OF JOHN THE ASCETIC: THE CHRONICLE OF ZONARAS, FORMERLY GRAND DRUNGARY OF THE VIGLA AND FIRST SECRETARY
JOANNIS ZONARAE MONACHI MAGNI ANTEA VIGILUM PRAEFECTI ET PRIMI A SECRETIS ANNALES
CAROLUS DU FRESNE, DOM. DU CANGE, COUNSELOR TO THE KING AND TREASURER OF FRANCE AT AMIENS, COLLATED THE WOLFIAN EDITION WITH WRITTEN CODICES, REVISED THE LATIN VERSION, AND ILLUSTRATED THE ANNALS WITH NOTES.
DUCANGE’S PREFACE
There is no one, neither among our own people nor among foreigners, who does not admire the royal edition of the Byzantine writers as an extraordinary monument to Gallic magnificence. And justly so, and with the best of right, since, besides the fact that it presents to the eyes a history hitherto less known, and one that is varied with such a multitude of events, and shows the causes of the decline and ruin of the Roman Empire, which once dominated almost the entire world, it is published with such elegant type and in such a large format that it carries a certain majesty before it, and in a way entices and invites all who love letters to read it. But when many of the learned had pointed out that, among so many distinguished works in that royal collection, the Annals of John Zonaras — having been printed only once and not very cleanly, and being rare at present — were a desideratum, the most illustrious Marquis de Louvois, of the King’s privy council and secretarial cabinet, to whose care the royal buildings, the arts, and the Royal Printing House itself have been entrusted, together with his most illustrious brother, the Archbishop of Rheims and First Peer of France, who concurred in the same plan, signified that because of their innate and uncommon regard for letters, they thought it would be an excellent achievement if an author so worthy of a royal edition were published. The task having been then assigned to me—a task which I do not in the slightest doubt that other, more learned men would have performed far better—I immediately set my hand to it; I collected and collated ancient codices insofar as time permitted, and I added notes: I trust that kind readers will accept this, whatever its quality, with fairness and good will.
Truly, to premise some things concerning these Annals which now appear and their author, Zonaras, it is above all the erudition of the writer that commends them—which can be gathered not only from these, but also from many other works, a list of which we have appended to this Preface; in these works, no one could wish for a greater knowledge of affairs, or a keener and more solid judgment, nor indeed for greater piety. Moreover, if the splendor of his birth and the status of the office he held in the imperial palaces can procure for a writer some esteem—a thing which perhaps no one will call into doubt—this is especially true of him who wrote on political matters, in which he was truly...
OF JOHN THE ASCETIC, OF ZONARAS, WHO WAS GRAND DRUNGARIUS OF THE WATCH AND FIRST SECRETARY, CHRONICLE. JOANNIS ZONARÆ MONACHI, MAGNI ANTEA VIGILUM PRÆFECTI ET PRIMI A SECRETIS, ANNALES. CAROLUS DU FRESNE, DOM. DU CANGE, REGI A CONSILIIS, ET FRANCIÆ APUD AMBIANOS QUÆSTOR, WOLFIANAM EDITIONEM CUM SCRIPTIS CODICIBUS CONTULIT, LATINAM VERSIONEM RECENSUIT, ANNALES NOTIS ILLUSTRAVIT. DUCANGII PRÆFATIO.
There is no one, neither among our own countrymen nor among foreigners, who does not admire the Royal edition of the Byzantine historians as an exceptional monument of Gallic magnificence. And justly so, and with the best of right, since, besides the fact that it presents to the eyes a history hitherto little known, and one that varies with so many events, and [sets forth] the causes of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, which once dominated almost the entire world, it is published with such elegant type and in such a size of paper that it carries a certain majesty, and in a way entices and invites all those who love literature to its reading. But when many of the learned had pointed out that among so many works distinguished in that Royal collection, the Annals of John Zonaras, having been printed only once and not very clearly, and being at present rare, were desired, the most illustrious Marquis de Louvois, of the King’s Privy Council and official for secrets, to whose care the Royal buildings, the arts, and the Royal printing press itself are entrusted, signifying that it seemed best to him that this work, so worthy of the Royal edition, should be published, with the most illustrious brother, the Archbishop of Reims and first peer of France, joining in the same counsel, out of an innate and uncommon affection for literature: this task having then been entrusted to me—a task which I do not at all doubt others who are more learned would have performed far better—I applied my hand to it immediately. I collected and compared ancient manuscripts as much as time allowed, and added notes: and I trust that the kind reader will take this in good part, whatever its quality may be.
Indeed, to premise something concerning these Annals which now appear and their author Zonaras: he is commended especially by the erudition of the writer, which can be gathered not only from these, but also from many other works, a list of which we subjoin to this Preface; in which works no one will find missing a knowledge of facts, nor a keen or solid judgment, nor piety. Furthermore, if the splendor of his birth and the status of the office he held in the imperial palaces can procure some reputation for a writer—a point which perhaps no one would call into doubt—this is true especially of him who writes of political affairs, in which he...
PREFACE
While he was living in exile and far from the city on a small island, as a result of which it is acknowledged that his history of the consuls and dictators is less than complete. Nor, furthermore, should the reader be surprised, he adds, if the character of his writing does not appear consistent throughout the Annals he compiled, since it can hardly be otherwise for one who gathers his history like alms from various writers, not to use the diction and composition of those writers in many places. This he did, however, in such a way that if he inserted anything of his own, he adapted it as far as he could to the style of the author he was following, so that the manner of his writing would not appear to diverge from itself everywhere; while in the meantime he composed his Annals in a manner far different from others who had treated chronological matters up to that time, by writing as if he were composing and narrating his own material, and—what is worthy of the highest praise—not seeking applause through the thefts of others, nor copying out complete treatises, as Leo Allatius writes concerning Zonaras himself.
Yet there have not been wanting those who, using a censorious judgment, have carped at him and even severely criticized him as being not very diligent, especially where he deals with Roman affairs. "Everything before Constantine," says one of these, "he explained ineptly and with little diligence (I speak of Latin affairs)." But how soundly he blurted out these judgments or how little, is evident from the fact that among somewhat fairer judges, and specifically among those very learned in all chronological writings, that part of Zonaras' Annals which treats of Latin affairs is held in far higher esteem. For since he compiled this part of his history primarily from Dio—whom he had read whole and not at all truncated, as he is edited today—and from other writers who have perished through the injury of time, he mentions things that are almost always new and left unsaid by others: such that in many places he is said by Wilhelm Xylander, Fulvius Ursinus, Friedrich Sylburg, and Henri Valois—learned interpreters of that author, for whom it is customary to either emend Dio himself or illustrate other Roman writers from Zonaras—to have copied Dio word for word; whence Theodore Marcilius calls Zonaras and Xiphilinus the sub-editors of Dio. And certainly it is agreed that Allatius himself felt the same about Zonaras, "who," he says, "although he is thinner in his history after Constantine the Great and has only passed over the obvious, yet regarding those things before Constantine back to the beginnings of the world, he is more diligent and copious."
It is no wonder, therefore, if he is called a historian of sincere faith by Alexander Brassicanus in his Preface to Salvian, and a most learned man by Casaubon. It is said that Wolfius wrote a memorandum on a manuscript codex of Cedrenus, in which he observed that it treats the same subject matter as Zonaras, but that it holds many things intentionally omitted by Zonaras—perhaps out of a desire for brevity, but certainly things that should not have been omitted—so much so that, if given the choice at the start, he would have preferred Cedrenus to Zonaras. "He," says Xylander, from whom these remarks of Wolfius are reported, "looked primarily to those things which cannot be sought from anywhere else but him, since the first two volumes of Zonaras are otherwise far better and more worthy of praise than those things which Cedrenus collected up to Constantine the Great." Furthermore, the same Wolfius writes that Zonaras seems at times more prolix, as in Jewish history, and at times more brief, as in the deeds of foreign nations. In which, if any fault was committed, this excuse seems to appear: that he did not draw out what he wrote from his own invention, but reduced into a certain order what he had collected from various authors, which authors are most unlike one another. That he did not pursue everything, however, was not due to negligence but was done intentionally.
But although Allatius might say that Zonaras passes over everything obvious in what he wrote after Constantine the Great, Henri Valois, a man of precise judgment, seems to have felt otherwise—who not only signifies him as a quite diligent author more than once, but also observes that in those matters especially which concern the family of the same Constantine, he is more accurate than others and does not say things obvious to everyone. And indeed, although Theophanes, Cedrenus, Scylitzes, and some others may have been employed in more diffuse published commentaries for recounting the deeds of the emperors of Constantinople, it is agreed that this was Zonaras' primary intention: not to write a fuller history, as they did, but a shorter one, and indeed a compendium, in which he might touch upon each singular matter and those things which seemed of the greatest weight in historical discourse. From which the remarks of Gerard Vossius are easily refuted—namely, that both greater care and industry were to be desired in his work, and that it is also especially surprising that a man so experienced, especially in the affairs of his own time, should say most things only perfunctorily, when many great things were done in those times, with the Eastern world as it were converging with the Western: so that there are few things regarding which he touched upon the life of Alexius. That, I say, is not hard to refute from the lemma of the author's own Annals, or from his own Preface, in which he professes to be writing not a history but a compendium of history; so that if he had pursued the events of his time with a more verbose narration, he would be said to have observed the primary duty of a writer least of all: since, as the other Pliny says, one ought to read one's own title, and repeatedly ask oneself what one has begun to write, and know that if one dwells too long on the matter, it is not short, and very long if one brings in and attracts other things. And from this varied opinion of learned men concerning Zonaras' Annals, it is evident how unhappy is the lot of those who undertake to write something, as they expose the fruits of their genius to any and often unjust judgments and censures of men.
