LCL. 116).

References

Ambraseys, N. N. (2009). Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: a multidisciplinary study of seismicity up to 1900.

363 CE Cyril Quake

Discussion

Byzantine Quakes - 300-600 CE

Discussion

Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:441-447) note that no fewer than twelve earthquakes are recorded for Antioch between the years 300 and 600 by a wide range of sources, usually with multiple, if not always independent attestations. However, Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:441-447) add that none of these events are easy to analyze and they often defy our desire for modern analysis, to coordinate literary evidence or compare it with archaeological evidence.

References

De Giorgi et al. (2024)

Building Programs And Natural Disasters The Archaeology of Roman and Late Antique Antioch

from Gunnar Brands and Andrea U. De Giorgi in De Giorgi et al. (2024:131-135)

9.2 DESTRUCTION, RECONSTRUCTION, AND THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD

... On May 29, 526, what appears to be one of the most devastating earthquakes of Antioch’s history struck, causing unprecedented damage, it seems. With an estimated magnitude of 7.0 on the surface wave scale and estimated intensity of IX (violent) on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale, the quake violently rattled the city, toppled buildings and killed many.⁴³ The vehemence and the tragedy caused by the event were such that a host of voices described the effects and repercussions of the cataclysm. However, it stands to reason that the account of John Malalas may be the most reliable, for the historian may have actually been in Antioch at the time. Be that as it may, it is apparent that Antioch’s main urban foci were flattened by the quake; whether damage occurred to the church built by Constantine, the dominicum aureum, is a matter of dispute.⁴⁴ As for the number of the casualties, 250,000 Antiochenes were presumably killed. Of course, much sensationalism gets in the way of demographics; nevertheless, one can speculate that a sizeable portion of the population, the urban infrastructure, and the local economy were directly impacted.

We previously stressed the dialectic of destruction and new beginnings: Constantinople was not slow in mobilizing aid and resources for quick repairs. Justin allocated the funds through the comes Orientis Carinus and other functionaries; 30 centenaria were rolled to the civic funds’ baths, aqueducts, and bridges, while repairing other structural damage to the civic infrastructure. Ten centenaria were also allocated to repairing churches. Tragically, reconstruction was underway when, in November 527, another fire allegedly affected the city. Under the comes Orientis Zacharias, and thanks to the munificence of the new emperor Justinian (527–565) and his wife Theodora (527–548), more funding was secured to restore Antioch’s functionality and overall dignity. It appears that the imperial couple had just commissioned churches and buildings at that time. The basilica of Anatolius, in particular, was greatly damaged and subsequently rebuilt by Justinian with columns from Constantinople, almost a redress for the Antiochene monuments that 200 years earlier had been stripped to contribute to the making of the new capital on the Bosphorus.⁴⁵ Yet these efforts were to no avail, for, on November 29, 528, still another temblor, plausibly an aftershock of the 526 earthquake, struck; lasting one hour, it killed an additional 4,770 civilians, as reported by Theophanes.⁴⁶ The days of Justinian, it seems, were witnessing the lowest degree of divine support for the city on the Orontes. This was the juncture where changing the name of the city to Theoupolis seemed the only way to curb the fury of the natural elements, and coinage reflects the transition (see Plates 14.12–14.16).⁴⁷

9.3 A NEW ANTIOCH?

From Constantinople, Imperial assistance once again came to the rescue. The emperor at that point sanctioned the severing of the island from the rest of Antioch. This was a logical consequence of a decreasing importance of the island as early as in the fifth century, as a consequence of the city’s expansion to the south since the early/middle imperial periods and the earthquake of 458 CE which had wrought havoc on the island. What is more, at that juncture Justinian undoubtedly began the planning of a more compact version of the city, one that, however, was to become a reality only in the 540s after the Persian sack. The combination of geological and political factors in mapping out the future form of the city and in mobilizing new elites could not have been more decisive. In that vein, the Orontes was diverted and its channel redrawn, while the island witnessed extensive abandonment. As for the fortifications, the walls were repaired with the exception of the undamaged segments on Mt. Silpius, this time encompassing the northern tip of Mt. Silpius, later to be occupied by the Byzantine and Crusader Citadel (Figure 9.12)

The Iron Gate in the Parmenios gorge (Figure 9.13) underwent consolidation and was integrated in the new perimeter of defenses; it was not long after transformed into a dam designed to hinder the swelling of the Parmenius stream, thus seeking to curb the flooding of the city’s central and northern districts while still serving as fortification. Further, the two aqueducts tapping water into the Daphne springs (of the first and second centuries CE) were also repaired.⁴⁸ In addition, a system of gates was added along the stretches of Mt. Staurin and the plain.⁴⁹ New fortifications and efficient roads, one of which was recently identified on the southern slopes of Mt. Silpius (Figure 9.14), enabled the logistic for the ambitious new plan for the city, one, however, that was grounded in the old armature.

Once again, the complicated archaeological record of Antioch affords insights into the city’s transformations. Houses were rebuilt, albeit with a different orientation or with new features added like pools. However, this downsized city of Justinian measured some 452 ha, included the slopes of Mt. Silpius, and presumably still comprised several thousand houses: two domestic units only (House of Aion, House of Iphigenia) can be reasonably assigned to the sixth century. In all likelihood they were abandoned in the ensuing decades.

The city’s ubiquitous waterworks were also curtailed, as attested by the collapse of the nymphaeum in sector 17-O.⁵⁰ Antioch’s sixth century baths remain hard to locate;⁵¹ though central in Justinian’s program, at least according to Procopius, they are not documented archaeologically. Yet the evidence from the island excavation is compelling: the five baths there located were abandoned after 540. Bath F (the only urban bath known through excavation) was greatly damaged in 526/528. Restored and greatly reduced in size, it reopened in 537/538, shortly after the earthquake, and then ceased to operate after the Persian sack of 540 CE. Also, to what degree the now extra muros hippodromes were still serviceable remains to be established. As per the rosy narrative of Procopius, theaters were among the buildings repaired by Justinian but the archaeological evidence is missing.

Lastly, streets, plazas, and the interface between Justinian’s plan and the previous phase of the city need to be taken up. The colonnaded street was still pivotal for the unfolding of the new plan. The section of sector 19 M ( one of the 1937 Street Digs) shows that a sediment ranging between 90 cm and 1 m covered the street of Trajan.⁵² A new, reduced version of the thoroughfare was thus set in place sometime between 528 and 540, when Antioch was sacked by the Persians. More to the point, the axis appears in a new configuration: 5.45 m wide, plus sidewalks. Bereft of its porticoes, Antioch was now entering a new phase: a more compact city, but still at the center of the Greek East. Overall, Justinian’s reconstruction was a concrete commitment grounded in strengthening and redesigning the civic fabric, as made manifest by a massive fortification, streets, public spaces, water supply systems, and possibly large-scale administrative buildings, if we accept an early sixth century date for the build ing complex south of the Forum of Valens recently excavated by Turkish archaeologists and still unpublished. Despite this substantial reconstruction program Antioch hardly recovered from the early sixth century series of calamities and further disasters: a recurring bubonic plague and earth quakes in 553, 557,and 588 took a further toll on a vexed community.

In financial terms, remission from taxes for three years, a measure typically implemented by emperors since the days of the Julio-Claudians, was authorized for Antioch. That earthquakes functioned as a stimulus for rebuilding and investing assets may be too far-fetched a hypothesis, but it can’t be denied that the imperial administration went to great lengths to revive Figure 9.14 Road (built in the course of the Justinianic rebuilding after the 540 sack) connecting the citadel area to the southern walls. the community and ensure continuity of settlement. There were dividends to be clinched, too: a new class of non-local imperial administrators tasked with the reconstruction of the city appeared on the scene; various patricii and their entourage hailed down from Constantinople to aid the reconstruction. As Catherine Saliou noted, there was no shortage of great resources to tap into.⁵³ Overall, at this juncture, Justinian and his planners mapped out a city that, for all its splendid veneer,⁵⁴ was conceivably 20 percent smaller than that of Trajan.

Footnotes

43 Malalas 17.16. See also Procop. Bell. 2.14; John of Nikiu 135–136; Chron. Edessenum 11–12; Theoph. 172–173. Guidoboni (1989, 691–694).

