Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Ancient Iberia: the Historical Sources.

Abstract

According to recent Portuguese and Spanish seismic catalogues, a remarkable number of earthquakes and tsunamis were recorded in the Iberian Peninsula during Antiquity. They list earthquakes and tsunamis in 218–209 BC (Gulf of Cadiz); 60 BC (Galicia and Portugal); 365 AD (Southern Spain); and 382 AD (Cape St. Vincent, Portugal). In this chapter, the origin of these and other references to ancient earthquakes and tsunamis in the Iberian Peninsula is identified and their literary and historiographical contexts are analysed in order to assess their historicity. Most of this information is provided by two chroniclers: the Spanish historian Florián de Ocampo (ca. 1495–ca. 1558) and the Portuguese chronicler Bernardo de Brito (1569–1617). The historicity of most of the literature on ancient earthquakes and tsunamis in the Iberian Peninsula is very dubious, when not totally lacking credibility. However, sometimes, and especially in the case of Ocampo’s references to the ancient city of Cadiz, the information may reflect the collective memory of catastrophic events that occurred at a still undetermined moment in the past.