Furthermore, in the course of his Annals, Zonaras occasionally takes the opportunity to criticize the mores of the Greeks of his own age, just as when he disparages the simony of ecclesiastical men, and the long-haired and curled courtiers
A was born; yet he will be able to be celebrated also, for Zonaras himself, whom, moreover, the similarity of names suggests to have derived his lineage from that Zonaras who lived at court under Constantine Porphyrogenitus, son of Leo the Wise. Indeed, as he lived while John and Manuel Comnenus were emperors, the dignities of "great drungary of the watches," as the Latins translated it—that is, prefect of the guards and first secretary—which he held in their palace, always considered among the more illustrious, sufficiently argue that he held a great position among the emperors. And from this, if I am not mistaken, he is usually designated by Theodore Balsamon B and Matthew Blastares as *hypatus*, because these were among the foremost of the senatorial [offices], since it is certain that the senate and the senators themselves were accustomed to be endowed with this epithet, as I have observed elsewhere; by which indeed both the nobility of his birth and the splendor of his magistracies are expressed, since, as Gregory Nazianzen says, "participation in the senate is held to be the greatest proof of nobility."
But after he had abdicated his palatine duties, so that he might be free primarily for himself and look after the salvation of his soul, he assumed the monastic habit, and having left the primary city of the empire, he withdrew to a more remote island: as he himself testifies in his Preface to the *Annals*. In that place he complains, as was fitting, of the lack of books for writing them, "being an exile and far from the city, dwelling on an islet." Moreover, what that little island was, separated by such a distance from the city, is not easy to ascertain; but at least one may conjecture from that point, to refrain from doubting what Andrew Thevet relates—a writer who is otherwise of no certain reliability in other matters—namely, that in his time he had seen a gravestone of Zonaras in a certain monastery of the Holy Mountain (thus Athos is called today), inscribed with these words: HERE LIES ZONARAS; unless it is said that he conceded to that place at the end of his life.
Be that as it may, he had barely passed a few years in the monastery when friends C came to meet him and urged him to convert that solitary leisure into some useful work, which might both benefit the public and secure for himself the reward of eternal life: a reward which he might most especially attain if he were to write a history which would remove superfluities and collect into a certain compendium the worthier matters of memory without any circumlocution of words. For those who had hitherto spent their efforts in this kind of writing almost always interrupted the series of events they were narrating with useless digressions, or even with descriptions or speeches, and indeed with untimely religious disputes, little suited to annals, while they explained the mysteries of the faith or set out to refute heresies with arguments taken from sacred Scripture or from the holy Fathers. By these, indeed, they suggested [a fault in] some of the chroniclers who were at that time in everyone's hands, perhaps the author of the Chronicle they call the Alexandrian, George Syncellus, George Hamartolus, George Cedrenus, and others whose writings are everywhere teeming with such superfluous excursions.
But although he was persuaded that two things, leisure and solitude (as Tully said), bring languor to the mind, and that among Christians, and especially among monks, that single occupation D can drive away those base thoughts (which the ascetics call *logismoi*) or desires that are wont to seize the mind when it is free from business and almost always submerge it in sins, he nevertheless yielded with difficulty to the exhortations of his friends, when he saw that it was a matter which required a supply of books, of which he was in need. But they did not cease to importune him until, by their relentless stimulation, they had driven him to undertake the work. Conquered therefore by the solicitations of his familiar friends, and led by the reasons brought forth above, he set himself to write the *Annals*, while dwelling in this retreat, where the books necessary for composing history were not available; if he did not include everything that should be said, he would easily persuade himself that he would obtain pardon from a kindly reader. In composing this, moreover, he was so occupied that he did not omit the chief matters or those which appeared to be of any moment, and he reduced them into an epitome with such elegance that he alone seems to have attained that which is against the nature of things, that brevity should not be obscure; which Ausonius said of Pontius Paulinus, who had reduced three books of Suetonius on Kings into a compendium. For there are some, as Phocas the Grammarian said, who have written widely and copiously, so that sometimes the memory of the readers is confused by a superfluous abundance of narration: others, while they study brevity, have so compressed the material, which was quite diffuse, that they confer nothing of complete knowledge upon the readers through their sterile compendium. Nor, however, was he entirely satisfied with himself, since he was very often lacking the books necessary for the completion of the work he had taken in hand, which, although he had frequently sought, he could not find, whether they had been lost through the injury of time, or had been searched for too negligently by those to whom he had entrusted the business.
part of the Wolfian portion shall be from the seventh, but the third from the thirteenth book, so that we may commence the second portion of the Annals according to the author’s accepted division from book ten.
Now, indeed, what moved Wolf to gird himself to translate the Annals of Zonaras into the Latin language, he himself explains at length in the Preface, which we append here, and also in another to the History of Nicephorus Gregoras, likewise rendered by him into Latin, which indeed—as he did with Zonaras—he dedicated to Anton Fugger, a noble German. In this latter he speaks thus: "I confess, indeed, that I was incited to translate Zonaras more by the rewards proposed by you, and at that time most opportune, than by any impulse of my own; nor did I approach it so much from a desire to escape labors and troubles, to which I had even then become so accustomed that nothing was more irksome to me than idle leisure, as from a desire to enjoy my own private studies, if any leisure were given, and to quench, as it were, a long-standing thirst for varied reading." When, however, William Xylander declares nearly the same thing concerning the marked liberality and munificence of the noble Fuggers in rescuing good books from destruction, and testifies that learned men of his age were enticed by their rewards to donate to the Latin storehouse Greek writers not yet edited, it is evident from this how much the republic of letters owes to those leading men who, by proposing timely prizes, set out to aid the public utility, and stretch out a hand of their own accord to the Muses—not always wealthy, indeed very often destitute. Nor does Wolf himself disdain to acknowledge that whatever he had hitherto edited, he had done so compelled either by public utility or by his own times, and that he had not so much sought fame as he had avoided famine. But also Xylander (25) says: "Me," he says, "lest I dissimulate, poverty, as he says, incited as an audacious one to write books." John Leunclavius (26) writes that he heard him say this, namely that his Dionic lucubrations and others were extorted from him and hurried not by fame but by hunger. Nor is this complaint limited only to our own centuries, since we read (27) that Plautus, on account of the difficulty of the grain supply, hired himself out as a servant to a baker at the hand-mills, and there, as often as he was free from work, was accustomed to write and sell plays: just as they say that Pacuvius of Brundisium, a writer of tragedies, practiced painting at Rome and sold plays. And Eusebius writes that even Lactantius, a man of all-encompassing learning in his time, was so poor in this life that he often lacked even necessities. A truly unfortunate condition for men of letters, who are forced to write books so that they may not beg for bread.
We owe it, therefore, to the illustrious Fuggers that the histories of John Zonaras, George Cedrenus, Nicetas Acominatus, and Nicephorus Gregoras have been brought to the public through their care and expense, and that they have in a certain way first inspired a taste for Byzantine affairs in those devoted to letters. But no less beholden is learned posterity to the munificence of our kings, who wish to have edited daily—and with such magnificent and splendid apparatus—not only the historians of the Constantinian emperors published hitherto, but also new ones brought forth from manuscript codices from the royal and thoroughly rich library; inviting and enticing learned men, by the reward of royal prizes, to conspire together in the same purpose and contribute their studies.
Indeed, how Wolf was occupied in translating the Annals of Zonaras, and what he observed, and how many written codices he used in editing them, he explains at greater length in the aforementioned Preface to those same Annals; and how he took to himself as a helper for transcribing the work in Greek and Latin Jeremias Martius, then a youth of noble character and later a physician at Augsburg. It is worth hearing him speak of this matter in the Preface to *Nonus Medicus*, which he first edited at Strasbourg in the year 1568: "Since, therefore," he says, "I saw that it was of no small importance for one to use the best teachers as soon as possible, and I could not move elsewhere for my own studies, which I solely desired, due to the straits of my family circumstances, it happened quite conveniently that at that very time the Annals of John Zonaras and the history of Nicetas Choniates were brought to Augsburg from Constantinople, at the expense of that magnificent and generous man and patron of all students, Anton Fugger. When this most prudent man, having brought most learned men into his counsel, and especially Ludovicus Carinus—to whom he attributed much, and in whom alone he took the greatest delight of all—judged them worthy to be brought to the public, both on account of the amplitude of the matters they treated and on account of the very long series of history, deduced in elegant order from the foundation of the world, he began to think solicitously (as he was most studious of propagating them for posterity) about their translation, and began to deliberate anxiously with himself as to whom he could appoint to that task, and finally, from many, he chose one, a man most polished in all liberal learning and almost singular in both languages, Hieronymus Wolf, an ornament of your school and city, with no small hope of reward proposed to him. He undertook this labor more willingly, the more studious he was of benefiting posterity and the more eager he was to propagate the praise of the Fugger family. But when, on account of afflicted health, from which he is almost never free on account of this assiduous study in letters, as I indeed believe, he could not attend to both the translation and the writing alone, he joined me to himself as a partner in his labors—with the added authority and counsel of John Baptist Heintzelius, a man of excellent experience in handling affairs and most dear to me, from whose preaching I unwillingly depart—and he used my work in transcribing Zonaras and Choniates in Greek and Latin for over a whole year, and he did not entirely disapprove of it. For which even for this reason it should have been less burdensome to me, because Anton Fugger promised the expenses of three years, and after it was finished, he paid them most liberally, and I received so much utility from the learning and domestic association of Wolf that I should never have to repent of that labor." So far he.
while he himself, an exile and far from the city, was passing his life on a small island; from which event he acknowledges that his history of the consuls and dictators is less than complete. A Nor, further, does he add, should the reader wonder if the character of his writing, in the Annals he compiled, does not appear everywhere similar to itself, since it can hardly be otherwise for one who gathers history like alms from various writers, not to use their diction and composition in many places. Yet he accomplished this in such a way that, if he inserted anything of his own, he accommodated it as much as possible to the style of the author he was following, lest the method of the writing should seem to differ from itself throughout: while in the meantime he was writing his Annals far differently than others who had hitherto handled chronological matters—composing and narrating things as it were from his own resources, and what is worthy of the highest praise, not catching at applause by the theft of others, nor transcribing entire treatises, as Leo Allatius writes concerning Zonaras himself (11).
