History of the Peloponnesian War

In the following summer the Peloponnesians [*](426 B.C.) and their allies, led by Agis son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, advanced as far as the Isthmus with the intention of invading Attica; but a great many earthquakes occurred, causing them to turn back again, and no invasion

took place. At about the same time, while the earthquakes prevailed, the sea at Orobiae in Euboea receded from what was then the shore-line, and then coming on in a great wave overran a portion of the city. One part of the flood subsided, but another engulfed the shore, so that what was land before is now sea; and it destroyed of the people as many as could not run up to the high ground

in time. In the neighbourhood also of the island of Atalante, which lies off the coast of Opuntian Locris, there was a similar inundation, which carried away a part of the Athenian fort there,[*](cf. 2.32.) and wrecked one of two ships which had been drawn up on

the shore. At Peparethos likewise there was a recession of the waters, but no inundation; and there was an earthquake, which threw down a part of the wall as well as the prytaneum and a few

other houses. And the cause of such a phenomenon, in my own opinion, was this: at that point where the shock of the earthquake was greatest the sea was driven back, then, suddenly returning[*](“Thucydides is pointing out the connection between the earthquake and the inundation. Where the earthquake was most violent, there the inundation was greatest. But the effect was indirect, being immediately caused by the recoil of the sea after the earthquake was over; hence τὴν θαλασσαν, and not, as we might expect, τὸν σεισμόν, is the subject of ποιεῖν. ἀποστέλλειν either active or neuter.” (Jowett.)) with increased violence, made the inundation; but without an earthquake, it seems to me, such a thing would not have happened,