The earthquake in A. D. 33, at the time of the crucifixion, was felt throughout Asia Minor, Greece, Sicily and Southern Italy. In the Syria corpses were tumbled from their rock-hewn tombs. The town of Nicaea, in Bithynia, was totally destroyed. How many perished in this widespread shock is not known. Tradition has it that a fissure in a great rock, which overhangs the shore at Gaeta, was made by this earthquake. Till quite recently passing vessels were wont to salute the rock in commemoration of the great event.
No city has suffered from these terrible throes of Mother Earth as much as Antioch. In the year 115, the Emperor Trajan, extending his territories to the wilder regions of the Caucasus, was in the city with his army. There came heavy thunders, great winds, fearful subterranean rumblings; the earth shook; down tottered temples, towns, palaces, colonnades, statues, homes and huts, in irretrievable ruin. The Emperor sprang from a window and ran for his life, like a peasant, through the streets resounding with the groans and cries of the unfortunates buried in the ruins. Mountains were rent asunder, rivers turned from their courses, new streams were created, old valleys disappeared. Eighty thousand people are believed to have perished at Antioch alone.
ANTIOCH.
In A. D. 365 a fearful earthquake was felt throughout the entire Mediterranean region. The sea rolled back, leaving fishes and vessels high and dry; then, suddenly returning, it carried large boats two miles inland. Fifty thousand people were lost at Alexandria. Shortly before, a number of towns in Palestine had been destroyed. This second great disaster shook all Asia Minor. In every town men began to talk, with bated breath, of the fearful wrath the Lord manifested because of those who had lent a willing ear to heretical doctrines. “This was why only the priests and holy men of the church could appease the Divine wrath; and if the town of Epidaurus had escaped the ruin which befell all the other towns along the coast, it was because the inhabitants had taken the statue of St. Hilary to the sea-shore. The Saint made the sign of the cross, and the mountain of water, bending low before him, forthwith receded.” Whence, it seems the Lord was supposed to have greater regard for crooked saintly fingers than for heretical doctrines. Numerous were the direful prodigies said to have accompanied this fearful shock.
The next century brought calamities once more upon Asia Minor. A series of tremendous shocks were felt in 458, wrecking many of the finest cities. The renowned Antioch, rebuilt in its pristine splendor, was once more humbled in the dust. Eighty thousand people perished within its walls; many thousands more in the adjacent regions. Probably one hundred and twenty-five thousand in all were slain in this earthquake.
Years passed by, bringing, from time to time, minor shocks which destroyed hundreds in different locations, but which passed with but little notice amid so many greater disasters, and wars and rumors of wars. Antioch had been gradually rebuilt, and was more splendid than ever before. The first quarter of the sixth century was past. The time of the great festival of the Ascension was at hand, A. D. 526. From all the country round came people flocking to the celebration, to witness the pageantry and procession. Without a moment’s warning, a great earthquake came, as fearful as the shock four hundred and eleven years before. The destruction was vastly greater. The tottering walls crushed thousands in the crowded streets. Every avenue and alley became a death-trap. There is not, in all the pages of history, record of an earthquake of greater destructiveness. Gibbon estimates the number of victims at two hundred and fifty thousand.