The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

44
EVAGRIUS
and the unde¢led remains of the holy martyr might be transferred to an
unde¢led place, being honoured with a most beautiful precinct.
17 At this period the much-reported war was stirred up by Attila the
king of the Scythians. This the rhetor Priscus recorded comprehensively
and with exceptional learning, narrating with great elegance how he
campaigned against both eastern and western regions, which cities and
how many he captured and destroyed, and after how many achievements
he departed this world. 159
Now, while the same Theodosius was wielding the sceptres, a very
great, extraordinary earthquake, one that surpassed its predecessors
[27], occurred throughout the whole inhabited world, so to speak, with
the result that many of the towers at the royal city were laid £at, and the
so-called Long Wall of the Chersonese collapsed; 160 the earth gaped and
many villages sank into it; again there were many, indeed innumerable
misfortunes both on land and at sea; and whereas some springs were
rendered dry, elsewhere a quantity of water was sent up where there was
none previously, entire trees were upturned roots and all, and numerous
mounds were instantly turned into mountains; the sea hurled up corpses
of ¢sh and many of the islands in it were swamped; again, sea-going
159 For the fragments of Priscus, and other passages indirectly derived from him, see
Blockley, Historians; Jeep, ‘Quellenuntersuchungen’ 160, asserted that Evagrius derived
his Priscan material via the (lost) Universal History of Eustathius of Epiphania, but it is
possible that Evagrius had read the famous ¢fth-century historian for himself. For narrative
of Attila’s achievements, see Thompson, Attila: in the 440s Attila’s Huns rampaged across
the Balkans, sacking many of the major cities such as Singidunum, Naissus, Serdica and
Philippopolis, and ravaging as far south as Thermopylae; in 450 Attila turned west, lured
by the prospect of marriage to the Augusta Honoria, but his invasion of Gaul was defeated
by Aetius and an alliance of Germanic tribes at the Catalaunian plains in 451; in 452 he
invaded northern Italy and razed Aquileia, but then unexpectedly withdrew; he died in 453
from a haemorrhage after excessive celebrations at his wedding feast.
160 The earthquake struck on Sunday 26 January 447: Chron. Pasch. s.a. 447, p. 586:6^
14; 450, p. 589:6^16; Marc. Com. s.a. 447; extensive damage at Constantinople is attested,
especially to the walls (57 towers collapsed) and in the south-western sector of the city, and
there were numerous casualties. The event was commemorated annually by a religious procession
to the Hebdomon (which brought on Marcian’s death in 457). For discussion, see
Croke, ‘Earthquakes’, 131^44.
The Long Walls are those which defended the Gallipoli peninsula, not the outer defences
of Constantinople, which were only constructed after this earthquake and the Hun invasion
of the same year (Whitby, ‘Walls’, 575; there is some confusion in the comments of Festugie'
re, 226 n. 72a, and Allen, Evagrius 88).