An earthquake and a tsunami reportedly affected areas of the Levant, including the modern states of Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, and Syria.
[1] The Scroll of Fasts includes both a brief record of events, and three versions of Gemara (Scholia) which were added to the original text as addendums.
The exegesis which was added to the original text dates from the Talmudic period (2nd–6th centuries) to the Late Middle Ages.
Some of the explanations are "historically correct", and may reflect that their author used a valuable oral or written source to make his additions.
[1] Information on the earthquake is attached to an event dated to the 17th day of the month Adar in the Hebrew calendar.
[1] According to the original Megillat Taanit, on that date "the natives" attacked a remnant of scribes in the country of "Belikos" and "Beit Zabdai".
[1] The Oxford manuscript claims that Alexander Jannaeus, the King of Judaea (reigned 103–76 BC) wanted to kill the brothers "Bukinos" and "Bukius", who escaped him and fled to Syria.
[1] In the Common version, Alexander Jannaeus wanted to kill the scribes, who escaped him and fled to the country of "Koselikos".
In this version, a comment by "Rabbi Hidka" records that the sea itself upwelled and "destroyed a third in the settled land".
[1] The Oxford and Common versions may derive their description of the earthquake and the tsunami from extinct "local traditions".
The ancient city of Kaprazabadion (modern Qafr Zabad) was located 25 km (16 mi) southwest of this Chalcis.
The tsunami description may be based on a catastrophic inundation along the littoral zone, which diverted the attention of the "native" attackers.
The scribes may have fled "oppression and slaughter" in the context of the many political upheavals in the Levant during the 2nd century BC.
The Levant had at the time a multicultural population, and experienced frequent shifts in "political fortunes" and short-lived alliances.
1 Maccabees records that Jonathan had attacked the Zabadeans, crushed his enemies in battle, and plundered their territory.
In Athenaeus' narrative, the earthquake is accompanied by flooding, the change of river courses, appearance and disappearance of lakes, and the ingression of sea waters.
According to Strabo's narrative, Mithridates VI of Pontus (reigned 120–63 BC) offered to rebuild the destroyed Apamea.
[1] The earthquake and tsunami reportedly followed a battle involving Diodotus Tryphon (reigned 142–138 BC) and the army of the Seleucid Empire.
[1] However this disaster is otherwise connected to the emergence of the volcanic island of Hiera (modern Palea Kameni) in 198 BC.
[1] Sidon's earthquake is also mentioned in De rerum natura by Lucretius and Naturales quaestiones by Seneca the Younger.
[1] In this Antiochus' 8th regnal year, the city of Antioch suffered from the "wrath of God" (an earthquake) and had to be rebuilt.
[1] The textual evidence for the earthquake is uneven, and the compilers of the Scholia to Megillat Taanit may have misunderstood the true nature of the 17th Adar events.
[1] On whether the earthquake took place during the reign of Jonathan Apphus or that of Alexander Jannaeus, there seem to be more primary sources favoring the earlier date rather than the later one.
However, the paleoseismic study of the Serghaya fault, suggested that only one seismic event took place there between 170 BC and 20 AD.