198 BC Tsunami: Thera Island (Santorini), Greece
A tsunami caused by a volcano began at Thera Island (Santorini), Greece in 198 BC.
Where the waves reached
The source of the tsunami. No runup with a place is recorded for it.
- Under 1 m
- 1 to 3 m
- 3 to 10 m
- 10 to 30 m
- 30 m and more
- Height not recorded
Travel times
How long the first wave took to reach each part of the ocean, one line for each hour up to 24, estimated from the source and the depth of the sea.
The travel times are computed in your browser, which needs JavaScript.
- 1 to 4 hours
- 5 to 6 hours
- 7 to 14 hours
- 15 hours and more
Computed in your browser the way NOAA’s own travel time maps are: the wave travels at the square root of gravity times the depth, over NOAA’s ETOPO1 depths averaged to a 10 arc-minute grid. Checked against NOAA NCEI’s maps for 21 tsunamis over the first 24 hours, these lines fall within 10 minutes of NCEI’s at half the points compared and within 52 minutes at 9 in 10. They give when the first wave could arrive, not how high it is; bays, harbors and island chains finer than the grid can see it later. Not for use in a warning: see tsunami.gov.
The tsunami
- Date
- 198 BC
- Source
- Thera Island (Santorini), Greece
- Cause
- Volcano
- Earthquake
- The earthquake
- Volcano
- The eruption that caused it
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Very doubtful tsunami
- Source location
- 36.404° N, 25.396° E
The toll
The record gives no deaths, injuries or damage for this tsunami.
What the record says
NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.
198 B.C. Thera (Hiera). An eruption of the Thera volcano. Plutarch says that is took place about the time of the end of the war with Philip, in the winter of 198 B.C., or in O1.145.2 (198 B.C., Eusebius). Pliny's dating to O1.135.4 (236 BC) seems to be chronologically inconsistent and it may be disregarded since, in an early transcription of his work, events of the 14th Olympiad were dated O1.135.
Most writers (e.g. Strabo and Seneca), drawing from the earliest source, Posidonius (135-151 BC) do not associate this event with an earthquake or suggest that the eruption caused any damage in Thera or elsewhere. They say that midway between Thera and Therasia fires broke out from the sea and continued to burn for four days, so that the whole sea boiled and blazed, and that the fires cast up an island 12 stadia (2.2 km) in circumference, which was gradually elevated. They add that, after the cessation of the eruption, the Rhodians, who at the time held maritime supremacy, were the first to venture upon the scene and build a temple in honour of Poseidon Asphaleus on the island.
However, there is one source, belonging to the third century AD (Just. 219-220), which says that during the eruption a shaking was felt in Thera, thus conflating it with the earthquake in Rhodes. The sources adds that in Asia, on the same day as the eruption, the earthquake ruined Rhodes and many other cities.
It is rather improbable that this submarine eruption from the volcano at Thera would cause an earthquake that could destroy cities in Asia Minor and Rhodes, 250 km away, and that the Rhodians, if seriously affected, would spend money on building a temple in Thera after the eruption.
(above from reference #9116)
198 B.C. Eastern coastal area of Mediterranean Sea. Shortly after the appearance of a big comet an earthquake occurred that was accompanied by an overflow of the sea water. (reference #2130)
197 B.C. Thera Island. Sea boiled and blazed. (reference #2427)
Guidoboni et al. (1994), Ambraseys and White (1997), and Ambraseys (2009), there was an earthquake in Sidon, Phoenicia, and Syria in 199–198 bce. Karcz (2004) raises the possibility that the report about the earthquake and submergence at nearby Sidon could be associated with the mid-2nd century BCE tidal wave between Ptolemais and Tyre. (reference #10416)
More
Every tsunami in 198 BCThe 100s BCTsunamis of GreeceThe earthquakeThe eruptionAlerts in force
Sources
Tsunami events and runups from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-09-24. NCEI tsunami event 3473.