44 Deichmann (1972); Mayer and Allen (2012, 68–80); Brands (2016, 60–64; 2021).

45 Malalas 14.13.

46 Theoph. 177–178. Also, Saliou (2019, 201).

47 See Stahl infra.

48 Brands (2009).

49 Brasse (2010). On the city gates in the plain see Antioch 1 (Brands-Weferling)

50 Eger (2024); Brands and Döring (2025).

51 De Giorgi and Eger (2021, 107).

52 Antioch V, 19–40.

53 Saliou (2019).

54 Proc. De aed. 2.10

Early Byzantine Earthquakes (300–600 CE)

from Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:441-447)

The gradual Christianization of the Late Roman or Early Byzantine world brought with it a new range in literary production that reflected changes throughout society more broadly, and which treated earthquakes in ways rather different than the historians and chroniclers of the imperial Roman state. While the precedents for disaster response set by the imperial Roman state changed little with Christianity, civic and social response at the level of the city and its population shifted, alongside the interests of our sources. Particularly important are hymns and homilies, written by Antioch’s local bishops John Chrysostom and Severus of Antioch, hagiographies or the lives of saints composed for local holy men such as Symeon Stylites the Younger, as well as ecclesial histories of the church at Antioch written in Syriac. Such literature sheds light on how people living in Antioch responded to disaster, and how they complemented lingering traditions for ancient historiography, maintained both at Constantinople but also in the provincial capitals, for instance at Antioch, as by the Greek chronicler John Malalas or his peer Procopius.

Altogether, no fewer than twelve earthquakes are recorded for Antioch between the years 300 and 600 by this wide range of sources, usually with multiple, if not always independent attestations. None of these events are easy to analyze, precisely because they are described by multiple authors in different languages, historical contexts, and genres of literature: they often defy our desire for modern analysis, to coordinate literary evidence or compare it with archaeological evidence.

Let us take an earthquake at Antioch of the year 341 CE as an example. Socrates Scholasticus, from Constantinople, writes in his ecclesial history about a famous church council or synod at Antioch in 341 CE, which according to him was convened at least in part to consecrate a famous octagonal cathedral built for the city by Constantine.³⁰ The church was finished by his son Constantius II, whose theological leanings inclined with the city’s bishops toward Arianism, the idea that Christ had a single human nature. This was opposed to Socrates’s (and Constantine’s) Nicene notion of Christ’s consubstantial human and divine nature with God the Father. Arianism was a major theological and political disagreement in the fourth century, which is why it appears in Socrates’s history. Tacked on at the end of his account of the 341 CE earthquake Socrates adds that “at the same time [as the 341 Synod] there occurred violent earthquakes in the East, and especially at Antioch, which continued to suffer aftershocks during a whole year” (2.10). Socrates’s aim may be understood as the denigration of Arian bishops: they sacrileged the city and its new cathedral with their synod, and so were met with an appropriate outpouring of divine wrath.

On the other hand, these years around the 341 earthquake also appear independently in several Syriac histories, whose compositional history is murky, though we might suspect that they originated near to Antioch itself somewhere in what is today northern Syria or southeastern Turkey. Yet these sources may either not mention the earthquake at all; give roughly the same date for this event, within a few years around 341 CE; or disagree on the religious/political context, or on the duration of aftershocks.³¹ None of our sources for the 341 CE earthquake mention any specific physical damage to Antioch, or loss of life, or reconstruction per se. Why?

If we look for Antioch’s 341 CE earthquake in Theophanes (writing from Constantinople in the eighth century) or Malalas (writing from Antioch in the sixth), we find only more confusion. Theophanes’s account agrees with Socrates in his account of the church synod but inverts it by placing mention of the octagonal church’s consecration after the earthquake. As this text’s editors Cyril Mango and Elizabeth Jeffreys concluded, “Theophanes’ handling of this whole year is complex and involves rearrangement of material to suit his own purposes” (Theophanes, year 5833). Writing in the later years of the eighth century when no one was concerned any longer with Arianism, Theophanes here focuses on a more current issue: the proper association between an earthquake and, in its wake, the imperial reconstruction efforts that should follow. Curiously, in the year following Theophanes’s chronicle, he also writes that there was “a severe earthquake in Cyprus, the greater part of Salamis fell” (Theophanes, year 5834). Are these separate or related events? The fishy comparisons and contexts should give us pause. Was there a major earthquake at Antioch in 341 CE at all? Probably not.

Our most local if not contemporary source, the Antiochene John Malalas (c. 490–570), was mixed up on both his chronology and his geography: he does not mention any earthquake at Antioch in 341 CE, though he does give unusual detail concerning the dedication of the city cathedral by Constantius II in that year. Malalas erred and placed the 341 CE earthquake rather earlier in his chronicle, during the reign of Constantius I (r. 305–306), instead (Malalas 12.48).³² Antioch was the chief concern of Malalas, as a local, but the 341 CE earthquake– with significant and archaeologically-identifiable damage and reconstruction, besides textual sources– in fact occurred 150 miles to Antioch’s southwest, at Salamis on Cyprus’s very eastern shore. There, archaeologists have indeed identified significant reconstruction activities during the mid-fourth century, including renovation of the city’s largest baths and the erection of a massive seven-aisled Christian basilica.³³ With this external support, Malalas’s account of an earthquake in 305–306 CE can now be safely placed in 341 CE instead; and descriptions of damage at Antioch by Socrates Scholasticus can be plausibly identified as an exaggeration in service of theological controversy. The compounding or conjoining of disasters, as part of the religious and apocalyptic imagination of late antiquity, is common: disasters in one place were thought to have surely been accompanied by disasters elsewhere. By the same token, sometimes events which should be conjoined are separated or rearranged by our sources, as here, requiring detective work to sort them out.

The next seismic event on record at Antioch comes c. 395 CE: this earthquake probably appears only in the homilies of John Chrysostom (In terrae motum, et in divitem et Lazarum PG 48.1027–1043 and Homilia post terrae motum, PG50.713–716), besides a brief unlocalized notice in Marcellinus Comes that has been thought to supply the correct date.³⁴ Chrysostom delivered his second homily outside, he tells us, perhaps alluding to structural danger at churches shaken in the city. He spat fire, preaching the earthquake as an opportunity for “advancement” (τοῦ σεισμοῦ πρόοδος) of the city’s spirit toward Godliness. Chrysostom marvels at rapid social changes after the 395 CE earthquake, which (he says, at least temporarily):

... did away with the unevenness of life. Where, now, are those who wear silken robes? Where is the gold? All of those things have gone away. ... The earthquake [lasted] for two days, but let piety remain into all time. The earthquake sends forth a voice, more sonorous than a trumpet, saying this: “The Lord is compassionate and merciful, patient and rich in mercy. I was present, not in order to overwhelm you, but in order to strengthen you.” The earthquake says these things, and send forth a voice: ... “Pay exact attention to the sermon ... [!]” No one remembers interest, no one speaks about greediness, nor at the hands alone pure from sins, but the tongue too is freed from lawlessness and abuse. ... The houses are pure, the market place has been cleansed. ...[The singing of young men in the theater is quiet, but] it is possible to hear the singing of Psalms in the marketplace, and [to hear] those sitting at home, one singing psalms, another hymning. Night arrives, and all [run] to the church. (John Chrysostom, Homilia post terrae motum = PG 50.713–716, 713 and 714)³⁵

As Chrysostom yearns for an earthquake to demolish Antioch’s sinfulness, we see here too a recurring ancient and early Christian mentality for which disasters, while obviously catastrophic, could nevertheless contribute to positive changes in society.³⁶ Large-scale destruction and renewal was not only urban and architectural, but psycho logical and spiritual, too. Other observers scoffed, like Agathias, and were more jaded.³⁷

A series of earthquakes at Antioch in 458, c. 513–518, 526, 528, and 588 are richly evidenced by texts.³⁸ Their archaeologies are complicated by their close chronological sequencing, however: distinguishing between damage from for example the 513–518, 526, and 528 earthquakes, or the violent siege and sack of the city by the Persians in 540, is difficult if not impossible. Such a challenge was recognized by Jesse Casana, for instance, in his exploration of landslide deposits potentially of seismic origin, though of unclear date– that destroyed late antique houses in Antioch’s northern suburbs, exposed by modern road construction in the early 2000s.³⁹

The 458 event occurred early in the morning on a Sunday in November.⁴⁰ Evagrius provides a comparatively detailed account of the neighborhoods and buildings destroyed, though Downey suspected that it was incomplete. Evagrius tallied damage to “almost all the build ings of the new city [on the island], which was very heavily populated and had no empty or totally neglected space” with the “palace’s first and second buildings [destroyed],” besides colonnades, the tetrapylon, and parts of the hippodrome.⁴¹ The Princeton excavations near the Hippodrome in the 1930s uncovered a small (public?) Bath E, which they thought was damaged and ultimately abandoned after the 458 event.⁴² Downey concluded that this earthquake was one step “culminating in [the island’s] definitive abandonment, as a part of the city ... in the reign of Justinian [r. 527–565].”⁴³

