Ancient Coin Stories

In 373 BCE, the city of Bura experienced unimaginable tragedy when an earthquake struck and annihilated the city. Everyone who was in the city at the time perished, and only those who were absent at the time survived.

Ovid alluded to this in his Metamorphoses:

Should you seek Helice and Buris, those two cities of Achaea, you will find them underneath the waves, where sailors point to sloping roofs and streets in the clear deep

Diodorus Siculus tells more (15.48.1-3)

During their term of office great earthquakes occurred in the Peloponnese accompanied by tidal waves which engulfed the open country and cities in a manner past belief; for never in the earlier periods had such disasters befallen Greek cities, nor had entire cities along with their inhabitants disappeared as a result of some divine force wreaking destruction and ruin upon mankind.

The extent of the destruction was increased by the time of its occurrence; for the earthquake did not come in the daytime when it would have been possible for the sufferers to help themselves, but the blow came at night, so that when the houses crashed and crumbled under the force of the shock, the population, owing to the darkness and to the surprise and bewilderment occasioned by the event, had no power to struggle for life.

The majority were caught in the falling houses and annihilated, but as day returned some survivors dashed from the ruins and, when they thought they had escaped the danger, met with a greater and still more incredible danger. For the sea rose to a vast height, and a wave towering even higher washed away and drowned all the inhabitants and their native lands as well. Two cities in Achaia bore the brunt of this disaster, Helice and Bura, the former of which had, as it happened, before the earthquake held first place among the cities of Achaia.

Those who were not present at the time returned to the city and rebuilt it. Much later, Pausanias visited it:

There is a temple here of Demeter, one of Aphrodite and Dionysus, and a third of Eileithyia. The images are of Pentelic marble, and were made by Eucleides of Athens. There is drapery for Demeter. Isis too has a sanctuary.