Yet there have been those who, with a certain censorious judgment, have carped at and even ridiculed him as less diligent, especially where he deals with Roman affairs. B "Everything," says one of these (12), "before Constantine he explained ineptly and with little diligence (I speak of Latin affairs)." But how senselessly he uttered this in his judgment is evident from the fact that by slightly fairer judges, and those well-versed in any chronological writings, that part of Zonaras's Annals which treats of Latin affairs is held in far higher esteem. For since he composed this part of history while recounting the deeds of the Romans, especially from Dio—whom he read not in a truncated state as he is edited today, but entire—and other writers who have perished by the injury of time, he commemorates things almost always new and left unmentioned by others: insomuch that in many places he is said to have transcribed Dio word for word by Guillaume Xylander, Fulvius Ursinus, Fridericus Sylburgius, and Henricus Valesius, those learned interpreters of this writer, to whom it is customary either to correct Dio himself from Zonaras or to illustrate other Roman writers; whence Theodorus Marcilius (13) calls Zonaras and Xiphilinus "digests" of Dio. And certainly, it is agreed that the same Allatius felt thus about Zonaras, "who," he says, "although he is more jejune in history after Constantine the Great, and has passed over only the obvious things, yet in those matters which before Constantine he dwells upon more diligently and copiously down to the beginnings of the world." No wonder, therefore, if he is called a historian of sincere faith by Alexander Brassicanus in his Preface to Salvianus, and a most learned man by Casaubon (14). Wolf is said to have added a note to the manuscript codex of Cedrenus, in which he observed that he treats of the same subject matter as Zonaras, but that many things are deliberately omitted by Zonaras, perhaps from a desire for brevity, but certainly things that should not have been omitted, so that, given the choice from the beginning, he would have preferred Cedrenus to Zonaras. Who, says Xylander (15), from whom these things are reported by Wolf, looked chiefly to those things which cannot be repeated from elsewhere than from him, since the two prior volumes of Zonaras are otherwise far better and more worthy of praise than those things which Cedrenus collected up to Constantine the Great. The same Wolf further writes (16) that Zonaras seems at times more prolix, as in Jewish history, at times more brief, as in the deeds of foreign nations. C In which, indeed, if any fault has been committed, he seems to have this excuse: that he did not derive what he wrote from his own invention, but reduced into a certain order things collected from various authors: which authors are most unlike each other. But that he did not pursue everything, he did this not so much from negligence as from design.
However, although Allatius says that Zonaras passes over everything obvious in what he wrote after Constantine the Great, yet Henricus Valesius, a man of exact judgment, seems to have felt far otherwise; he not only points him out more than once as a sufficiently diligent author, but also observes that in those matters especially which concern the family of the same Constantine, he is more accurate than in others, and does not say things obvious to others (17). And indeed, although in recounting the deeds of the Constantinopolitan emperors, Theophanes, Cedrenus, Scylitzes, and certain others may have been occupied with perhaps more copious published commentaries, it is agreed that it was Zonaras's primary intention not to write a fuller history as they did, but a more contracted one, and indeed a compendium, in which he might touch upon all the singular things and those which seemed of greatest importance in historical matter. From which is easily refuted what Gerard Vossius says: either that greater care and industry were required in him, or that it is especially to be wondered at that a man so experienced, especially in the affairs of his own time, speaks of most things only perfunctorily, when many and great things were done in those times, with the Eastern empire as it were clashing with the Western: insomuch that there are few things regarding which he touched upon the life of Alexius. That, I say, is not difficult to refute from the very title of the author's Annals, or from his own Preface, in which he professes himself to be writing not a history but a compendium of history; so that if he had pursued the affairs of his time in a more prolix narrative, he would be said to have observed the primary duty of a writer least of all: since, as the other Pliny says, he ought to read his own title, and repeatedly ask himself what he began to write, and know that if he dwells on the subject matter it is not long, (but) very long if he summons and draws in something else. And from this varied opinion of learned men regarding Zonaras's Annals, it is evident how unfortunate is the lot of those who undertake to write something, since they expose the fruits of their intellect to the judgments and censure of men, which are of any kind and almost always unfair.
Furthermore, in the course of his Annals, Zonaras sometimes finds occasion to carp at the customs of the Greeks of his own age, just as when he criticizes the simony of ecclesiastical men, the long-haired and curled courtiers...
A Moreover, there is no single method of description for Zonaras' Annals in the manuscript codices, nor for the arguments of the matters treated therein, which in certain of them are placed in the margins, or sometimes, when new material is begun, in the text itself as titles. And certainly, with regard to those marginal notes, they are not always the same in all copies in which they are contained, nor are they written in similar diction. Furthermore, in some they occur more frequently and densely than in others, and in others they occur at longer or shorter intervals. Finally, in other and older codices, they are almost never found. Leo Allatius writes in his *Diatriba de Georgiis*, where he deals with Cedrenus [read: Scylitza, c. 27], that there exists in the Sforza library a huge codex bearing the name of George Scylitza, although it contains only the Annals of Zonaras. But he adds that among the Palatine codices brought to Rome he had seen a history of this same Zonaras, mutilated at the beginning, starting from the monarchy of the Romans, in which, although the notes are distinct from the history, it is prefixed with *Georgiou tou Skylitzē*. This indeed differs, he says, from the published Zonaras, because it presents summaries of the chapters divided into chapters throughout. "Or," the same Allatius adds, "is the author of these summaries that Scylitzes? Or does the author of the history devise or imagine them, either through his own fraud or the carelessness of the transcribers?" From which it is entirely possible to conjecture that these topical arguments are not Zonaras' own, both from the fact that they are often read as being conceived in different words, and because, as I have touched upon, they are applied variously to the margins of the codices—elsewhere more rarely, elsewhere almost to every paragraph. How useless this is, is evident from the fact that it is far better to read what is briefly described in the context than in the arguments, since they consist of almost the same words. B Whatever they are, and of whatever kind, Hieronymus Wolf had found them in his codices and had taken care to have them edited in the inner margin of his edition, or next to the Greek column, and since they did not seem of much value, he omitted their translation, with other shorter Latin notes inscribed likewise to the other column, which would advise the reader from time to time about the subjects of the matters. Most of these we have taken care to have edited in this Royal edition, others having been rejected for certain reasons, including also that if the margins of books were darkened by such frequent arguments, the beauty and majesty of the Royal edition would be quite defaced. And that indeed was the reason why it did not seem right to reject those Greek arguments into the inner margins, as Wolf had done, both because Royal editions have not usually admitted such notes hitherto, and because they are not useless, since in place of the Latin, they effect the exact same thing. Lest, however, we seem to defraud the reader of the Greek arguments, we have reprinted them here, in some places more complete than in the manuscript codices, and arranged them according to the numbers of the books and sections, so that they may serve the purpose of an index or summary of the matters described by Zonaras in the Annals.
Furthermore, it is in the reader's interest to be informed of what has been added to this latest and truly Royal edition of the Annals of Joannes Zonaras. We have compared the Greek, especially in those places which presented some doubt, with four Royal codices and one Colbertine codex. Two of the Royal ones [1714, 11th c., and 1716, 15th c.] contain the complete Annals, except that one of these [1716] is mutilated by two leaves at the beginning; the third [1768, 14th c.] contains the second part of the Annals; the fourth [1718, 15th c.], finally, and this one written by a more recent hand, contains the same Annals from the empire of Diocletian unto Alexius. The Colbertine codex (28), of fairly good note, is also mutilated by a few pages at the beginning, and ends at the section of this edition §4 of book XII, namely in the reign of Maximinus and Licinius. C We have from time to time returned various readings excerpted from these codices into the Notes, with some which seemed beyond controversy inserted into the actual context. We have sometimes, and more rarely, amended the Latin version of Hieronymus Wolf, especially in those places where he had not entirely caught the author's intention, which we indicate almost always in the Notes; but especially in that part where Byzantine affairs are treated, we have changed some things particularly, where he seemed to have rendered the palatine or ecclesiastical dignities less harmoniously. Finally, we have appended our Annotations to the Annals, together with a Dissertation on the *Hebdomon* and a few additions to our *Constantinopolis Christiana*, concerning all of which we advise the reader at the beginning of each treatise.
Finally, we append to the Annals of Joannes Zonaras a brief Chronicle, perhaps of lighter moment, which contains a certain summary of the times from Adam down to Alexius Comnenus, which he follows; similar things are found in the manuscript codices of the Royal library, which, however, do not entirely agree everywhere in the characterization of the years with the one we are publishing, which I believe is due rather to the carelessness of the transcribers than of those by whom they were composed. That I should, however, prefer this one to others is due to the authority of Dionysius Petavius, a man most versed in chronological as in other disciplines, by whom it was first edited with the historical Breviary of the patriarch Nicephorus: which, since it had been omitted in the Royal edition of that same author, it seemed right to propose here again, especially, as I have touched upon, because it covers the same years that Zonaras covers, namely from the creation of the world up to that same Alexius.
