Case file · High strangeness
Omens before the destruction of Helike
In the winter of 373 BC an earthquake and sea wave destroyed the Achaean city of Helike overnight; later writers said animals had fled the city days before.
373 BCE · 38.22, 22.13 · status: explained
The account
Aelian wrote that mice, snakes, weasels and beetles left Helike in columns five days before the disaster. Ancient authors blamed the wrath of Poseidon, whose sanctuary had been profaned. The submerged ruins became a tourist sight, and the site was rediscovered on land, under lagoon sediments, by Greek archaeologists from 2001.
The sceptical view
The disaster is real and geological; the animal omen was written down about 600 years later and fits a common earthquake legend.
Connections in the atlas
- Poseidon's wrath drowns Helike