In the old city, damage from the 458 CE earthquake was apparently more limited–“collapse did not affect the colonnades or buildings at all,” Evagrius says– besides the neighborhood of Ostrakine (unlocated) with its colonnades and a nymphaeum or public fountain. But a later Syriac source describes extensive fires following the earth quake, which were only extinguished by a welcome rain.⁴⁴ Despite Evagrius’s silence, we might anticipate significant damage to the city’s housing stock, which relied more on timber construction than the city’s public buildings. Of these, the old city’s “baths of Trajan, Severus, and Hadrian were [also] shaken and collapsed [in part]”: but a bath complex near the palace survived unscathed, and though it had been “previously unused, because of the disaster [this complex] in fact bathed the city, because of what befell the other baths.” Social response to disaster shines through here, as we see how pressures for access to public amenities such as baths could beredirected, with shuttered facilities picking up slack following the catastrophic closure of others (Evagrius II.12).⁴⁵ It is unclear if the bath described here is another larger public complex called Bath F by the Princeton excavators, near the Aleppo gate in the Old City, which was also (to judge from the evidence of new column capitals) repaired around 458.⁴⁶ New column capitals were also found in repairs made to a villa at Daphne, thought to be a consequence of the 458 earthquake.⁴⁷

The Syriac Life of St Symeon the Elder gives further insight onto the social dimension of the 458 earthquake’s aftermath.⁴⁸ The narrator describes a communal procession or liturgy seeking God’s assistance via the saint, who died shortly after the earthquake: “the whole creation [was] there, thousands and tens of thousands, a countless throng” with “priests leading their flocks and using great diligence and care, with censers and incense and lighted tapers and crosses, and all the people running from every quarter shouting and with tears and bitter groans.”⁴⁹This procession or assembly of Antioch’s residents was intent on taking the saint’s body from Aziz Simon manastır near Samandağ (18 miles away to the southwest) back to Antioch, so that his body might confer divine protection on the city from future disaster (Malalas 14.37).⁵⁰

The state’s response was typical, with forgive ness of the city’s tax debts alongside direct financial relief for reconstruction: “a thousand talents [or one hundred thousand pounds] of gold were remitted to the city from the taxes by the emperor, while to the citizens [were remitted taxes on destroyed properties]; the emperor also attended to the public buildings.”⁵¹

Rather later, an earthquake in 513 is absent in the Chronicle of Malalas, though it was the subject of Syriac hymns by Antioch’s patriarch Severus (r. 513–518). Composed as a bricolage of Old and New Testament verses, these hymns conceived of earthquake as the “punishment that our sins deserve,” an opportunity for unrepentant consciences to “tremble and quake,” and an occasion for the Lord’s mercy on the city.⁵² As at Constantinople or Alexandria, where collective liturgies and civic processions were yearly celebrated on the anniversary of earthquakes, the hymns of Severus give notice for similar practices at Antioch, probably for commemoration of the 458 event.⁵³

Where sources for the 458 and 513–518 earth quakes give insight into social response, accounts of the 526 and 528 events give especial clarity on state response and may be paired to more abundant archaeological evidence for urban change. Following closely on a year remembered for its uncontrolled fires (which may have begun in the roofs of some buildings before spreading) (Theophanes, year 6018),⁵⁴ a tremendous earthquake struck Antioch on 29 May 526 (see Figure 27.3). Loss of life and the city’s fabric was significant; the event is recorded by most every historical source for the period, with Malalas providing a particularly detailed account.⁵⁵ Features of Malalas’s account have been adduced to estimate the 526 earthquake’s magnitude at 7.0, or on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale, a violent IX. Losses may have been compounded because the city was unusually busy when the earthquake struck: it was the day before the Feast of the Ascension, and “a great throng of visitors had come to town” (Malalas 17.16). Malalas, who was probably an eye-witness, suggested that 250,000 died; a few years later Procopius (who also had experience of the region on military campaigns) estimated 300,000 lives lost (Wars 2.14.6). Normal cautions as to numbers appearing in late antique histories – whether of military campaigns and battles or of environmental catastrophes – apply here, but the event clearly made an impression on contemporaries. Malalas reports that “no holy chapel nor monastery nor any other holy place remained [stand ing],” and that “houses which had not collapsed ... were destroyed ...by fire.” Some survivors fled the city for the countryside, where “peasants attacked them, stole their goods, and killed them” (17.16). Population displacements, linked to insecurity and violence, also recur in the aftermath of modern earthquakes.⁵⁶

A by-now typical– if here unusually detailed pattern of Roman state efforts for disaster relief appears again after the 526 event. The emperor Justin reportedly refused to wear his crown, dressed in sack-cloth, and mourned publicly with Constantinople’s senators at Hagia Sophia. Search and rescue followed: Justin sent the eastern empire’s comes or governor, Carinus, with five centenaria of gold intended, as Theophanes tells, us “for excavation, in case anyone could be saved, and to preserve whathadbeenburiedfromrobbersand looters” (year 6019).⁵⁷ Two further high-ranking officials were then sent to Antioch, to assist in reconstruction of aqueducts and bridges specific ally, both critical infrastructure.

Here we should note that one centenarion (also called a talent) was equivalent to 100 pounds of gold, or 7,200 solidus denomination gold coins at 4.5 grams each, with 72 solidi to the pound. By way of comparison, a cavalry man’s salary was nine solidi, while a general commanded roughly one quarter of a centenarion. Even one centenarion was a significant amount of money, no doubt, but it bears notice that several centenaria could occasionally be summoned by a single city as ransom in times of siege,⁵⁸ or even by a single individual for purchase of high office.⁵⁹ Remember too that Ptolemy III had given 300 talents or centenaria to Rhodes after the 228 BC earthquake. We might consider here, then, and in cases where we read of financial support following catastrophe, that several centenaria was an impressive sum but it was almost certainly insufficient for reconstruction of a sizable city in the aftermath of a major earthquake; provision of skilled labor and materials were certainly also important but harder to measure in our sources. Occasionally, personal connections or powers of persuasion could also be leveraged for greater financial assistance. The former comes orientis or provincial governor, Ephrem, was named patriarch at Antioch after 526. As governor he had been responsible for rebuilding activities, and his effective leadership may have led to his promotion (Evagrius IV.6). Ephrem’s replacement as governor, Zacharias, led a delegation to Constantinople that pled before the emperor and convinced him to provide an additional 40 centenaria for Antioch’s reconstruction: 4,000 pounds of gold (Malalas 17.22).

Another earthquake followed shortly thereafter in 528: this hit Antioch while reconstruction from the 526 event was still ongoing. Accounts of the 528 event are brief. We hear less of specific destruction this time, though Theophanes says that 5,000 died and the survivors fled to other cities or the countryside (year 6021). Antioch was renamed by the emperor as Theoupolis, “the city of God,” presumably in an (unsuccessful) effort to protect against future catastrophes (Theophanes, year 6021).⁶⁰

Altogether, the Princeton excavators identified nine structures that they thought had been aban doned after the 526–528 earthquakes,⁶¹ and five structures that showed signs of repairs.⁶² Antioch’s suburban port, Seleucia Pieria, may have fallen out of use after the 526–528 earthquakes, with the Orontes delta port of al-Mina replacing it.⁶³ On the other hand there is limited evidence for seventh century repairs to at least one church mosaic in Seleucia Pieria’s upper city; it is difficult to say precisely what happened to Antioch’s port as a whole during this period.⁶⁴

Calamities compounded in the decades ahead: rapid climate change after the 536 Dust Veil Event,⁶⁵ the Sassanid Persian sack of the city in 540,⁶⁶ and the mortality of bubonic plague that spread across the empire after 541.⁶⁷

These events together set the backdrop for Justinian’s reconstruction of the city during the 540s, which was described at length by Procopius in the Buildings (2.10).⁶⁸ His account is occasion ally difficult to reconcile with the archaeology or other historical sources– details either cannot be confirmed or indeed are contradicted⁶⁹ – but the city became 20 percent more compact within a new and shortened circuit of fortifications. There were pragmatic modifications to the city’s water infrastructure, including a diversion of the river Orontes that served both as a defensive moat and as protection from floods, the construction of cisterns, and a dam to impound seasonal rain set into the old Iron Gate’s aqueduct bridge, besides the customary attention to churches and streets.⁷⁰ These changes– alongside the archaeologically attested disrepair of numerous structures following the 526/528 earthquakes, and Justinian’s abandonment of the palace island to leather workers and fullers, with demolition of the old imperial hippodrome for reuse of its stone in other projects– present a city fundamentally transformed after the vicissitudes of the sixth century.⁷¹

Two last seismic events follow in the sixth century, in 577 and 588, both recounted by Evagrius. In 577, we are told that Daphne “fell victim to the shaking” while in Antioch “public and private buildings were split apart right to the ground, but did not, however, bow their knee to the foundations” (Evagrius V.17). The 588 earthquake struck on Evagrius’s wedding day, and he serves as an eyewitness to significant damage for the Great Church, and for the neigh borhoods of Ostrakine, Psephium, and Bursia, and along the fortifications. Evagrius provides little information pertaining to the city’s reconstruction, however, apart from a generic statement of imperial financial support: “the emperor assuaged the city’s suffering with money” (VI.8).

