April 2, 303 Earthquake: Sur (Tyre), Sayda (Saida, Sidon), Lebanon

306 Tyre, Saida. Very destructive. (reference #1222)

Reference #9116:

303 April 2 Sidon. An earthquake damaged Sidon and Tyre on the Lebanese littoral, where houses collapsed with loss of life. It may also have affected Byblus, but it is unlikely that this earthquake affected Gush Halav. The shock was felt in Caesarea, which was not damaged, and it is said that it was associated with a seismic sea wave of doubtful origin.

The principal source is St Jerome, who dates the event to Ol.CCLXX.19=AD 304. Orosius, who claims that this event killed thousands of people, situates it after the persecutions of the Christians by Diocletian and Maximianus Herculius, which would place the event in AD 303.

Eusebius describes an earthquake and sea wave at Caesarea in connection with the martyrdom of Apphian, which caused the martyr’s body, which had been thrown into the sea, to be cast up on the shore. Eusebius gives the precise date of ‘the 4th of the Nones of April, on the Parasceve’ (Friday 2 April).

Later authors (Ps.Dion. i. 149/111; Chron. 724, 128/100; Mar. Scot. iii. 319/694) add nothing but confusion regarding the date of the event.

There is also an inscription from an altar in Byblus that records the survival of one Apollodorus after an earthquake (Dussaud 1896, 299). The inscription is dated by Seyrig to the second or third century, which would seem to indicate that it is not connected with this earthquake (H. Seyrig, personal communication 5 July 1972). However, since provincial epigraphy is often slower to change than that in major centres, and there is no other earthquake recorded for this location during the second or third century, the inscription has been very tentatively allocated to this event.

There is some tenuous archaeological evidence that Gush Halav in Upper Galilee was also affected. Russell (who dates this event to AD 306 on the basis of marginal notes in Migne’s and Petrus’ editions of Eusebius) suggests that Gush Halav may have been affected by this earthquake (Russell 1981, 36ff.) for which no evidence has been found.