When natural disasters like the Haiti earthquake struck in the ancient world, the first move was to appeal to the Roman emperor. Smyrna, on the west coast of modern Turkey, was hit with a massive quake in ad 177/8. The letter to the emperor Marcus Aurelius from the local bigwig Aelius Aristides describes ‘dust everywhere, the harbour closed, the magnificent market flattened, fine roads disappeared, sports grounds, men, boys and all, destroyed, ships lying flat or sunk, bodies and ruins piled up, winds blowing over what is now a desert. Everything that is left looks to you…’. When Marcus received the letter, he wept. In such circumstances, all he or any emperor could do (probably weeks after the event: news travelled slowly) was to put someone in charge of restoration (nothing could be done for the victims), backed with generous sums of money and often relief from taxes.
When much of Rome burnt down in ad 64, Nero organised the restoration programme.
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