Footnotes

30 s.v. “Great Church” in Mayer and Allen (2012, 68–80).

31 If not the church synod, then the accessiono f a new Antiochene patriarch (Chronicon ad annum724, 130/ 102), or the consecration of the octagonal church of Constantine/Constantiusb y Arian bishops or the beginning of Constantine II’s wars with the Franks (r.337–340) alongside Constantius II, r.337–361; as in the Chronicle of Jacob ofE dessa 292.

32 Ambraseys(2009, 142–143).

33 Zavagno(2014, 115–116).

34 Marcellinus 396 notes, without localization, that “There was an earthquake for many days and the sky appeared to glow.” SeeDowney (1961, 438) for discussion of the date.

35 Available at: https://archive.org/details/ Chrysostom Homily After The Earthquake.

36 On positively connoted earthquakes and associations with renewal and rebirth, see Chaniotis(1998).

37 Agathias5.4.

38 Further seismic events are briefly recorded by primary sources as affecting Antioch, but without detail: for example, for 551, 557, and 560/561 CE (see Downey, 1961, 558).

39 Casana(2004, 120).

40 Malalas 14.36 was the source for Evagrius 2.12, who adds further details, and for the abbreviated account of Theophanes,year5950.

41 Downey (1961,476).

42 Antioch II, 1 and 180.

43 Downey (1961,480).

44 See Chronicon miscellaneum ad annum Domini 724 pertinens = Chabot (1955, 109).

45 Pickett (2021).

46 Antioch III, 151.

47 AntiochI II, 155.

48 For textual traditions surrounding St Symeon the Younger, see Boero and Kuper (2020).

49 For translation of the Syriac Life of St Symeon Stylites, see Lent(1915, 187).

50 Downey (1961,476–477,n.5). For the shrine of Symeon the Younger see Belgin-Henry (2018) and Mayer and Allen (2012, 104–106).

51 Evagrius 2.12 here notes specifically that his and further details come from “John the Rhetor,” who is probably to be identified with Malalas and a longer version of his chronicle that no longer survives.

52 Patrologia Orientalis 7.5,705–710 for hymns 256–261; see also Allen and Neil (2013,77–79).

53 Patrologia Orientalis 7.5,710 for hymn2 61: “We keep the commemoration of the ancient chastisement of the earthquake, in order that we [may not fall into evil deeds].” For Constantinople and Alexandria, see Croke(1981).

54 DeGiorgi and Eger (2021,200).

55 Sources on the 526 earthquake: besides Malalas 17.16–22, see Downey (1961, 521–525; Guidoboni et al. (1994, 314–321);Ambraseys (2009, 184–189).

56 Leaning and Guha-Sapir(2013).

57 Compare with Malalas 18.19.For centenaria in relation to state salaries and expenditures, see Hendy (1985, 166–178,217–221).

58 For example, Edessa’s citizens paid five centenaria ransom to Chosroes: Procopius, Wars2.27.46.

59 For example, Paulus paid Justinian seven centenaria to become Patriarch of Alexandria: Procopius, Secret History 27.21.

60 See Antioch IVP art 2, 153 for coin #2112, inscribed with the city’s new name.

61 Abandoned after 526–528: a destruction deposit in 13-R (Antioch IV Part 1, 56); 15-M large building destroyed (Antioch III, 12); vaults over the Parmenius in 16-0 (Antioch III, 13); Bath A abandoned after 526( Antioch I, 7); Bath C destroyed in 526 and thereafter outside Justinian’s wall, not repaired but used as a quarry (AntiochI, 31); hippodrome on the island destroyed in 526 and thereafter outside Justinian’s wall (Antioch I, 33); Villa 14-S on Mt Staurin damaged and not repaired (Antioch III,9); a villa at Daphne destroyed( Antioch II, 200);the Yakto villa damaged and not repaired (Antioch II,98).

62 Repaired after 526–528: the House of thePhoenix with coins as terminus post quem for new mosaic after 526 (Levi, 1947,352);thecolonnadedstreetin19-M(Antioch V, 30–33); repairs toBathFafter 526/528 indicated by inscription(Levi, 1947, 258, 366); coinsealed between successive floors at House of the Bird Rinceau as terminus post quem for repairs (Levi, 1947, 257, 366); the Church of Kaoussie was either repaired (Levi, 1947, 284) or abandoned for use as a quarry (Mayer and Allen, 2012, 48); reconstruction of the Martyrion at Seleucia Pieria with more seismically resistant mortar (Antioch III, 37 and 47–48; Mayer and Allen, 2012, 60; Levi, 1947, 359).

63 See Mayer and Allen (2012, 60) and Hatice Pamir in Yener (2005, 67–98); but for problems with interpretation of ceramics during this time-period, see Vorderstrasse (2005, 68–69).

64 Mayer and Allen (2012, 65–66).

65 Büntgen et al. (2016).

66 DeGiorgi and Eger (2021, 205–208).

67 Compare Mordechai et al. (2019) with Meier (2020).

68 See Downey (1939).

69 Pickett (2017).

70 Downey (1961, 546–557); De Giorgi and Eger (2021, 208–214).

71 Compare with Saradi (2006) for comparable changes in other cities across the Eastern Mediterranean, with or without earthquakes and catastrophes as stimuli.

1872 CE Amik Golu Quake

Discussion

References

De Giorgi et al. (2024)

Earthquakes And State Response At Antioch Hellenistic to Early Byzantine

from Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:433-434)

A severe shock of earthquake was felt here at Antioch ...Walls fell, the narrow streets (only about twelve or fifteen feet wide, and some less) being literally blocked up for long distances with the ruins of fallen houses, and a dense cloud of dust arose on all sides. Men, women, and children ran hither and thither, wailing their own hurts or the loss of relatives. I went down to the bridge ... and saw many dead persons brought out of the city and laid out for burial. ...Looking toward the town, ruins could be seen in all directions. Several aqueducts were broken ...The church, a strong stone arched structure, built only a few years ago, and capable of holding 500 or 600 persons, was utterly ruined– one side and the entire roof are gone. ...The number of killed and injured cannot be ascertained with any approach to accuracy, and of course, flying rumors are abundant, one man saying that he thought there must be 1,000 killed, while another said 500, and a third 250, which is, perhaps, within the truth. ...The old Roman bridge of four arches is rent in several places until the water can be seen through it from above; a part of the parapet wall has also been shaken off, and the arch above the city door at its east end has been hurled down and lies almost whole. Much damage has been done to houses in the lower part of town, and many of the inhabitants are now to be seen encamping around in the fields or plain. It is nearly fifty years since the last similar visitation occurred to this city ... when some thousands of lives were lost here. ...In several places large cracks are visible in the ground, two or three inches wide, and on the hillsides several feet deep. The narrow roadways or tracks between the hills are in places filled with boulders from the hill or mountainside, and in or near the villages, where there were walls of boulders between the gardens, the fallen walls now fill the roads.

This Remarkable Description of an earthquake at Antioch could have come from John Malalas in the sixth century, but it does not. Rather, it can be found in a New York Times article of May 13, 1872, concerning an earthquake at Antioch on April 3 of that year. The article reproduces a letter by the English sailor, travel writer, and harbor chaplain Rev. W. Brown Keer, which he wrote a day after the earthquake, and sent to the London Times before it was widely reprinted throughout the United States.

Ambraseys (2009)

AD 1872 Apr 3 Amik Gölü

This was a relatively large earthquake in southeastern Anatolia.

It occurred at 7 h 40 m and affected the lower reaches of the Orontes where the river empties into the Mediterranean.

The shock almost totally ruined Antioch (Antakya) as well as its port Suaidiya and was felt throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, from Rhodes to Diyarbakir and from Konya to Gaza.

News of the earthquake, initially grossly exaggerated, was carried by the Ottoman and European press, and concentrated solely on the effects of the earthquake on the large towns of Antakya and Aleppo and some of the seaports of Lebanon.

At Antioch (Antakya), which had a population of 17600, the shocks lasted for 50 seconds. Of the 3000 houses in the town, 1960 were totally destroyed and 894 so damaged as to become uninhabitable, leaving only 149 in good condition [2], including the European consulates, except that of Spain [4], which collapsed.

The church and hospice of the Capucins were also ruined [1, 5]. The Greek church, which had been completed shortly before the earthquake as well as the Armenian and Protestant [3] churches and premises [12] were shattered and in part collapsed, killing four members of the Christian community. In all, four mosques, three churches and one convent [6] were destroyed, and the American mission was damaged. However, the minarets of the town, although they were damaged, were left standing [17]. The grotto of St Peter, about 1 km from Antioch, was not damaged [5], but the church of Saints Peter and Paul was damaged beyond repair, which is known from a firman (order) granting permission to rebuild the church [19].

The arches above the East Gate and the North Gate of St Paul (Bab Bulus) were thrown down, and part of the old citadel walls crumbled [8].