But before an end is put to this Preface, it is worth the effort, as we promised above, to provide an index of other works of Zonaras whose memory has reached us, so that even from that the reader may realize how singular was the man's learning and piety. And that we may begin with those published, there occurs first the Commentary on the canons of the apostles and the councils (29) and on the Canonical Epistles (30), whose title
and the emperors, for casting off their ancestral dress and embracing a barbarian one. Finally, he inveighs quite severely against the Augusti themselves and their tyranny in the administration of public affairs. For, in order to maintain in some fashion the natal theme edited under Constantine the Great by the mathematician Valens regarding the duration of the city of Constantinople—lest it be considered entirely false, as he had predicted it would last 696 years—Zonaras, writing long after this time, adds that either the prediction of Valens should be considered false, or those years must be understood as the period during which the institutions of the republic and the state were preserved, while the Senate had its own honor, and while the citizens flourished under the legitimate power of the empire—not when a manifest tyranny prevailed of masters who claimed public resources for their private own, applying them to their own pleasures, and those of an unseemly sort, since they distributed public assets to whoever they wished, and treated their subjects not like a shepherd, but rather, as if shearing beyond the superfluous wool, slaughtered their sheep after the manner of robbers, and sucked them down to the very marrow.
We have inscribed a chronicle title to this history of Zonaras, just as Wolf does. For it is thus praised by Michael Glycas in his *Annals*: "Zonaras, in his chronological treatise," and in another of the Royal codices, in which only the second part is contained, these words are found on the front: "The present book is called a chronography." However, in the Viennese codex, which Wolf used, there is another title, comprised by these words: "An epitome of histories, gathered and written by the most wise monk Zonaras, who had been grand droungarios of the watch and protoasekretes." Indeed, Zonaras himself professes his desire to write an epitome of history: "For me, having compiled an epitome of history, it is not fitting to provide a work of many lines," etc.
He distributes the entire work into two parts: in the first, he comprises an epitome of the history which is commonly called sacred, from the Holy Scriptures and from the *Archaeology* of Josephus, then he touches upon the affairs of the ancient Greeks, and thereafter conducts the history of the Romans down to those times when the state had slipped into the administration of one man, or a monarchy. The second part, however, he begins from the triumvirate, and, recounting the deeds of each emperor, follows them down to the end of Alexius Comnenus, that is, to the eleventh century in which he himself lived. For he mentions not only the Emperor John Comnenus, the son of Alexius, but we also teach below that he lived while Manuel, the son of John, was reigning. Furthermore, this division of Zonaras’s *Annals* is gathered not only from the Preface itself, but especially from the words by which the prior part is closed, and thus from the inscription of another, which in written codices bears these words: "The beginning of the history of the autocrats." To which words, in one of the Royal codices, these, although in a somewhat more recent character, are prefixed: "The second and final volume of the history of Zonaras." But most especially another of the Royal codices, which comprises only the second part of the *Annals* of Zonaras, strongly supports this partition in the first lines of the context, in which the writer begins thus: "From the beginning, then, as has been related by me in the former book, regarding the kings of the Romans," etc. Where another Royal codex and the Colbertine, beyond the Wolfian edition, have only these: "From the beginning, then, as it has been related," etc. But also at the beginning of the same Royal codex, these things are read: "In the former book it contains the Hebrew history and that regarding the Roman consuls; in the latter, the history of the autocrats." Indeed, even the Wolfian codices testify that this partition of the *Annals* of Zonaras was held, which John Dernschwamus prefixed to the front of the Zonaran codex he bought in Constantinople, and which Wolf transcribed from him into his own Preface. From these it is abundantly gathered that these *Annals* had been divided into only two volumes by Zonaras, and not into three, as the same Wolf divided them: the former of which covers Jewish history from the beginning of the world until the destruction of Jerusalem; the latter comprises Roman history from the founding of the City until Constantine the Great in brief, in which, as we have said, he follows Dion, and also the interpreter of Eutropius, Paeanius, whom he frequently copies word-for-word, as observed by Scaliger. The third finally treats the deeds of the emperors from Constantine the Great until the death of Alexius Comnenus. It is nonetheless clear that Dernschwamus was mistaken when he said the former part of the *Annals* of Zonaras ended at the destruction of Jerusalem.
Although, furthermore, the division of Wolf can be tolerated in some measure, as it distinguishes sacred history from that of the Roman republic, and again the history of the pagan emperors from that of the Christian, because it is contrary to the division of Zonaras himself, we have deemed it better, following the counsel of learned men, to divide this entire work of the *Annals* into seventeen books, and the books into sections, for:
Lest the reader grow weary at holding a continuous work.
The milestones marked out seem to provide intervals for the tired, As the stone inscribed with many miles indicates,so the divisions of the books relax the mind of the reader from the assiduousness of continuous reading, when he has a place to rest as if fatigued by a long journey; especially also when they take nothing away from the author and do not break the sequence of the writing. Add that this type of partition contributes much for finding places cited from writers immediately: from which this was introduced by more learned men in all kinds of copies, which are described in a continuous series without books or without chapters. Which indeed we have done in Zonaras, so that the other...
A Finally, John Pontanus, in his Preface to the history of John Cantacuzenus, mentions the poems of John Zonaras on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, which he observes were translated into the Latin language by Genebrardus. Although I have inquired for these in almost every library with sufficient diligence, I have neither found them, nor have I been able to learn from the learned men of this city in which volume of Genebrardus they were published (34). Thus Pontanus continues: "Zonaras’s most pointed poems on the procession of the Holy Spirit, and others composed against the Latins, which Genebrardus narratres that he omitted while translating them, can testify that he was a schismatic." Allatius transcribed these very words of Pontanus in his *Creygtonum* (35).
Indeed, besides the works of John Zonaras praised above, there circulate here and there in libraries fifty-six Dogmatic Epistles, containing explanations of the more obscure places of Holy Scripture, the series and arguments of which Petrus Lambecius has described (36); some codices ascribe these to John Zonaras, others to Michael Glycas, so that up to now it remains uncertain to which they belong: although Leo Allatius seems to concede to the opinion that he attributes them to Glycas rather than to Zonaras, where he writes thus: "These and other things Michael Glycas, in a sufficiently long epistle to the monk Joannicius, etc." Casaubon also writes that he read an epistle on this same matter, printed under the name of Zonaras, but which ancient codices represent as being by Glycas (exercit. in Baronium 16, n. 49). But whose these epistles are, which appear in manuscripts under the names of Glycas and Zonaras, will be a matter for discussion elsewhere. I wish that a dissertation existed from most learned men, very experienced in the library of the ancients, on this difficulty, which might have relieved us of this investigation. B Certainly the Regius codex ascribes these to Zonaras, but it was written by a more recent hand, in the year of the world according to the Greeks 6996 (1488 A.D.), Indiction 6, with this title: *Epistolae of the lord John Zonaras, protosynkellos and droungarios of the watch.* Furthermore, this codex [n. 5015] contains only 45 epistles, the first of which is inscribed to John the Sinaite, while the penultimate, which is 38 in the Lambecian index, seems to be of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus, written, indeed, as the inscription suggests: *To the most honorable monk, the lord Alypius the recluse. If it is necessary to consider mathematical science as altogether to be deprecated. The beginning of that is: The matters of mathematics*, etc. And it ends in these words: "Therefore, learn from all these things, O holy head, that fate and birth are altogether forbidden to man, who was fashioned by God after His image, rational and possessed of free will; for we shall not agree to be subject to physical necessities. But that a certain prognostic power has been given to men, just as reason has also already shown, is not so much forbidden, for which reason we have spoken, even if we are not permitted by the holy Fathers to busy ourselves with these things, because we do not use them according to right reason." C The Antapologeticum to this epistle follows in the Regius codex and in the Lambecian Index, which ascribe it entirely to Manuel, with this title: *An antapologetic reply in part to the writing entrusted to him by our mighty and holy emperor, the lord Manuel Comnenus, sent to a certain monk who had complained not a little about him because of the study of astrology, and striving to establish such a study by physical and scriptural proofs.* Yet the beginning of it is conceived in these words: "Daring, I call to mind the letter of your majesty which has occurred and already come into our hands. And first of all, having read it, I embraced it and warmly kissed it. For what reason? Because, in truth, with a most holy and calm voice, in imitation of Him who said, 'Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart,' [Matt. xi, 29] he made the reply to that very person who so thoughtlessly cried out against your God-deprived authority. But after this, I have admired such a letter, in accordance with the harshness and rhythm of the words present in it, and the depth and density of the thoughts. Into which thoughts, and I know not how, having fallen, to be guided before being suffocated is the perfection," etc. We transcribe other things from this same epistle in our Notes to Zonaras, where we treat of the astronomer Vectius Valens, who lived during the reign of Constantine the Great. Near the end, these things are added: "I am persuaded, therefore, also of this, most powerful emperor, that that monk would never cease accusing the study, if the witnesses brought against it are to such a degree easily refuted." Finally, at the end of the Regius codex, the names of those whose authorities the author of the epistles used are described: D *The writers and fellow-witnesses of this book are: Gregory the Theologian, the Great Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, the Great Athanasius, Cyril, the Great Epiphanius, Anastasius the Sinaite, John of Damascus, Gregory the Dialogist (the Great), Andrew of Crete, Peter and Paul the apostles, Nicephorus the patriarch, with them also Moses and David, and who is the one illuminating these, and the truthful witness, the Holy Spirit.* Some of these epistles were edited by Bonaventura Vulcanius in his notes to St. Cyril *Against the Anthropomorphites*, from a codex which Georgius Douza had brought from Constantinople, transcribed by a recent and little-trusted hand, as he himself testifies, which bore the name of John Zonaras. Furthermore, these epistles are ascribed to Zonaras in the Index of Greek books from the Regius manuscript codex 2813. But the two Caesarean codices, which Lambecius praises (38), the former of which contains 50, the latter 56 epistles, present Michael Glycas as the author, with this lemma: *Of the most wise and most learned lord Michael Glycas on the difficulties of Holy Scripture.* They are also praised by Gesner under the name of Glycas, as also by Hoeschelius from the Augustan library under the same title, and by Jacobus Pontanus, who edited the first two in Latin. But also at the bottom of p. 223.
part of the Wolfian edition may begin from the seventh [book], but the third part from the thirteenth book, just as the other part of the Annals, according to the author's received division, begins from the tenth book.
