The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY: BOOK II 97
Apollo,while in the south from the harbour of Julian as far as houses lying
not far from the oratory of the Church named Concord, and in the
midmost partof the city from the Forumwiththe appellation Constantine
as far as the market called that of Taurus, a spectacle pitiful and most
hateful to all. 142 For all the beauties which rose above the city, whether
embellished to unrivalled magni¢cence, or answering to public or private
needs, were instantly transformed into mountains and hills impossible to
traverse or cross and ¢lled with every kind of material, confounding the
previous appearance. Hence not even the inhabitants were able to know
what or where the place of the previous buildings happened to be.
14 At the same time, while a Scythian war was in progress against the
eastern Romans, the lands of Thrace and the Hellespont were shaken, as
well as Ionia and the islands called Cyclades, with the result that much of
Cnidus and of the Cretan island was levelled. 143 And Priscus narrates
that there were extraordinary rains in Constantinople and the province
of Bithynia, since for three or four days water poured like a torrent from
heaven; and that mountains were levelled into plains, that villages were
inundated and destroyed, and that islands even appeared in the lake of
Boane, not far distant from Nicomedia, from the multitude of rubbish
that was accumulated in it. But these things occurred later. 144 [66]
142 On the northern side of the city the ¢re spread from the harbour area (Theophanes
112:19^24 mentions the Neorion dockyard) up to the Acropolis where the former temple of
Apollo stood; on the south it stretched from the harbour of Julian (Theophanes mentions
the nearby Church of S. Thomas) west to the Church of Concord, Homonoia, located in the
ninth region (Janin, E¤glises 382); the Forum Tauri was a synonym for the Forum of Theodosius,
which, like that of Constantine, was located on the Mese, Constantinople’s main
thoroughfare.
143 The date is uncertain. M. Henry, cited in Mango and Scott, Theophanes 150, n. 1 ad.
A.M. 5934, speculates that the tremors should be dated to Theodosius II’s reign and linked
with the quake on Crete recorded by Malalas 359:15^18; this is possible, although there is no
reason to doubt that the same area might have been struck by earthquakes a couple of
decades apart. The Scythian war may refer to attacks by Attila’s son, Dengizich, who was
¢ghting the Romansin 467andagainin 469.Festugie' re (271 n.88, following Stein) attributed
the destruction in Thrace to these Huns and that in the Aegean area to Vandals who raided
the eastern Mediterranean in 467; but there is no mention here of Vandals, and the language
of shaking and levelling is more appropriate to an earthquake. The chapter continues with
other natural disasters, which also suggests that the ¢rst part describes an earthquake.
144 Blockley, Historians II. 354^6 printed the whole of this chapter as Priscus fr. 48.2,
though admitting (397) that, strictly, Evagrius’ reference to Priscus only relates to the
deluge; there is no other evidence to allow the deluge to be dated.