The fortified bridge of Antioch was cracked in several places, and its parapet wall was shaken off [5].

In the outskirts all manor houses, including that of the Scotsman Yates, were shattered [3].

There were a further 1331 constructions, i.e. shops, mosques, churches and factories, of which there remained undamaged only 349 shops, a mosque and a soap factory; thus, of the 4334 buildings of all kinds, only 500 were left inhabitable.

In contrast with the lower part of the town, the upper part suffered less severely.

In Antioch the earthquake killed 500 (or 1000– 1600) people and injured 400–800 [3–5]. This relatively small number of fatalities was due to the fact that between the first shock and the later episode of strong shaking many people had managed to run out of their houses into the open and also because most of the houses did not collapse completely. Many survivors fled to Aleppo. In Quseir 35 houses were destroyed [1].

The earthquake was apparently stronger to the northwest of Antioch [17]. Thirty-eight villages, which are not named, located between Suaidiya and Beilan, were totally destroyed.

In Suaidiya 2150–2425 houses, 12 shops, 5 mosques and 19 mills were destroyed, and 140–180 peo- ple were killed or seriously injured. The earthquake also killed about 2000 domestic animals. The British Evangelical mission was damaged. In the district of Suaidiya another 349 people were killed [4–6]. The nearby villages of Kabusi, Jedida and Laushiya were razed to the ground, with loss of life.

Further inland around Lake Amik, and in partic- ular to the west of the lake[5], damage was equally heavy. The Orontes bridge (Jisr al-Hadid), a twelfth-century, 120-m-long structure with four arches, was damaged and two of its bridge-head towers were thrown down [5, 14].

Qilliq was totally ruined, with the loss of 300 lives, and neighbouring villages suffered similar losses.

There was also some damage, without loss of life, to the north and south of Qilliq, particularly in the region of Harim and Armenaz, but details are lacking. Qaramut and its district were completely destroyed; there were 170 dead and 187 wounded. In addition to shops and public buildings, 1402 houses were razed to the ground. In the town itself 584 houses collapsed, killing 37 people and injuring 21 [4].

Damage extended to Azaz, Basut, Zirbeh and Idlib. In Aleppo it is said that the shocks lasted for 72 seconds. About 100, or, according to others, 808, houses were badly damaged or collapsed, killing 34–73 and injur- ing 34 people. Part of the citadel wall collapsed and water sloshed out of cisterns. Most of the people left the town. The lack of more serious damage in the town was attributed to the solidity of the stone-masonry houses, rather than to the feebleness of the shock [4, 9].

Further away, along the Mediterranean coast the shock was violent at Arsuz, Latakia and Alexandretta (Iskenderun), where there was also some damage [3].

Damage must have been far more serious than our sources of information, which originate from the larger urban centres, suggest. Many rural areas never reported their damage, and others did so many months after the earthquake.

Following the earthquake the Ansayri tribes descended from the mountains and plundered ruined villages, as a result of which the Ottomans marched a battalion of infantry to Antioch. This action of the Ansayri tribes rendered communications between this town and the hinterland more difficult until the end of the year. Damage to the south of Afsiyeh became known many months after the earthquake, as did damage to bridges and hans along the inland route to the south [3].

The shock was very strong at Adana, Shirat(?), Aintab, Birecik, Hama and Homs; in Tripoli (Tra- blus) and Saida it caused considerable concern and probably some damage. The earthquake was reported from Rhodes, Konya, Diyarbakir, Damascus, Ghazir and Beirut, where it lasted for 20 seconds; also, it was felt in every part of the districts of Karaman and Syria. The earthquake was not felt in Egypt, as alleged by modern writers, who, as with the 1822 earthquake, confuse Alexandria with Alexandretta (Iskenderun) [3–5, 15].

It is said that in the region of Qiliq the earthquake split the ground in places and yellow sand filled the area, a description suggesting widespread liquefaction [4]. Also, between Batrakan and Qaralu, the valley to the east of the hills is said to have dropped as a result of the earthquake, and the ground was rent all the way to Baghras, an allusion to faulting.

As a result of the earthquake the sea rose to a great height, flooding the coast in the vicinity of Jedida and Kabusi, with the flood wave reaching as far as Suaidiya, nearly 2 km inland [5].

The earthquake was felt throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, from Rhodes to Diyarbakir and from Konya to Gaza and Egypt.

Aftershocks continued to be felt, with decreasing severity, throughout April and May, but did not cease altogether until February 1873.

The earthquake had a considerable effect on the commerce in Antioch, which, temporarily, lost half of its silkworm industry and some of its European traders, who removed themselves to Aleppo [2].

After the earthquake the inhabitants were permit- ted to use the remains of the city walls to rebuild their homes. This removed the few remaining vestiges of the Byzantine and mediaeval city [16].

References

[1] AA Corr. Pol. Cons. Turquie (Alep) 5.
[2] AN Corr. Cons. (Beyrouth), (Alep) 26.
[3] FO PRO 78.2243 (Aleppo); 195.994 (Aleppo); 78.2243 (Beyrut); 195.994 (Beyrut).
[4] PBS 1872, 4, 6–5.1; and PEPB 1872, 05.22–29.
[5] PMSH 1872, 36, 216, 359, 434.
[6] Anonymous (1872) = PMSH.
[7] Dienner (1886).
[8] Elisseeff (1967, 198).
[9] al-Ghazzi (iii. 402).
[10] Lemmens (1898).
[11] Lütfi (1991, 16).
[12] Moyse (1883).
[13] Rockwood (1872, 4; 1873, 260).
[14] Naval Intelligence Division (1943).
[15] Plassard and Kogoj (1968b).
[16] EI (Antakiya).
[17] Seiff (1875, 326–327, 331–333, 340).
[18] Schmidt (1879).
[19] Matar (1987, 43).

Ambraseys, N. N. (2009). Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: a multidisciplinary study of seismicity up to 1900.

Aftershocks from Ambraseys (2009)

AD 1872 Apr 10 Amik

AD 1872 Apr 10 Amik

At 12 h 30 m there was a damaging aftershock in the region of the Orontes [4]. It caused considerable damage in the Beilan Pass region, but details are lacking. In Antioch about 100 houses collapsed, killing five people [2] (references are as for 1872 Apr 3).

References

[1] AA Corr. Pol. Cons. Turquie (Alep) 5.
[2] AN Corr. Cons. (Beyrouth), (Alep) 26.
[3] FO PRO 78.2243 (Aleppo); 195.994 (Aleppo); 78.2243 (Beyrut); 195.994 (Beyrut).
[4] PBS 1872, 4, 6–5.1; and PEPB 1872, 05.22–29.
[5] PMSH 1872, 36, 216, 359, 434.
[6] Anonymous (1872) = PMSH.
[7] Dienner (1886).
[8] Elisseeff (1967, 198).
[9] al-Ghazzi (iii. 402).
[10] Lemmens (1898).
[11] Lütfi (1991, 16).
[12] Moyse (1883).
[13] Rockwood (1872, 4; 1873, 260).
[14] Naval Intelligence Division (1943).
[15] Plassard and Kogoj (1968b).
[16] EI (Antakiya).
[17] Seiff (1875, 326–327, 331–333, 340).
[18] Schmidt (1879).
[19] Matar (1987, 43).

Ambraseys, N. N. (2009). Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: a multidisciplinary study of seismicity up to 1900.

AD 1872 Apr 28 Amik

AD 1872 Apr 28 Amik

Another large aftershock of the Orontes earthquake occurred. It caused some additional damage in Anti- och[5] and it was felt in Alexandretta and Aleppo [5, 18]. The aftershock that followed on 15 May was equally severe (references are as for 1872 Apr 3).

References

[1] AA Corr. Pol. Cons. Turquie (Alep) 5.
[2] AN Corr. Cons. (Beyrouth), (Alep) 26.
[3] FO PRO 78.2243 (Aleppo); 195.994 (Aleppo); 78.2243 (Beyrut); 195.994 (Beyrut).
[4] PBS 1872, 4, 6–5.1; and PEPB 1872, 05.22–29.
[5] PMSH 1872, 36, 216, 359, 434.
[6] Anonymous (1872) = PMSH.
[7] Dienner (1886).
[8] Elisseeff (1967, 198).
[9] al-Ghazzi (iii. 402).
[10] Lemmens (1898).
[11] Lütfi (1991, 16).
[12] Moyse (1883).
[13] Rockwood (1872, 4; 1873, 260).
[14] Naval Intelligence Division (1943).
[15] Plassard and Kogoj (1968b).
[16] EI (Antakiya).
[17] Seiff (1875, 326–327, 331–333, 340).
[18] Schmidt (1879).
[19] Matar (1987, 43).

Ambraseys, N. N. (2009). Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: a multidisciplinary study of seismicity up to 1900.

AD 1872 May 15 Amik

AD 1872 May 15 Amik

The aftershock that followed on 15 May was equally severe (references are as for 1872 Apr 3).

