‘The great mass of waters killed many thousands’: how earthquakes and tsunamis shook ancient Greece and Rome

The Roman baths at Sabratha, Libya, were damaged in the earthquake and tsunami of 365 AD Reza / Getty Images

The Greek poet Crinagoras of Mytilene (1st century BC–1st century AD) once addressed a little poem to an earthquake. He asked the quake not to destroy his house:

Earthquake, most dread of all shocks … spare my new-built house, for I do not know of any terror equal to the quivering of the earth.