NATURAL CATASTROPHES IN THE GREEK AND ROMAN WORLD: LOSS OR GAIN? FOUR CASES OF SEAOUAKE-GENERATED TSUNAMIS

Abstract

The question set by this paper is whether the impact of natural catastrophes on civilizations is twinfold: very much a loss for the victims who suffered as a result of the destruction, but a gain, an advantage, for later generations and modern sciences. I concentrate on a certain series of catastrophes caused by the sudden, geologically-related, calamity, the seaquake-generated wave, known as tsunami, from the early Classical period to late antiquity. Four tsunami events will be examined here, in 479 B.C. at Potidaia, in 373 B.C. in the Corinthian Golf, the 66 and in 365 A.D. at Phalasarna.