References

[1] AA Corr. Pol. Cons. Turquie (Alep) 5.
[2] AN Corr. Cons. (Beyrouth), (Alep) 26.
[3] FO PRO 78.2243 (Aleppo); 195.994 (Aleppo); 78.2243 (Beyrut); 195.994 (Beyrut).
[4] PBS 1872, 4, 6–5.1; and PEPB 1872, 05.22–29.
[5] PMSH 1872, 36, 216, 359, 434.
[6] Anonymous (1872) = PMSH.
[7] Dienner (1886).
[8] Elisseeff (1967, 198).
[9] al-Ghazzi (iii. 402).
[10] Lemmens (1898).
[11] Lütfi (1991, 16).
[12] Moyse (1883).
[13] Rockwood (1872, 4; 1873, 260).
[14] Naval Intelligence Division (1943).
[15] Plassard and Kogoj (1968b).
[16] EI (Antakiya).
[17] Seiff (1875, 326–327, 331–333, 340).
[18] Schmidt (1879).
[19] Matar (1987, 43).

Ambraseys, N. N. (2009). Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: a multidisciplinary study of seismicity up to 1900.

AD 1872 Aug 5 Amik

AD 1872 Aug 5 Amik

Another belated aftershock occurred in the Orontes val- ley. It was violent in the region between Antioch and Aleppo, and was strongly felt in both towns [7, 10] (references are as for 1872 Apr 3).

References

[1] AA Corr. Pol. Cons. Turquie (Alep) 5.
[2] AN Corr. Cons. (Beyrouth), (Alep) 26.
[3] FO PRO 78.2243 (Aleppo); 195.994 (Aleppo); 78.2243 (Beyrut); 195.994 (Beyrut).
[4] PBS 1872, 4, 6–5.1; and PEPB 1872, 05.22–29.
[5] PMSH 1872, 36, 216, 359, 434.
[6] Anonymous (1872) = PMSH.
[7] Dienner (1886).
[8] Elisseeff (1967, 198).
[9] al-Ghazzi (iii. 402).
[10] Lemmens (1898).
[11] Lütfi (1991, 16).
[12] Moyse (1883).
[13] Rockwood (1872, 4; 1873, 260).
[14] Naval Intelligence Division (1943).
[15] Plassard and Kogoj (1968b).
[16] EI (Antakiya).
[17] Seiff (1875, 326–327, 331–333, 340).
[18] Schmidt (1879).
[19] Matar (1987, 43).

Ambraseys, N. N. (2009). Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: a multidisciplinary study of seismicity up to 1900.

AD 1873 Feb 9 Antakiya

AD 1873 Feb 9 Antakiya

On 9 February at 24 h there was an earthquake that was felt strongly at Antioch (PRG 1289, 12.26; Schmidt 1879,315).

References

Ambraseys, N. N. (2009). Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: a multidisciplinary study of seismicity up to 1900.

~65 BCE Pompey Quake

Effect	Location	Image(s)	Description
Collapsed Walls?	The Bouleuterion which would be near to the agora The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0		John Malalas wrote that after Pompey conquered and entered the city of Antioch, he rebuilt “the bouleuterion, for it had fallen down.” Malalas did not, however, explicitly attribute its collapse to the earthquake.

37 CE Earthquake

Effect	Location	Image(s)	Description
Collapsed Walls and other Damage	various locations The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0		Malalas gave no details of specific damage or casualties, yet his note that the Roman emperor "Gaius [Caligula] gave a great deal of money to the city and its surviving inhabitants" implies both structural destruction and fatalities. Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:438–440), without citing a source, reports that rebuilding funds were used to construct a new aqueduct, a varium, a nymphaeum (the Trinymphon), and temples. He further observes that "the only archaeological evidence for this event may come from Princeton’s excavations of the so-called Atrium House, where mosaics may be dated to the period after 37 CE."
Landslide	"the hill of the Orontes" The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0		Ambraseys (2009) identified an additional account in the Slavonic translation of Malalas, which refers to a "second fall" on "the hill of the Orontes," a likely landslide.

Earthquake during the reign of Emperor Claudius (41-54 CE)

Effect	Location	Image(s)	Description
Collapsed Walls and other Damage	various locations The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0		"cracks appeared in the temples of Artemis, Ares and Heracles, and famous palaces collapsed as well." - Malalas
Fallen Columns	arcades [aka the colonnaded street?] The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0		Malalas also notes further destruction when he recounts that Claudius waived a tax for "his Antiochene subjects, for the reconstruction of the arcades [JW: aka the colonnaded street?] which had been built in the time of Tiberius Caesar."

115 CE Trajan Quake

Effect	Location	Description
Fallen Columns	Colonnaded Street The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum	Downey (1961:213-218) notes that whether most of Trajan's varied building activity in Antioch was occasioned by the damage caused by the earthquake cannot be determined however the restoration of the colonnades along the main street almost certainly followed earthquake damage
Various Effects including Collapsed Walls	Various locations Fig. 27.2 Fig. 27.2 A map of earthquake damage from the 115 CE earthquake at Antioch (by Stephen Batiuk). Atrium House, new mosaics after earthquake Bath C, destroyed after EQ with long break in occupation House of Trajan's Aqueduct, damaged and abandoned after EQ 19-M, new colonnaded street Aqueduct of Trajan Temple Zeus Soter House of the Drunken Dionysus, earthquake before mosaic ﬂoors 16-P, Street destroyed and repaired after 115 Hippodrome,evidence of capitals for repair after 115 House of the Evil Eye, Lower Level, repairs due to EQ Villa near Bath B:mosaics / repairs after 115 Theater, later 1st AD destroyed 341 but repaired, persists into 6th c. Bath E destroyed Bath F, evidence of capitals for repair after 458 earthquake 13-R Destruction Deposit 15-M Large Building destroyed 16-O vaults over Parmenius Bath A: abandoned after 526 Stadium on island: this quarter destroyed 526 and thereafter outside Justinian’s city wall Villa 14-S on Mt Staurin destroyed House of the Phoenix; late ceramics and coins as TPQ for laying of mosaic here after EQ House of the Bird Rinceau, coin sealed between successive ﬂoors dates repairs after EQ House of the Buffet Supper Upper Level, below plaster ﬂoor covering mosaics were coins dating plasterﬂoor to post-526 Kaoussie Church; ﬁnal reconstruction after EQ Church at Seleucia Pieria destroyed, rebuilt anddamaged again in 528? 17-O Forum of Valens and Nymphaeum. De Giorgi et al. (2024)	Fig. 27.2 from De Giorgi et al. (2024) maps inferred earthquake damage from the 115 CE Trajan Quake.
Rockfalls Landslides? Seismic Uplift/Subsidence Uprooted Trees Dust Cloud Rivers or Springs Drying up New Springs appearing	Rockfalls on Mount Cassius Landslides? at unspecified location in or around Antioch Seismic Uplift/Subsidence in Antioch Uprooted Trees at unspecified location in or around Antioch Dust Cloud in Antioch Rivers or Springs Drying up at unspecified location in or around Antioch New Springs appearing at unspecified location in or around Antioch	"Even Mt Casius itself was so shaken that its peaks seemed to lean over and break off and to be falling upon the very city." - Dio Cassius (~207-229 CE; Italy) "Other hills also settled" - Dio Cassius (~207-229 CE; Italy) "The whole earth was upheaved, and buildings leaped into the air" - Dio Cassius (~207-229 CE; Italy) "Even trees in some cases leaped into the air, roots and all." - Dio Cassius (~207-229 CE; Italy) "an inconceivable amount of dust arose, so that it was impossible for one to see anything or to speak or hear a word" - Dio Cassius (~207-229 CE; Italy) "many streams disappeared" - Dio Cassius (~207-229 CE; Italy) "much water not previously in existence came to light" - Dio Cassius (~207-229 CE; Italy)
Antioch ruined/destroyed/leveled/overturned etc.	Antioch	"An earthquake at Antioch ruined almost the entire city." - Ambraseys (2009) notes that the Armenian version of this text states that only a third of Antioch was destroyed. - Eusebius (early 4th c. CE; Caesarea) "an earthquake in Antioch almost leveled the entire city" - Orosius (~416-417 CE; Palestine and/or Gallaecia) "Antioch the Great, situated near Daphne, suffered for the third time ... The Emperor Trajan himself was in the city when the earthquake happened." - Johannes Malalas (~530s to 565 CE; Antioch and Constantinople) "Antioch ... the earthquake under Trajan" - Evagrius Scholasticus (~593 CE; Antioch?) "A great earthquake took place in Antioch, overturning the city almost entirely" - Psuedo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre (750-775 CE; Zuqnin Monastery) "Antioch suffered an earthquake when Trajan was staying there." - Georgius Syncellus (808-810 CE; Vicinity of Constantinople) "Antioch was more or less entirely overthrown by a violent earthquake" - Michael the Syrian (late 12th c. CE; Probably at the Monastery of Mar Bar Sauma near Tegenkar, Turkey)

