The AD 365 Earthquake: Large Tsunamigenic Earthquakes in the Hellenic Trench

Abstract

and solid earth was shaken and trembled, the sea with its rolling waves was driven back and withdrew from the land. . .Hence, many ships were stranded as if on dry land, and since many men roamed without fear in the little that remained of the waters, to gather fish and similar things with their hands, the roaring sea, resenting this forced retreat, rose in its turn; and over the boiling shoals it dashed mightily upon islands and broad stretches of the mainland, and levelled innumerable buildings in the cities and wherever else they are to be found; so that amid the mad discord of the elements the altered face of the earth revealed marvellous sights. For the great mass of waters, returning when it was least expected, killed many thousands of men by drowning; and by the swift recoil of the eddying tides a number of ships, after the swelling of the wet element subsided, were found to have been destroyed, and the lifeless bodies of shipwrecked persons lay floating on their backs or on their faces. Other great ships, driven by the mad blasts, landed on the tops of buildings (as happened at Alexandria), and some were driven almost two miles inland, like a Laconian ship which I myself saw in passing that way near the town of Motho [Mothoni/Methoni], yawning apart through long decay. Ammianus Marcellinus, writing after AD 378.