Now, as to what urged Wolf to gird himself for translating the Annals of Zonaras into the Latin language, he declares it at greater length in the Preface, which we subjoin here, and also in another to the History of Nicephorus Gregoras, likewise rendered into Latin by him, which he dedicated, as he did that of Zonaras, to Anton Fugger, a noble German. In the latter he speaks as follows: "I confess indeed that I was moved to translate Zonaras more by the rewards offered to me by you, which were most opportune at that time, than that I approached it of my own will: not so much from a desire to escape labors and troubles, to which I had become so accustomed by then that nothing was more annoying to me than lazy idleness, as from a desire to enjoy my private studies, if any leisure were given, and to quench a kind of long-standing thirst for varied reading." When, however, William Xylander says nearly the same thing regarding the eminent liberality and munificence of the noble Fuggers in rescuing good books from destruction, and testifies that learned men of his age, enticed by rewards from them, were bestowing on the Latin toga Greek writers not yet edited, it is evident from this how much gratitude the world of letters owes to those noble men who, with prizes offered from time to time, propose to themselves the advancement of public utility, and willingly stretch out a hand to the Muses, who are not always wealthy, nay, very often are needy. For Wolf himself does not disdain to confess that whatever he had published up to that time, he had done so compelled either by public utility or by the times, having sought less for fame than to avoid hunger. But Xylander also says (25): "Poverty, to use a common saying, compelled me—the daring one—to write books." John Leunclavius writes that he heard him say (26) that his Dionsian lucubrations and others were extorted from him and hastened not by fame, but by hunger. Nor is this complaint peculiar to our own centuries, since we read (27) that Plautus, on account of the shortage of food, hired himself out to a baker at the hand-mills, and there, as often as he was free from work, was accustomed to write comedies and sell them: just as they say that Pacuvius, the dramatist from Brundisium, likewise practiced painting in Rome and sold his plays. And Eusebius writes that even Lactantius, a man of the greatest learning of his day, was so poor in this life that he often lacked even the necessities. A truly unfortunate condition for men of letters, who are forced to compose books so that they do not have to beg for bread. We owe it, therefore, to the illustrious Fuggers that the histories of John Zonaras, George Cedrenus, Nicetas Acominatus, and Nicephorus Gregoras appeared in public through their care and expense, and that they first in a way inspired a taste for Byzantine affairs in those devoted to literature. But the learned posterity is no less beholden to the munificence of our kings, who wish to have edited daily—and through a magnificent and splendid apparatus—not only those writers of the history of the emperors of Constantinople who have been published hitherto, but also new ones, brought out from manuscript codices from the royal and remarkably rich library; inviting and enticing learned men, by the reward of royal prizes, to conspire as one in the same design and contribute their studies.
Indeed, how Wolf went about translating the Annals of Zonaras, and what he observed and how many written codices he used in editing them, he explains at greater length in the aforementioned Preface to those same Annals; and how, in transcribing the work in Latin and Greek, he took as his assistant Jeremias Martius, then a young man of excellent character, who later became a physician in Augsburg. It is worth hearing him speak of this matter in the Preface to *Nonus Medicus*, which he was the first to edit at Strasbourg in the year 1568: "When, therefore," he says, "I saw that it was of no small importance for one to use the best instructors as soon as possible, and I could not, because of the straits of my family circumstances, go elsewhere to do what I solely desired, it happened quite conveniently that at that very time the Annals of John Zonaras and the history of Nicetas Choniates were brought to Constantinople from Augsburg, at the expense of that magnificent and generous man and patron of all students, Anton Fugger. When that most prudent man, having called to his counsel most learned men, especially Ludovicus Carinus, whom he esteemed greatly and in whom alone he took special delight, judged them worthy to come into the public eye—both because of the breadth of matters they treated and because of the very long series of history deduced in an elegant order from the creation of the world—he began to deliberate carefully with himself (as he was most eager for the advancement of posterity) about their translation, and about whom he could set over that task, and finally, from many, he chose one, a man most polished in every liberal learning and almost unique in both languages, Hieronymus Wolf, an ornament of your school and city, having offered an expectation of no small reward. He undertook this labor all the more willingly, the more he was eager to help posterity and desirous of propagating the praise of the Fugger family. But since, on account of a failing state of health, from which he was almost never free because of his assiduous study of letters (as I at least believe), he could not devote himself alone to both translating and writing, he attached me to himself as a partner in his labors, with the authority and counsel of Joannes Baptista Heintzelius, a man preeminent in the experience of handling affairs and most dear to me, from whose proclamation I unwillingly depart, and he used my work in transcribing Zonaras and Choniates in Greek and Latin for more than a whole year, and he did not entirely disapprove of it. And that he should have been the less burdensome to me because of this [fact]—that Anton Fugger promised the expenses for three years, and once they were ended, most liberally fulfilled them—I, for my part, received so much utility from the learning and domestic association of Wolf that I should never have reason to repent of that labor." So far he.
as much as has been granted to our mortality, up to this age, to be ignorant of it is most shameful. For if, as Cicero says, this is the greatest difference between man and beast, that the latter is moved only by what it senses, and accommodates itself only to what is present and at hand, sensing very little of the past or future, while man, since he is a participant in reason, perceives consequences, sees the principles and causes of things, and is not ignorant of their progress and, as it were, their antecedents, compares similarities, and adds and joins future things to present ones, easily viewing the whole course of life and preparing the things necessary for living it—then one who does not progress beyond his own age in memory and thought is hardly worthy of the name of man. And A the foreknowledge of future things, if such there be, is believed to be a divine gift rather than a product of human wit: although there are not wanting those who, impelled by nature, or aided by art, or taught by the practice of affairs, predict things that are to come long after. This faculty would indeed reach further and be much more illustrious if these three things were joined in one man: yet ignorance of the past, in a man even moderately schooled in letters, has hardly any excuse. For we cannot complain here, as we might in the former case, of the difficulty of the subject or the weakness of our nature, but rather it is supine negligence, or superfluous occupation, or an empty pursuit of pleasure that bears all the blame. For who among all mortals is so overwhelmed with business that, if he were a frugal and prudent dispenser of his most precious and irreparable treasure of time, he could not daily spend one or two hours in reading and meditating without any harm to his health and the conduct of his affairs? We see, indeed, on what trifles—not to say anything harsher—the time of most people is wasted, which would be far more rightly devoted to the study of wisdom. Nor does the most grave man Seneca exclaim without reason that a great part of life slips away from those who do nothing, a larger part from those who do wrong, and the whole of it from those who are busy with other things, and that as a result we become ignorant of necessary things because we have learned those that are superfluous. By "superfluous," moreover, he B understands an immoderate desire for pleasures, honors, power, and money, while the "necessary" is philosophy, that is, the knowledge of human and divine things: if this were possessed in perfection by any mortal, there is no doubt that the eyes and minds of all would be turned toward him alone as toward a certain god. Now, because many bandy about the empty name, but very few are as the right reason demands, it happens that the thing itself is not commonly understood, and the name is held in equal hatred and ridicule. And I do not know how rightly so. For neither is a discipline or a way of life justly discredited because of the ignorance or perversity of men: and those who judge so severely would not even approve of themselves, unless they were afflicted by an error of mind. For they are men like others, and subject to the same passions: and it is not very generous to attack one or two flaws while dissembling the virtues, among which, in philosophers, not the least is the desire to seek the truth and to moderate the passions, so that they may be constrained within the limits of nature, and to produce as many as possible by their own best efforts. But to demand that they cast themselves below all the lowest of men, and live in extreme filth after the manner of the Cynics, is a sign of immense ignorance and pride. But I return to history, which, since it is a somewhat coarser type of philosophy, and instructs civil and private life by examples rather than by abstract reasoning, C there is no doubt that it has great utility conjoined with the highest delight. Regarding what is mainly to be observed in it, Livy wisely warns in these words: "Let each one intently apply his mind to these things: what kind of life, what kind of morals they were, through what men, and by what arts, both at home and in war, the empire was acquired and increased. Then, as discipline gradually failed, let him follow in his mind how morals first dissented, then, as they slipped more and more, how they then began to plunge headlong, until this time was reached, in which we can endure neither our vices nor their remedies. This is what is especially healthy and fruitful in the knowledge of things: to see the evidence of every example placed upon a conspicuous monument: from thence you may take for yourself and your state what to imitate, and from thence what to avoid (i.e., what is foul in its inception and foul in its outcome)." So far he. But also Cicero, beyond the fact that he says "to be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be always a child," adorns history with great praises, when he calls it the witness of times, the light of truth, the life of memory, the mistress of life, and the messenger of antiquity. While I do not deny that these things are true (for the fabulous accounts of some cannot corrupt the thing itself), yet, if we evaluate the plans, acts, and events of all ages for the most part, what is history other than some vast sea, or rather a miserable shipwreck of human folly, D wickedness, and misery, and a mirror of private and political life far more illustrious than any comedy or tragedy? This thought has constantly occupied my senses and mind in the working out of this work. For whether sacred or profane, whether new or ancient things came to mind, whether Hebrew or Greek matters were treated, I saw the same cabbage being served again, the same canticle being sung: all things full of errors, crimes, frauds, lies, deceits, hardships, dissensions, murders, and destructions. So that the thing itself abundantly teaches that the human intellect has been depraved from its very birth, and that the divine curse-laden sentence was not in vain, since everywhere the sweat of the brow, everywhere thorns and thistles, everywhere the snares of the serpent appear. The good and simple are few: and if there are any, they sometimes fall into crime through imprudence, sometimes are corrupted by evil examples, and sometimes are oppressed by the greatest number of the wicked and crafty. And although to the nature of men two distinguished gifts, the faculty of reason and of speech, have been divinely granted, which were to be used for contemplating and celebrating the Maker of this universe and for preserving and aiding the community of men among themselves, we see them turned by most people to almost no other use than to deceive and harm more easily, and to cause devastation. Is not life for the most part lived in such a way that, just as wild beasts in solitude and forests, fishes in the flood [index: entries preserved]
A
Moreover, there is not one single method of description in the manuscript codices of Zonaras' *Annals*, at least if one considers the arguments of the matters treated therein, which in some of them are placed in the margins, or sometimes, when new material is begun, as titles in the very context itself. And surely, regarding those marginal notes, they are not always the same in all the exemplars in which they are found, nor are they written in similar diction. Furthermore, in some codices, they occur more frequently and copiously than in others, while in some they occur at longer or shorter intervals. Finally, in other and older codices, they are almost never present at all.