1872 CE Amik Golu Quake

Effect	Location	Description
Collapsed Walls Destroyed homes fatalities and injuries	Antioch	Around ~07:40 on 3 April 1872, the mainshock of the 1872 CE Amik Gölü Quake produced ~50 s of strong shaking and “almost totally ruined Antioch,” with 1,960 of ~3,000 houses destroyed, 894 rendered uninhabitable, and only 149 in good condition; fatalities were reported between ~500 and 1,600, with 400–800 injured (Ambraseys, 2009). Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer described narrow streets “literally blocked up … with the ruins of fallen houses.” - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024) Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer wrote that "The number of killed and injured cannot be ascertained with any approach to accuracy, and of course, flying rumors are abundant, one man saying that he thought there must be 1,000 killed, while another said 500, and a third 250, which is, perhaps, within the truth." He also observed many dead brought to the bridge for burial. - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)
Collapsed Walls Destroyed or damaged civic structures	Antioch and surroundings	Religious and civic structures suffered heavily: the Capuchin church and hospice were ruined; Greek, Armenian, and Protestant churches were shattered (four deaths); in total four mosques, three churches, and one convent were destroyed. The American mission was damaged; minarets were damaged but standing; the grotto of St Peter, about 1 km. from Antioch, was unharmed, whereas the church of Saints Peter and Paul was ruined beyond repair. Most European consulates stood; Spain’s collapsed (Ambraseys, 2009).
Arch Damage	Antioch	Ambraseys (2009) records that “the arches above the East Gate and the North Gate of St Paul were thrown down,” Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer wrote that the east-end city-door arch was “hurled down,” lying on the ground almost fully intact . - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)
Distorted Walls	Citadel of Antioch	Ambraseys (2009) records that parts of the citadel walls crumbled.
Bridge Damage	Antioch	Ambraseys (2009) records that the fortified bridge of Antioch cracked in several places with its parapet shaken off. Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer noted that the old Roman bridge “rent in several places” - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)
Broken aqueducts	Antioch and surroundings	Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer noted that several aqueducts were broken. - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)
dust cloud	Antioch	Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer noted a “dense cloud of dust.” - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)
ground fissures	Antioch and surroundings	Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer noted fissures 2–3 inches wide in town and several feet deep on nearby hillsides. - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)
rockfalls	Antioch and surroundings	Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer wrote about rockfall and boulders blocking tracks and roads - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)
Liquefaction?	Antioch	Ambraseys (2009) adds that the lower town suffered more than the upper town, something also observed by Keer. This may be due to liquefaction on the flood plain of the Orontes River.
Survivors camping outside or leaving town	Antioch and surroundings	Keer reported many survivors encamping in fields while Ambraseys (2009) noted that many left the city for Aleppo — evidence of severe near-field damage and disruption of water supplies and infrastructure.
Aftershocks	Antioch and surroundings	Aftershocks continued for months; five are documented by Ambraseys (2009) between 10 April 1872 and 9 February 1873.

~65 BCE Pompey Quake

Earthquake Archeological Effects chart

Earthquake Archeological Effects (EAE)

Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

Effect	Location	Image(s)	Description	Intensity
Collapsed Walls?	The Bouleuterion which would be near to the agora The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0		John Malalas wrote that after Pompey conquered and entered the city of Antioch, he rebuilt “the bouleuterion, for it had fallen down.” Malalas did not, however, explicitly attribute its collapse to the earthquake.	VIII+?

The archeoseismic evidence requires a minimum Intensity of VIII (8) when using the Earthquake Archeological Effects chart of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224). Antioch may have been vulnerable to liquefaction along the Orontes River, as well as slope effects impacting some of its surrounding walls and towers

37 CE Earthquake

Earthquake Archeological Effects chart

Earthquake Archeological Effects (EAE)

Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

Effect	Location	Image(s)	Description	Intensity
Collapsed Walls and other Damage	various locations The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0		Malalas gave no details of specific damage or casualties, yet his note that the Roman emperor "Gaius [Caligula] gave a great deal of money to the city and its surviving inhabitants" implies both structural destruction and fatalities. Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024:438–440), without citing a source, reports that rebuilding funds were used to construct a new aqueduct, a varium, a nymphaeum (the Trinymphon), and temples. He further observes that "the only archaeological evidence for this event may come from Princeton’s excavations of the so-called Atrium House, where mosaics may be dated to the period after 37 CE."	VIII+
Landslide	"the hill of the Orontes" The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0		Ambraseys (2009) identified an additional account in the Slavonic translation of Malalas, which refers to a "second fall" on "the hill of the Orontes," a likely landslide.	IV+

The archeoseismic evidence requires a minimum Intensity of VIII (8) when using the Earthquake Archeological Effects chart of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224). Antioch may have been vulnerable to liquefaction along the Orontes River, as well as slope effects impacting some of its surrounding walls and towers

Earthquake during the reign of Emperor Claudius (41-54 CE)

Earthquake Archeological Effects chart

Earthquake Archeological Effects (EAE)

Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

Effect	Location	Image(s)	Description	Intensity
Collapsed Walls and other Damage	various locations The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0		"cracks appeared in the temples of Artemis, Ares and Heracles, and famous palaces collapsed as well." - Malalas	VIII+
Fallen Columns	arcades [aka the colonnaded street?] The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum Map of Antioch in Roman and early Byzantine times Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab wikipedia - Cristiano64 - CC BY-SA 3.0		Malalas also notes further destruction when he recounts that Claudius waived a tax for "his Antiochene subjects, for the reconstruction of the arcades [JW: aka the colonnaded street?] which had been built in the time of Tiberius Caesar."	V+

The archeoseismic evidence requires a minimum Intensity of VIII (8) when using the Earthquake Archeological Effects chart of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224). Antioch may have been vulnerable to liquefaction along the Orontes River, as well as slope effects impacting some of its surrounding walls and towers

115 CE Trajan Quake

Earthquake Archeological Effects chart

Earthquake Archeological Effects (EAE)

Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

Effect	Location	Description	Intensity
Fallen Columns	Colonnaded Streets The Ancient City of Antioch Click on image to open a larger version in a new tab The Cleveland Art Museum	Downey (1961:213-218) notes that whether most of Trajan's varied building activity in Antioch was occasioned by the damage caused by the earthquake cannot be determined however the restoration of the colonnades along the main street almost certainly followed earthquake damage	V+
Various Effects including Collapsed Walls	Various locations Fig. 27.2 Fig. 27.2 A map of earthquake damage from the 115 CE earthquake at Antioch (by Stephen Batiuk). Atrium House, new mosaics after earthquake Bath C, destroyed after EQ with long break in occupation House of Trajan's Aqueduct, damaged and abandoned after EQ 19-M, new colonnaded street Aqueduct of Trajan Temple Zeus Soter House of the Drunken Dionysus, earthquake before mosaic ﬂoors 16-P, Street destroyed and repaired after 115 Hippodrome,evidence of capitals for repair after 115 House of the Evil Eye, Lower Level, repairs due to EQ Villa near Bath B:mosaics / repairs after 115 Theater, later 1st AD destroyed 341 but repaired, persists into 6th c. Bath E destroyed Bath F, evidence of capitals for repair after 458 earthquake 13-R Destruction Deposit 15-M Large Building destroyed 16-O vaults over Parmenius Bath A: abandoned after 526 Stadium on island: this quarter destroyed 526 and thereafter outside Justinian’s city wall Villa 14-S on Mt Staurin destroyed House of the Phoenix; late ceramics and coins as TPQ for laying of mosaic here after EQ House of the Bird Rinceau, coin sealed between successive ﬂoors dates repairs after EQ House of the Buffet Supper Upper Level, below plaster ﬂoor covering mosaics were coins dating plasterﬂoor to post-526 Kaoussie Church; ﬁnal reconstruction after EQ Church at Seleucia Pieria destroyed, rebuilt anddamaged again in 528? 17-O Forum of Valens and Nymphaeum. De Giorgi et al. (2024)	Fig. 27.2 from De Giorgi et al. (2024) maps inferred earthquake damage from the 115 CE Trajan Quake.	VIII+
Rockfalls Landslides? Seismic Uplift/Subsidence Uprooted Trees Dust Cloud Rivers or Springs Drying up New Springs appearing	Rockfalls on Mount Cassius Landslides? at unspecified location in or around Antioch Seismic Uplift/Subsidence in Antioch Uprooted Trees at unspecified location in or around Antioch Dust Cloud in Antioch Rivers or Springs Drying up at unspecified location in or around Antioch New Springs appearing at unspecified location in or around Antioch	"Even Mt Casius itself was so shaken that its peaks seemed to lean over and break off and to be falling upon the very city." - Dio Cassius "Other hills also settled" - Dio Cassius "The whole earth was upheaved, and buildings leaped into the air" - Dio Cassius "Even trees in some cases leaped into the air, roots and all." - Dio Cassius "an inconceivable amount of dust arose, so that it was impossible for one to see anything or to speak or hear a word" - Dio Cassius "many streams disappeared" - Dio Cassius "much water not previously in existence came to light" - Dio Cassius	III+ IV+ ? VI+ ? ? ? ?
Antioch ruined/destroyed/leveled/overturned etc.	Antioch	"An earthquake at Antioch ruined almost the entire city." - Ambraseys (2009) notes that the Armenian version of this text states that only a third of Antioch was destroyed. - Eusebius (early 4th c. CE; Caesarea) "an earthquake in Antioch almost leveled the entire city" - Orosius (~416-417 CE; Palestine and/or Gallaecia) "Antioch the Great, situated near Daphne, suffered for the third time ... The Emperor Trajan himself was in the city when the earthquake happened." - Johannes Malalas (~530s to 565 CE; Antioch and Constantinople) "Antioch ... the earthquake under Trajan" - Evagrius Scholasticus (~593 CE; Antioch?) "A great earthquake took place in Antioch, overturning the city almost entirely" - Psuedo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre (750-775 CE; Zuqnin Monastery) "Antioch suffered an earthquake when Trajan was staying there." - Georgius Syncellus (808-810 CE; Vicinity of Constantinople) "Antioch was more or less entirely overthrown by a violent earthquake" - Michael the Syrian (late 12th c. CE; Probably at the Monastery of Mar Bar Sauma near Tegenkar, Turkey)	VIII+

