That same year twelve famous cities of Asia fell by an earthquake
in the night, so that the destruction was all the more
unforeseen and fearful.
Nor were there the means of escape usual in, such a
disaster, by rushing
out into the open country, for there people were
swallowed up by the yawning
earth. Vast mountains, it is said, collapsed; what had
been level ground
seemed to be raised aloft, and fires blazed out amid
the ruin. The calamity
fell most fatally on the |