Note 125 — I. THE CHURCHES OF THE LYCUS.
Reading edition
See above, p. 3. Laodicea was visited by the following earthquakes in the ages preceding and subsequent to the Christian era.
(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.