While the archaeoseismic evidence indicates a minimum intensity of VIII (8) based on the Earthquake Archaeological Effects chart of Rodríguez-Pascua et al. (2013:221–224), the account of Dio Cassius — evocative of eyewitness testimony — suggests an intensity closer to IX (9). Antioch may have been vulnerable to liquefaction along the Orontes River, as well as slope effects impacting some of its surrounding walls and towers

1872 CE Amik Golu Quake

Earthquake Archeological Effects chart

Earthquake Archeological Effects (EAE)

Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

Effect	Location	Description	Intensity
Collapsed Walls Destroyed homes fatalities and injuries	Antioch	Around ~07:40 on 3 April 1872, the mainshock of the 1872 CE Amik Gölü Quake produced ~50 s of strong shaking and “almost totally ruined Antioch,” with 1,960 of ~3,000 houses destroyed, 894 rendered uninhabitable, and only 149 in good condition; fatalities were reported between ~500 and 1,600, with 400–800 injured (Ambraseys, 2009). Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer described narrow streets “literally blocked up … with the ruins of fallen houses.” - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024) Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer wrote that "The number of killed and injured cannot be ascertained with any approach to accuracy, and of course, flying rumors are abundant, one man saying that he thought there must be 1,000 killed, while another said 500, and a third 250, which is, perhaps, within the truth." He also observed many dead brought to the bridge for burial. - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)	VIII+ VIII+ ?
Collapsed Walls Destroyed or damaged civic structures	Antioch and surroundings	Religious and civic structures suffered heavily: the Capuchin church and hospice were ruined; Greek, Armenian, and Protestant churches were shattered (four deaths); in total four mosques, three churches, and one convent were destroyed. The American mission was damaged; minarets were damaged but standing; the grotto of St Peter, about 1 km. from Antioch, was unharmed, whereas the church of Saints Peter and Paul was ruined beyond repair. Most European consulates stood; Spain’s collapsed (Ambraseys, 2009).	VIII+ VIII+
Arch Damage	Antioch	Ambraseys (2009) records that “the arches above the East Gate and the North Gate of St Paul were thrown down,” Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer wrote that the east-end city-door arch was “hurled down,” lying on the ground almost fully intact . - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)	VI+
Distorted Walls	Citadel of Antioch	Ambraseys (2009) records that parts of the citadel walls crumbled.	VII+
Bridge Damage	Antioch	Ambraseys (2009) records that the fortified bridge of Antioch cracked in several places with its parapet shaken off. Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer noted that the old Roman bridge “rent in several places” - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)	?
Broken aqueducts	Antioch and surroundings	Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer noted that several aqueducts were broken. - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)	?
dust cloud	Antioch	Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer noted a “dense cloud of dust.” - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)	?
ground fissures	Antioch and surroundings	Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer noted fissures 2–3 inches wide in town and several feet deep on nearby hillsides. - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)	VI+
rockfalls	Antioch and surroundings	Eyewitness Rev. W. B. Keer wrote about rockfall and boulders blocking tracks and roads - Jordan Pickett in De Giorgi et al. (2024)	III+
Liquefaction?	Antioch	Ambraseys (2009) adds that the lower town suffered more than the upper town, something also observed by Keer. This may be due to liquefaction on the flood plain of the Orontes River.	VII+?
Survivors camping outside or leaving town	Antioch and surroundings	Keer reported many survivors encamping in fields while Ambraseys (2009) noted that many left the city for Aleppo — evidence of severe near-field damage and disruption of water supplies and infrastructure.	?
Aftershocks	Antioch and surroundings	Aftershocks continued for months; five are documented by Ambraseys (2009) between 10 April 1872 and 9 February 1873.	?

The archeoseismic evidence requires a minimum Intensity of VIII (8) when using the Earthquake Archeological Effects chart of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224). Antioch may have been vulnerable to liquefaction along the Orontes River, as well as slope effects impacting some of its surrounding walls and towers

References

Articles and Books

Ciggaar, Krijnie (2010) Antioche: les sources croisées et le plan de la ville, in: C. Saliou (ed.), Les sources de l’histoire du paysage urbain d’Antioche sur l’Oronte. Actes des journées d’études des 20 et 21 septembre 2010, Paris 2010, pp. 223-234

De Giorgi, A. U. (2016). Ancient Antioch: From the Seleucid Era to the Islamic Conquest, Cambridge University Press.

De Giorgi, A. U. and A. A. Eger (2021). Antioch: A History, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

De Giorgi, A. U. (2024). Antioch on the Orontes: History, Society, Ecology, and Visual Culture, Cambridge University Press. - contains two essays on Antioch earthquakes and building responses. For one of those essays, see Pickett (2024) below

Downey, G. (1938). "Seleucid Chronology in Malalas." American Journal of Archaeology 42(1): 106-120. - at JSTOR

Downey, G. (1961). History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest, Princeton Univ. Press, New Jersey, Princeton. - open access at archive.org

Downey, G. (1963). Ancient Antioch, Princeton University Press. - at JSTOR

Kondoleon, C. (2000). Antioch: The Lost Ancient City. - can be borrowed with a free account from archive.org

Levi, D. (1947). Antioch Mosaic Pavements Volume I Princeton University Press.

Levi, D. (1971). Antioch Mosaic Pavements Volume II, L'Erma di Bretschneider.

Morey, C. R. (1938) The Mosaics of Antioch - can be borrowed with a free account from archive.org

Müller, C. O. (1839) Antiquitates Antiochenae - open access at archive.org - with map based on sources

Festugière, A. J. (1959) Antioche païenne et chrétienne - open access at archive.org - with an archaeological study by R. Martin

Förster, R. (1897) “Antiochia am Orontes,” JdI 12 103-49

Pamir, Hatice (2010) Preliminary results of the recent archaeological researches in Antioch on the Orontes and its vicinity , in: C. Saliou (ed.), Les sources de l’histoire du paysage urbain d’Antioche sur l’Oronte. Actes des journées d’études des 20 et 21 septembre 2010, Paris 2010, pp. 259-270

Pickett (2024) Earthquakes And State Response At Antioch: Hellenistic To Early Byzantine pp. 433-450 in pre-print for De Giorgi, A. U. (2024). Antioch on the Orontes: History, Society, Ecology, and Visual Culture, Cambridge University Press. - at academia.edu

Stillwell, R. (1961) “The Houses of Antioch,” DOPapers 15 47-57; - open access at archive.org

Books on Inscriptions

Excavation Reports

(1934) Antioch on the Orontes I The Excavations of 1932

Stillwell, R (ed.) (1938) Antioch on the Orontes II The Excavations, 1933-1936 - can be borrowed with a free account from archive.org

(1941) Antioch on the Orontes III The Excavations, 1937-1939

(1948) Antioch on the Orontes IV Part 1 Ceramics and Islamic Coins

(1952) Antioch on the Orontes IV Part 2 Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Crusaders' Coins

(1970) Antioch on the Orontes V Les portiques d'Antioche

Websites

Antioch at the Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites

The Excavation of Antioch-on-the-Orontes Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου Digital Resources 1932-1939 at the University of Chicago

Antakya Archaeological Museum

The Antiochepedia - Musings Upon Ancient Antioch

Website for Andrea U. De Giorgi

Antioch at Fortresses d'Orient