Leo Allatius writes in his *Diatriba de Georgiis*, where he discusses Cedrenus [read Scylitza, ch. 27], that there exists in the Sforza library a large codex bearing the name of George Scylitza, although it contains only the *Annals* of Zonaras. But he adds that among the Palatine codices brought to Rome, he had seen a history of the same Zonaras that was mutilated at the beginning, starting from the monarchy of the Romans, in which, although there were notes distinct from the history, the name of George Scylitza was prefixed. B This, he says, differs from the published Zonaras, because it exhibits summaries of the chapters divided into sections throughout. "But of these summaries," the same Allatius adds, "is this Scylitza the author? Or does the author of the history invent or feign them, whether through his own fraud or the negligence of the scribes?" Whence it is entirely permissible to conjecture that these arguments of matters are not by Zonaras himself, both because they are often read as conceived in different words, and because, as I have touched upon, they are attached variously to the margins of the codices—elsewhere, indeed, more rarely, and elsewhere attached to almost every period. How useless this is, is evident from the fact that it is far better to read what is briefly described in the context than in the arguments, since they always consist of almost the same words.
Such as they were and in whatever manner Hieronymus Wolf had found them in his own codices, he caused them to be edited in the inner margin of his edition or next to the Greek column; and since they did not seem of such great importance, he omitted their interpretation, with other shorter Latin notes inscribed likewise in the other column, which would from time to time admonish the reader about the arguments of the matters. We have included most of these in this Royal edition, having rejected others for certain reasons, and also so that, if the margins of the books were darkened by such frequent arguments, the beauty and majesty of the Royal edition might not be defiled. C And indeed, this was the reason why it did not seem advisable to relegate those Greek arguments to the inner margins, as Wolf had done: both because those in the Royal editions have generally not admitted such notes heretofore, and because they are not useless—for when placed appropriately, they perform exactly the same function as the Latin. Nevertheless, so that we may not seem to defraud the reader of the Greek arguments, we have reprinted them here, in some places more complete than in the manuscript codices, and arranged according to the numbers of the books and sections, so that they may serve as indices or summaries of the matters described by Zonaras in the *Annals*.
Furthermore, it is in the reader's interest that I disclose what has been added to this latest and strictly Royal edition of the *Annals* of Joannes Zonaras. We have compared the Greek, especially in those places which presented some doubt, with four Royal codices and one Colbertine codex. Two of the Royal ones [1714, 12th cent., and 1716, 15th cent.] contain the complete *Annals*, except that one of these [1716] is mutilated by two leaves at the beginning; a third [1718, 14th cent.] contains the second part of the *Annals*; the fourth [1718, 15th cent.], finally, and it is written in a more recent hand, contains the same *Annals* from the reign of Diocletian to Alexius. The Colbertine codex (28), of sufficiently good note and also mutilated at the beginning by a few pages, ends at section 54 of book XII of this edition, namely, at the reign of Maximianus and Licinius. D We have from time to time recorded various readings excerpted from these codices in the Notes, with some which seemed beyond controversy inserted into the context itself. We have occasionally and less frequently corrected the Latin version of Hieronymus Wolf, especially in those places where he had not entirely grasped the author's meaning—which we almost always indicate in the Notes; but we have changed mainly that part where Byzantine affairs are treated, where he seemed to have rendered the palatine or ecclesiastical dignities less fittingly. Finally, we have subjoined our Annotations to the *Annals*, along with a *Dissertation on the Hebdomon* and some additions to our *Christian Constantinople*, regarding all of which we warn the reader at the beginning of each study.
Finally, we subjoin to the *Annals* of Joannes Zonaras a short *Chronicon*, though perhaps of lesser weight, which contains a certain summary of the times from Adam to Alexius Comnenus, which he treats; some things of this kind are found in the handwritten codices of the Royal library, which, however, do not entirely agree everywhere in the characterization of the years with that which we are editing—owing, I believe, more to the negligence of the scribes than of those by whom they were composed. Yet, in choosing to prefer this one to the others, I was influenced by the authority of Dionysius Petavius, a man most versed in chronological as in other disciplines, by whom it was first edited along with the *Historical Breviary* of the patriarch Nicephorus: which, since it was omitted in the Royal edition of the same writer, it seemed good to propose here again, especially because, as we have mentioned, it covers the same years as Zonaras, namely from the creation of the world down to the same Alexius.
But before an end is imposed on this Preface, it is fitting that we subjoin, as we promised above, an index of the other works of Zonaras whose memory has reached us, so that even from that the reader may realize how singular was the man's learning and piety. And so that we may begin from those already published: there occurs first the *Commentary on the Canons of the Apostles and the Councils* (29) and on the *Canonical Epistles* (30), whose title...
(whose, for instance, can satisfy everyone?), yet his effort is A excellent and his design praiseworthy, of establishing a sort of systematic discipline of history, and of bringing together its scattered members and parts from very many volumes into one single body, having employed such moderation that, like a tasteful rather than an extravagant host, he served up the best rather than the most, and did not dismiss his guests with disgust, but left them so affected that, as they say Timotheus remarked of Plato, his feasts might provide delight even on the following day. For he did not choose for himself the histories of all nations, but only those of the principal ones, nor even all of those, but only the most important ones or those which seemed likely to contribute to an understanding of the sequence of the Church, according to his own judgment and plan. Whether this satisfied or did not satisfy everyone, he will have this in common with many, and that with very few writers, if indeed with any at all. Yet I am in good hope that there will be more who will eagerly accept and read this work with grateful minds than there will be of those who will despise or slander it. But whose, among men or gods, can escape the complaints and stings of the morose and the detractors? To whom B nothing pleases, unless it is what they themselves have done: and not even they themselves are everywhere pleased with their own work, otherwise they would not approve and disapprove of different things at different times. I do not deny that Zonaras may appear more prolix in other places, as in Jewish history, and more brief in the events of foreign nations. In which, if any fault has been committed, he seems to have this excuse: that he did not derive what he wrote from his own invention, but gathered it from various authors and brought it into a certain order; which authors are very different from one another. But as for the fact that he did not pursue everything, perhaps he did so not out of negligence but by design. For to describe the deeds of all nations and cities is an immense and indeed an infinite task, to say nothing of the fact that it is not always fruitful. And I am near saying that, in such vastness of the globe, it is no more useful or necessary than if one were to strive to learn the actions of all the houses in a very large city. To be ignorant of notable, rare, and exquisite things that in some part involve us is shameful: to pursue every single thing is a matter of curiosity rather than erudition. If geographers, who profess to hold the shape of the whole earth in their minds, are permitted to be ignorant of many great parts of the globe, why should the same not be granted with indulgence in history as well? Now, as far as the elocution is concerned, speeches, stratagems, counsels, and events recur in almost the same way everywhere. For who does not know that neighboring peoples usually contend over boundaries, that there are certain causes or pretexts for wars and sudden occasions, and different counsels, opinions, and outcomes? As that author says, and in another place: The reheated cabbage kills the wretched teachers, Whatever men do, prayer, fear, anger, pleasure, Joys, the farrago of our little book. Since these things are so, and since, as the Philosopher is witness, individual things are infinite and cannot be enclosed in any limits of science, it is enough to know the principal things among them (I speak of men who are occupied) and to grasp the order of times and deeds in the mind. To which matter our Zonaras will bring no small amount of help, having begun from the foundation of the world and proceeded down to his own age, that is, for more than 400 years from then. In which he was obliged to repeat the first cradle, so to speak, of historical events from Sacred Letters, Josephus, and other ancient writers. Which to us, if Moses had not existed, would be entirely unknown: whom our religion teaches us to believe as if divinely instructed, although philosophy opposes it. Be that as it may, we have no C author more ancient or more certain than him. For Jewish history is as it were the foundation or principle of all others: and the destiny of that people is quite wondrous, such that having wandered through almost the entire globe, amidst the highest hatreds and oppositions of foreign nations, it has yet defended its own opinions with a marvelous persistence or constancy, and defends them even today, and has drawn many into its own opinion. Nothing of the sort is seen in other peoples: whose histories are touched upon only incidentally, with the oracles of Daniel and other prophets even being inserted and explained, as for instance the Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman. Although he dedicated a special volume to these, which I have distinguished into two parts, and separated the Christian emperors from the pagan ones, so that the whole work might be tripartite. Thus far concerning its subject matter. Now something must also be said about the author’s style, who, since it is not of one kind and form, but varies according to the variety of the authors from whom these things were taken, and he himself also varies, especially in the last volume, in which age the Greek language as well as the Latin degenerated, learned men will desire something, and I myself have desired something: first, the parsimony of the Demosthenic oratory, which was far more pleasing to my palate and not only more pleasant but also easier to translate: although to others it may seem difficult, and superior to my own insignificance. For in this author there are many, or at least they seem so to me, D *perissologiai*, which, while they may become the Greek style often wantonly playing with its own special genius, were, if I am not much mistaken, going to be troublesome to much more severe Latin ears. And for that reason, where it could be done without detriment to the sentence, they have been omitted by me in some places. And since I have done this not so much by my own will as at the advice of most learned men, Joachim Camerarius and Ludovicus Carinus, I trust I shall easily be approved by learned men. But the judgments of the ignorant and of detractors, which are either none at all or perverse, I despise, nor do I value them more than the bite of a flea on an Indian elephant. For smiths must handle smith’s work, nor should sickles be rashly thrust into another’s harvest. To everyone is granted a provocation from envy and ignorance to equity and erudition. I claim the same right for myself, where it seemed either fitting or necessary, and I have not infrequently permitted myself in dialogues to reduce them to continuous narrative, so that proper names and certain pronouns and the verb "he says" and other such things would not have to be inculcated to the point of nausea. For who would not prefer
is conceived as follows in the Royal manuscripts: *Explanation of the holy and divine canons of the holy and venerable apostles and of the holy ecumenical councils, as well as of the other holy Fathers, composed by John the monk, Zonaras, who was grand droungarios of the watch and protoasecretis*. Furthermore, in the Preface to this work, he says that he undertook it not of his own accord but at the persuasion of another, perhaps the Emperor Manuel Comnenus, as we shall say below: *Let no one censure me for rashness; for I do not approach this work of my own volition, but being requested, I have submitted and have given myself to the labor so that I might not be condemned for disobedience.*
*A Discourse against those who deem the natural emission of the semen a defilement.* It is published in the *Jus Graeco-Romanum* [tom. I, p. 351–361 and in Enimundus Bonefidius’ *Jus Orientale*, p. 11, p. 216, 237.]
