Event #2905: First recorded Persian earthquake; numerous cities, 2000 villages destroyed

Duris says that Rhagae in Media has received its name because the earth about the Caspian Gates had been “rent” by earthquakes to such an extent that numerous cities and villages were destroyed, and the rivers underwent changes of various kinds.

Rhagae is said to have got its name from the earthquakes that took place in that country, by which numerous cities and two thousand villages, as Poseidonius says, were destroyed. […]

There are also some Greek cities in Media, founded by the Macedonians, among which are Laodiceia, Apameia, and the city near Rhagae, and Rhagae itself, which was founded by Nicator. By him it was named Europus, but by the Parthians Arsacia; it lies about five hundred stadia[^27442] to the south of the Caspian Gates, according to Apollodorus of Artemita. (11.13.6, p. 309)

The first earthquake in Persia recorded in history is that of the fourth century B.C. which devastated the region of Ray. According to Duris of Samos, the author of a history of Greece and Macedonia who flourished about 350 BC, ‘Rhagae’ in Media has received its name because the earth about the Caspian Gates has been rent by earthquakes to such an extent that numerous cities and villages were destroyed, and the rivers underwent changes of various kinds’ (Strabo: i.3.19). Poseidonius of Apameia, in his history written in the middle of the second century B.C., adds that in this earthquake ‘numerous cities and 2000 villages were destroyed’ (Strabo: xi.9.1). Later writers, for instance Apollodorus of Artemita who flourished about the middle of the first century B.C., add that it was renamed Europos (Strabo: xi.13.6. This major earthquake must have occurred after Alexander’s passage through Rhagae in 330 B.C., probably during the reign of Seleucus, and it is likely that these accounts refer to more than one destructive event, similar to those occurring in A.D. 743 and 855.