EARTHQUAKES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9522, 21 April 1909, Page 2

EARTHQUAKES.

; ANTIOCH'S RECORD-BREAKING ' DISASTER OF 526 A.D. '.-''' . Measured by the destruction of human lives, the recent appalling disaster in Italy and Sicily is one of the greatest in the world's history, but it is not, as has been repeatedly stated, the greatest. There have been a number of earthquakes that have claimed more victims, and it may yet appear that the present' calamity does not even break Sicily's sanguine record, for the fatalities in the Sicilian earthquake of 1693 are estimated ' to have been over 100,000. The results of a calamity so widespread^ and so overpowering as this one can never be reduced to definite figures. As time goes by the estimates will get closer to the truth, but they will continue to be estimates. This fact must be taken into consideration, and with a larger allowance for error, when reviewing the earthquake disasters of antiquity or those of Oriental nations; when and where the science of numbers was less understood than now. But after making such an allowance there can be little doubt that the most destructive earthquake since the earth was given permanent form was that which laid the city of Antioch in. ruins in th*e year 526 A.D. and killed a quarter of a million of its inhabitants. That this estimate is relatively correct is vouched for by no less an authority than Gibbon. Other historians have placed -the loss of life in this recordbreaking disaster at 300,000. Every reader of "Ben-Hur" knows something of the greatness and. magnificence of Antioch in its palmy days. There is no better nor more accurate description of the city extant than that which General Lew Wallace wove into his immortal story V For 6ve* a thou- , sand years it had few rivals in size, in wealth, in . commercial importance, or in the glory of its. architecture. It was one of the earliest and strongest centres of Christian religion, and it was here that the name " Christian " was first applied in derision to the followers of Christ; St Chrysostoin' reokoned that half 'the population were Christian in his day, and the reactionary measures of s Julian the Apostate were nowhere met with such fierce and determined opposition as at Antioch. To its supremacy as a centre of Christianity is- due in part the terrible destruction of the earthquake of 626, for the great religious festival of the Ascension was in. progress at the time, and many thousands of Christians were gathered, there from all parts of Asia Minor when the cataclysm of nature occurred. In a few moments the proud metropolis was totally destroyed. To account for the unparalleled loss, of life one must understand, that Antioch numbered its permanent inhabitants by hundreds of thousands. In the time of St Chrysostom, a hundred years before, the free inhabitants: alone numbered 200,000, and although tnere is no definite authority for the statement, the total population in 526 must have been at least 500,000, not including the vast influx of visitors. ' With the exception of Tokio, in 1703, no city of such magnitude has ever been seriously stricken by earthquake. * But this blow, calamitous as it was, was not the first nor the last for Antioch. From prehistoric times to the . present it has been the centre ...of geological disturbances, and- equalled m their frequency, per-\ sistenoy > and severity in no other thickly inhabited part of the globe except possibly Japan. The is that a great- city could, have arisen and flourished through century afteoetitary under such conditions. .Babylon, Palmyra, and many other ancient rivals of Antioch have ages ago disappeared from the face of the earth, while Antioch, stricken time and time again by earthquake,, fire, famine, plague, war — • all tho disasters which eao befall a city — still lives. , It not only bears tho record,, of, the greatest earthquake, but the greatest number of severe earthquakes, a dlitetihctiori which excites the envy of no other community. Antioch was founded in 300 B.C. by Seleuous Nreator, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, and made at once the capital of what is known in history as -ehe # Seleucid Empire. Situated, on -;the Orbntes River, a short ' distance fiom the* Mediterranean, its surroundings were among the niost lovely in Syria and its climate delightful. As early as 184 B.C. and A.L\ 37 and -A.D- 45 there i 9 a leoord of earthquake disturbances at Antioch; and the most frightful one of the early years of the Christian era occurred in /AD. 115, in the reign of the Roman Emperor Trajan, on which occasion the Emperor himself had to seek .refuge in the "Cirous." The city was again devastated in the reign of -Conetantius in A.D. 341. Between that date^and A.D. 457 and 458 numerous earthquakes visited the section, especially in the last-named years, when the city was almost destroyed. On May 20, A.D. 526. Antioch -received the great shock .already referred toj which' was followed by another in A.D. 528, two years later. Another earth?uake . destroyed 5000 lives there. n 1097 the Crusaders under Godfrey de Boulliori stormed Antioch, and were about to take possession when in Jiand* ary of 1098 a frightful earthquake took place, completely demoralising both the besiegers and besieged. In 1139 Gai> seria,. near " Antioch,' was destroyed. Another great shock in. 1158 ruined Damascus, Aleppo, Antioch and other near-by towns, causing stupendous loss of life and conditions among the people that threatened total annihilation by pestilence and famine. About this period in its history Antioch began to give up its fight, and started in a decadent direction. Yin 1170 the entire Frank quarter of the city disappeared ' in a tremendous upheaval of nature. Again in 1667 a 'series of earthquakes in the same district killed 80,000 people. The disturbance lasted three months. The roads of the.icountry were so injured that •ah' entire system or new routes had to be re-established. In 1739, in a region of 100- square, leagues, Damascus, Aleppo arid Antioch were r again stricken, the Valley of Balbeo, near Damascus, suffering a loss of 20,000 alone. For almost 100 years this part of the Syrian . country ,was free from 'any disturbance, but in 1822 Aleppo suffered another lofcs of 20,000 lives, and in 1837 the whole district again was visited by an upheaval 500 miles in length by ninety miles in breadth, and the de'stEuction was ' as horrible vas any -'of those in ancient tinjes. In the little town of Spahet the , entire* population of 4000 were never . heard from again, and nu*me]»us small villages disappeared absolutely from the face of the earth, leaving no vestige of ruin upon the surface. .The last earthquake to visit An.tioeh was in 1872, when half the 1 houses of the city were tumbled to the ground, and many inhabitants killed. . Antioch, totday retains few remains of its. ancient grandeur. A recent traveller thus describes it: "Antioch was built over twenty centuries ago, and hasn't been Repaired since. The whole country is in ruins, the result of destruction both by God and man. Modern Antioch to-day is a miserable lection' of nondescript and filthy dwellings, half modern, half, ancient, with walls of mud and roofs of corrugated iron. The streets are narrow and covered with offal. There isn't even a hotel in the' whole place. The city has a population of 18,000, most of whom are engaged- in the liquorice trade. T^e, ruins of the palaces and temples of |he Roman era are mostly effaced by earthquakes, but. the stadium, scene of the chariot race in .■" Ben-Hur," can be distinctly traced.'? •