ZONARAS, JOHN. - Byzantine historian, b. toward the end of the 11th century, d. toward the middle of the 12th century. He was first commander of the imperial guard and president of the chancery; he renounced a political career and became a monk on one of the islands near Constantinople (Hagia Glykeria).
There he wrote his celebrated Epitome historion, a historical chronicle, beginning from the creation of the world up to the accession to the imperial throne of John Comnenus in 1118. This book, reproduced in many manuscripts and translated into various languages, was highly esteemed. Indeed it still merits attention today for its sources, especially historical and philological, and also for its form. Several sources now lost were in large part preserved by Z. Besides Holy Scripture it reports passages from ecclesiastical writers such as Eusebius, Nicephorus the patriarch, Theophanes, but even more from secular writers such as Cassius Dio, Xenophon, Plutarch, Herodotus, Josephus, and from Byzantine writers such as George the Monk, Cedrenus, Skylitzes, Psellus, Xiphilinus and other authors. Later historians such as Glycas, Manasses and Ephraim made use of it. Besides his history he also composed Commentaries on the Holy Fathers and on the Canons, and poems which, however, cannot be attributed to him with certainty.
The lexicon attributed to him is certainly apocryphal, and must be ascribed to Antony the Monk. An important Italian version of his history made by Marco Emilio Fiorentino was published in Venice in 1560.
Bibliography3 works
Giorgio Hofmann