*John the monk, Zonaras, on behalf of the high priests, concerning the fact that two first cousins should not be joined in marriage* (51). Edited by the learned John Baptista Cotelerius, tom. II [p. 883] of his *Monumenta Ecclesiastica Graeca*.
It is praised by Petrus Lambecius in book III of the *Bibliotheca Caesarea*, page 39, along with a *Commentary on the Resurrection Canons of St. John Damascene* by the same Zonaras and Nicetas of Thessalonica, under this title: *Exposition of the resurrection canons of the Damascene, by John the ascetic, Zonaras, who was grand droungarios of the watch and protoasecretis*, the beginning of which is conceived in these words: *Since the present work is an interpretation of the canons, it is necessary for us to philosophize also about the name of the 'canon' itself, and the designation of the irmos and the ode, and furthermore even of the troparion (for from these the canon is fashioned).* But the title of the latter exposition is: *This explanation of the resurrection canons of the first and second, as far as the 6th ode, was made by the most holy metropolitan of Thessalonica, the lord Nicetas, from Zonaras himself*, etc. Zonaras on the resurrection canons of Damascene is likewise praised by Allatius in his *Syntagma on the writings of the Georgians*, page 417, from which Jacob Gretzer published some fragments at the beginning of book V of his *De sancta cruce*: and a most beautiful *Exposition on the Octateuch* of the same John Damascene [is praised] by the same Allatius in his *Symmikta*, page 453.
There is preserved in the Royal Library: *Canon to the most holy Theotokos, by John the monk and protoasecretis Zonaras, the acrostic of which is: THE LAST TONE WEAVES THE LAST MELODY* [published in Jo. Bapt. Cotelerius’ *Ecclesia Graeca Monumenta*, tom. III, p. 465-472]. Subjoined to this are the *twelve katabasiai verses of Nicephorus, patrician and anthypatos of Mitylene, according to the number of the 12 months. Month of September*, etc.
Furthermore, four short works of Zonaras are praised by Leo Allatius in his *Diatribe on the Simeons*, namely: *A Discourse on the Veneration of the Cross*, beginning: *Someone put a question to me regarding matters of the spirit. But since even while being sober...* *Life of St. Silvester*, beginning: *The venerable and God-seeing apostles.* This is therefore a different Life of the same St. Silvester from that edited by Combefis, the beginning of which is conceived differently. *Commentary on the Meeting of the Lord (Hypapante)*, beginning: *Again a festival for the pious, and again another mystery.* Finally, *On Sophronius of Jerusalem*, beginning: *Those who compose encomia for the divine and blessed Fathers.*
There is also praised by Lambecius, book V *De bibl. Caesar.*, page 150, another short work of Zonaras, under this title: *On the Dormition of the most holy Theotokos, from the letter of John Zonaras: That even the just are often, when they depart from these things, granted visions of the saints and are made hearers of divine hymns in the heavens*, etc. But this letter is among those which also circulate under the name of Glycas; of which we shall speak shortly.
The same Lambecius writes in book IV that there are preserved in the same Caesarean library the *Paraphrases* of some anonymous author on the 33 poems of St. Gregory Nazianzen, concerning whose author it is not yet clear, says the same Lambecius, unless they are by Nicetas David of Paphlagonia, whom David Hoeschelius calls the bishop of Dadybra (52), whose *Commentary on the Tetrasticha and Monosticha of St. Gregory Nazianzen* translated into Latin was published by Hercules Phaellus in the year 1588. B Or rather [they are by] John Zonaras, who not only illuminated the *Tetrasticha* of St. Gregory Nazianzen with his commentaries and paraphrases, but also many other ancient monuments, partly of the same kind and partly of a different kind. See page 39 and 247 of the same book IV (33).
Furthermore, the *Lexicon* of the same Zonaras is praised, of which Joseph Scaliger speaks thus in a letter to Isaac Casaubon, which is number 48 among the published Scaligeriana: *"I also seem to myself not unprofitably to handle the Lexicon of Zonaras, which is in the books of your father-in-law (Henrici Stephani), if a brief usage of it should fall to me by myself and through your relative Paul Stephanus."* [Edited by I. A. H. Tittmann, Leipzig 1808, 2 vols. in-4, but I very much doubt the authorship.]
(31) From the Royal codex 2058. (32) In the *Bibliotheca Augustana*, p. 46. (33) The *Prooimion of the Commentary on St. Gregory Nazianzen’s Tetrasticha* is edited in the book inscribed: *INTERPRETATION BY NICETAS THE PHILOSOPHER, WHO IS ALSO DAVID, OF THE TETRASTICHA OF THE GREAT FATHER GREGORY NAZIANZEN. THE SAME’S INTERPRETATION OF THE MONOSTICHA. THE SAME’S PARAPHRASE OF THE EPIGRAMS ON THE GREAT BASIL. EPIGRAMS OF JOHN THE GEOMETER*, Venice, printing of Franc. Zamelus 1565, in-4.
A to return to the stone quarries with Aristoxenus than to hear the same cuckoo song so many times? For just as the Greeks, whether because of the many short and convenient connecting particles, or because of the multitude of participles which have a past-tense signification, or even for other reasons which it would be tedious to pursue here, are less averse to tautologies and perissologies, and pursue everything more minutely and curiously, so also he who wishes to imitate the same thing among the Latins, would he not fall into dreadful and inept verbosity? Those, therefore, who accuse an interpreter of such intricacies of either negligence or bad faith, while he avoids them without any detriment to the meaning, reveal their own ignorance and lack of judgment, or a sickness of mind and a desire to malign for no reason at all. Nor, however, have I indulged myself too greatly. For what Plato says, that he who responds in a debate must follow the footsteps of the questioner, I have considered should be done even more by an interpreter of a foreign language. But if the writer whom you have undertaken to explain has followed a straight path—that is, if he has combined the excellence of the subject matter with elegance of diction—the interpreter receives less labor and more praise; if, however, his speech is thorny and contains matters of no great importance, the interpreter is also compelled to suffer the punishment for another's fault. For, as Sophocles affirms in a different sense, there can be no beautiful commemoration of evil things, and it is scarcely granted to change their order and arrangement. Therefore, although the Latin speech of the interpreter may be pure, the composition itself sounds somewhat B horrid and harsh, with its limbs and parts cohering little better than sand without lime. Those who wish to escape these faults usually fall into another that is more serious, in that while they strive intensely to polish and adorn their speech, they wander far from the author's meaning and bind themselves with the very grave crime of perfidy. Having acutely perceived these difficulties, that man of supreme genius and learning, Joannes Jovianus Pontanus, wrote excellently that he would prefer that everyone bring his own things rather than offer those of others; and what he wrote, he himself did in explaining the doctrine of morals and celestial matters, having taken material from philosophers and astrologers, which he could arrange and adorn at his own discretion. But I, impeded both by the slenderness of my talent and by other inconveniences, am neither able nor would I dare to imitate the example of such a great man, especially in this genre of writing. It was enough for me to weigh the sentiments in good faith and to use diction that was as little harsh or barbaric as the author himself and the poverty of my own speech would allow. And yet, I have not satisfied myself everywhere, and I have counted it as part of my misfortune that I have not chanced upon a more brilliant author. Not that I would find fault with him; but I fear that I myself might be reproached by others, who seek nothing but a flower of diction, which surely has no place in the brevity of annals. Do you seek the richness of Livy? Then the wealth of speech will be combined with a poverty of facts. Do you demand diligence in pursuing every most minute detail? But then the history will grow to an immense volume, and it will no longer be a compendium, but a waste or rather a theft. For whoever is delighted by the prolixity of volumes should read histories, not epitomes. If he remembers them all, it is well; if not, let him use Zonaras as an index and guide; and let him consider that nothing is entirely blessed in every respect, and let him weigh the knowledge of a multitude of various things in one volume, not all that large, against the inconveniences of style, if there are any. This reason also moved me, so that I would not rest before this stone, which I have rolled for this whole year, had finally reached the summit of the mountain and come to a halt, with great labor indeed and many sweats, whatever the final outcome might be. For, to pass over the miseries of the translation itself, how much difficulty there was in the reading strictly due to those characters—elegant indeed, but very difficult to read because of those affected scribal abbreviations and the C study of calligraphy, from which sprout infinite errors due to the easy mutation of signs: these, while they are not dissimilar in some places, have a most diverse force. Whence it happened that, just as Plutarch professes to have acquired Latin words from his knowledge of things, so I have often been forced to divine variations of an edition from the sense and construction, a method clearly backwards. For words are and have been invented as marks of things, and letters as marks of words. Nor yet could I have extricated myself everywhere by this skill, had not more codices been furnished to me. Three of these I received from your library, acquired at great expense in Constantinople through the work and industry of that outstanding man, who, through his prudence and long travels—distinguished by that much usage of things, in the manner of Ulysses—was Joannis Dernschwam, who wrote these words on the front of that most ancient codex: "The Chronicle of Joannis Zonaras, divided into two volumes, the first of which encompasses Jewish history, mainly from the beginning of the world to the destruction of Jerusalem, the other the deeds of the emperors, both Greeks and Romans, up to the death of Alexios Komnenos: in the year of our Lord 1554, in Constantinople at Pera or Galata (which they think was once called Kerai or the Horn), I bought it for 150 Hungarian ducats from the magnificent lord Antonio Cantacuzeno, whose family, while the Byzantine state stood, was imperial, [but] now under the Turkish dominion has been reduced to a private condition: and by him I was requested that this work should one day be printed, and that a copy of the printed codex should be made for him for the sake of preserving Zonaras. Furthermore, I purchased the second volume of Zonaras concerning the emperors for the sake of comparison from Alexander the chartophylax for thirty Hungarian ducats. Likewise, I had another small book of Zonaras concerning the affairs of the empire and the Church from Constantine up to the emperor Justinian transcribed from an ancient codex." Thus far he. The fourth codex, which began from Constantine the Great, was provided by the most amply stocked library of that most distinguished man, my lord and patron, Joannes Jacobus Fugger, with all its ornaments. Finally, beyond all my hope and expectation, there arrived the complete codex from the Viennese library, provided spontaneously through the singular kindness of that most renowned man and royal senator, the lord Gaspar a Nydprug, etc.: which, in its entirety, with the help of Jeremias Martius, a youth of excellent character (whose skillful and faithful help I have used in transcribing this work, both in Greek and Latin), I collated and corrected many lacunae in our codex. And if in any place both together did not satisfy, the others...
