(1) Before about B.C. 125, Orac. Sibyll. iii. 471, if the date now commonly assigned to this Sibylline Oracle be correct, and if the passage is to be regarded as a prophecy after the event. In iii. 347 Hierapolis is also mentioned as suffering in the same way; but it may be questioned whether the Phrygian city is meant.
(2) About B.C. 12, Strabo xii. 8, p. 579, Dion Cass. liv. 30. Strabo names only Laodicea and Tralles, but Dion Cassius says ἡ Ἀσία τὸ ἔθνος ἐπικουρίας τινὸς διὰ σεισμοὺς μάλιστα ἐδεῖτο.
(3) A.D. 60 according to Tacitus (Ann. xiv. 27); A.D. 64 or 65 according to Eusebius (Chron. s.a.), who includes also Hierapolis and Colossæ. To this earthquake allusion is made in a Sibylline Oracle written not many years after the event; Orac. Sibyll. iv. 107 (see also v. 289, vii. 23).
(4) Between A.D. 222 and A.D. 235, in the reign of Alexander Severus, as we learn from another Sibylline Oracle (xii. 280). On this occasion Hierapolis also suffered.
This list will probably be found not to have exhausted all these catastrophes on record.
The following earthquakes also are mentioned as happening in the neighbouring towns or in the district generally: the date uncertain, Carura (Strabo xii. 8, p. 578); A.D. 17 the twelve cities, Sardis being the worst sufferer (Tac. Ann. ii. 7, Plin. N.H. ii. 86, Dion Cass. lvii. 17, Strabo xii. 8, p. 579); A.D. 23 Cibyra (Tac. Ann. iv. 13); A.D. 53 Apamea (Tac. Ann. xii. 58): about A.D. 155, under Antoninus Pius, ‘Rhodiorum et Asiæ oppida’ (Capitol. Anton. Pius 9); A.D. 178, under M. Aurelius, Smyrna and other cities (Chron. Pasch. I. p. 489, ed. Dind., Aristid. Or. xx, xxi, xli; see Clinton Fast. Rom. I. p. 176 sq., Hertzberg Griechenland etc. II. pp. 371, 410); A.D. 262, under Gallienus II (Trebell. Gallien. 5 ‘Malum tristius in Asiæ urbibus fuit ... hiatus terræ plurimis in locis fuerunt, cum aqua salsa in fossis appareret,’ ib. 6 ‘vastatam Asiam ... elementorum concussionibus’). Strabo says (p. 579) that Philadelphia is more or less shaken daily (καθ’ ἡμέραν), and that Apamea has suffered from numerous earthquakes.
[126]. Tac. Ann. xiv. 27 ‘Eodem anno ex inlustribus Asiæ urbibus Laodicea, tremore terræ prolapsa, nullo a nobis remedio propriis opibus revaluit.’ The year is given ‘Nerone iv, Corn. Cosso consulibus’ (xiv. 20). Two different writers, in Smith’s Dictionary of Geography and Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. Laodicea, place the destruction of Laodicea in the reign of Tiberius, confusing this earthquake with an earlier one (Ann. ii. 47). By this earlier earthquake ‘duodecim celebres Asiæ urbes conlapsæ,’ but their names are given, and not one is situated in the valley of the Lycus.
[127]. Euseb. Chron. Ol. 210 (II. p. 154 sq., ed. Schöne) ‘In Asia tres urbes terræ motu conciderunt Laodicea Hierapolis Colossæ.’ The Armenian version and Jerome agree in placing it the next event in order after the fire at Rome (A.D. 64), though there is a difference of a year in the two texts. If the Sibylline Oracle, v. 317, refers to this earthquake, as seems probable, we have independent testimony that Hierapolis was involved in the catastrophe; comp. ib. v. 289.
[128]. This is evidently the idea of Orosius, vii. 7.
[129]. I draw this inference from his account of the earthquake in the reign of Tiberius. Tacitus (Ann. ii. 47) states that twelve cities were ruined in one night, and records their names. Pliny also, who mentions this earthquake as ‘the greatest within the memory of man’ (N.H. ii. 86), gives the same number. Eusebius however, Chron. Ol. 198 (II. p. 146 sq., ed. Schöne), names thirteen cities, coinciding with Tacitus as far as he goes, but including Ephesus also. Now a monument was found at Puteoli (see Gronov. Thes. Græc. Ant. VII. p. 433 sq.), and is now in the Museum at Naples (Museo Borbonico XV, Tav. iv, v), dedicated to Tiberius and representing fourteen female figures with the names of fourteen Asiatic cities underneath; these names being the same as those mentioned by Tacitus with the addition of Ephesus and Cibyra. There can be no doubt that this was one of those monuments mentioned by Apollonius quoted in Phlegon (Fragm. 42, Müller’s Fragm. Hist. Græc. III. p. 621) as erected to commemorate the liberality of Tiberius in contributing to the restoration of the ruined cities (see Eckhel Doct. Num. Vet. VI. 192 sq.). But no earthquake at Ephesus is mentioned by Tacitus. He does indeed speak of such a catastrophe as happening at Cibyra (Ann. iv. 13) six years later than the one which ruined the twelve cities, and of the relief which Tiberius afforded on this latter occasion as on the former. But we owe to Eusebius alone the fact that Ephesus also was seriously injured by an earthquake in the same year—perhaps not on the same night—with the twelve cities: and this fact is necessary to explain the monument. It should be added that Nipperdey (on Tac. Ann. ii. 47) supposes the earthquake at Ephesus to have been recorded in the lost portion of the fifth book of the Annals which comprised the years A.D. 29–31; but this bare hypothesis cannot outweigh the direct testimony of Eusebius.