A Finally, Joannes Pontanus, in his Preface to the history of Joannes Cantacuzenus, makes note of poems by Joannes Zonaras concerning the Procession of the Holy Spirit, which he observes were translated into the Latin tongue by Genebrardus. Although I have sought them with sufficient diligence in almost all libraries, I have found neither them nor been able to learn from the learned men of this city where and in which volume of Genebrardus they were published (34). Further, Pontanus says: "That Zonaras was a schismatic can be testified to by his very sharp poems on the procession of the Holy Spirit, and others composed against the Latins, which poems Genebrardus, while translating them, narrates that he omitted those accusations." These very words of Pontanus were transcribed by Allatius in *Creygtonum* (35).
B Indeed, besides the above-praised works of Joannes Zonaras, there circulate everywhere in libraries 56 dogmatic epistles containing an explanation of the more obscure passages of Sacred Scripture, the series and arguments of which Petrus Lambecius has described (36); some codices ascribe these indeed to Joannes Zonaras, others to Michael Glycas, so that hitherto it remains uncertain to which they belong: although Leo Allatius seems to concede to the opinion (37) of attributing them to Glycas rather than to Zonaras, where he writes thus: "These and others Michael Glycas, in an epistle sufficiently prolix to Joannes the monk, etc." Casaubon also writes in his *Exercitationes in Baronium* (16, n. 49) that he had read an epistle of his on this same matter, but published under the name of Zonaras, which ancient codices represent as being by Glycas. To whom, indeed, those epistles which appear in manuscripts under the name of Glycas and the name of Zonaras belong, will be the subject of another discourse. Would that a dissertation existed on this difficulty by most learned men, and ones most skilled in the library of the ancients, which might have relieved us of this investigation.
C Certainly, the Royal codex ascribes these to Zonaras, but it is written by a more recent hand, namely in the year of the world according to the Greeks 6996 (Christ of 1488), Indiction 6, with this title: *Epistles of the lord Joannes Zonaras, also Protosynkrites and Droungarios of the Watch*. Moreover, this codex [n. 5015] contains only 45 epistles, the first of which is inscribed to Joannes the Sinaite; the penultimate one, however, which is 38 in the Lambecian index, seems to be that of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus, written, namely, as the inscription declares: *To the most honorable monk, the lord Alypios the Recluse: If one ought to hold mathematical science to be entirely adverse*. The beginning of it is: "The matters of mathematics," etc. And it ends in these words: "From all these things, therefore, learn, O holy head, that fate and birth are utterly forbidden, for God formed man rational and possessing free will according to His image; for we shall not agree to be subject to natural necessities; but that a certain prognostic power has been granted to men, as the discourse has already indicated—not so much [is this the case] for the reason we have spoken, even if we are not permitted by the holy Fathers to busy ourselves with these things, because we do not employ them according to right reason."
D An *Antapologeticum* of this epistle follows in the Royal codex and in the Lambecian Index, which ascribe this entirely to Manuel, with this title: *An Antapologetic response in part to the writing entrusted to him by our mighty and holy lord Emperor Manuel Comnenus, which was released to a certain monk who had found not a little fault with him regarding the study of astrology, and who was contending to establish such a study by means of natural and scriptural proofs*. Indeed, the beginning of it is conceived in these words: "I dare to recall the letter of your majesty which has already come into our hands. And at first, having read it, I embraced it and kissed it warmly. For what reason? Because with a truly all-holy and calm voice, in imitation of Him who said, 'Learn from me, for I am meek and humble in heart,' he made to that very person the response, the one who so thoughtlessly cried out against your God-deprived power. But after this, I admired that letter for the roughness and rhythm of its words, and for the depth and density of its thoughts. Into which thoughts, and I know not how, having fallen, it was to be handed over before being throttled to perfection," etc. We transcribe other parts of this same epistle in our *Notes on Zonaras*, where we discuss the astronomer Vectius Valens, who lived during the reign of Constantine the Great. At the end, however, these things are added: "I am persuaded, therefore, also of this, O mighty Emperor, that that monk would never cease accusing the study, if the witnesses brought against it are to such an extent easily refuted." At the end finally of the Royal codex are described the names of those whose authorities were used by the writer of the epistles: *The writers and co-witnesses of the book are: Gregory the Theologian, the great Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Joannes Chrysostom, the great Athanasius, Cyril, the great Epiphanius, Anastasius the Sinaite, Joannes Damascenus, Gregory the Dialogist, Andrew of Crete, Peter and Paul the apostles, Nicephorus the patriarch, with these also Moses and David, and who is the one enlightening these and the truthful witness, the Holy Spirit*. Bonaventura Vulcanius published some of these epistles in his notes on St. Cyril *Against the Anthropomorphites*, from a codex which Georgius Douza had brought from Constantinople, transcribed by a recent and little-trusted hand, as he himself testifies, which bore the name of Joannes Zonaras. Furthermore, these epistles are ascribed to Zonaras in the Index of Greek books from the Royal manuscript codex 2813. Truly, two Imperial codices, which Lambecius praises (38), the former of which contains 50 epistles, the latter 56, prefer Michael Glycas as the author, with this lemma: *Of the most wise and most learned lord Michael Glycas on the questions of Divine Scripture*. They are also praised by Gesner under the name of Glycas, as well as by Heschelius from the Augsburg library under the same title, and by Jacobus Pontanus, who published the first two in Latin. But also at the end of
A some might say, the ether—and were composed for ostentation, to demonstrate the skill these men possessed in writing. For this reason, they interspersed their work with public speeches, and used a style that was more digressive or even more rhetorical. With some, ambition even culminated in dialogue; so that when they wrote about certain people who held errant and heterodox opinions concerning right dogma, they would enter into B discourse with them as though they were present, refuting their evil doctrines and bringing forward charges from Holy Scripture, or arguing against the Jews and showing them to be willfully malicious if they did not accept our mystery, using prophetic testimonies. Again, they would stand against the Hellenes, bringing their own contests into the middle, mocking their myths, and producing their own writings to refute their error. It is thus also a matter of uttering maxims and moralizing.
These things, most of those who read these historical writings—not to say all C perhaps—considered tiresome and superfluous, as they require much leisure; and even if some of those who undertake to read history have that leisure, it turns out to be a vain effort to spend time on these long narratives concerning battle arrays, wars, the ordering of armies, and other such things that usually escape the memory. As for the public speeches and discussions, they are of no use to those who come to the matters being recounted. For what benefit, they said, will anyone gain from knowing what a demagogue D said to the people? Or a general to the soldiers? Or what that emperor said to the envoys of the Persians, or another to those of the Celts, or Scythians, or perhaps those from Egypt, or those from the Daci and Triballi? Or what someone else spoke before the senate, or what another addressed to the common crowd? They said that such historical writings, having been expanded, looked toward vainglory. On the other hand, others were opposed to these, complaining that those who wrote history with brevity defrauded the reader of the knowledge of necessary things: sometimes omitting, or at least only briefly touching upon, the deeds of outstanding men, which deserved to be celebrated with divine praises; nor did they declare what their character, their nature, or their purpose was, nor how each of those who ruled attained the kingdom, nor who he was before that, nor from what ancestors he sprang. They added that some of these writings were far too unadorned and sometimes consisted of barbaric dictation, with rough composition and plebeian words; whence it happened that learned men shrank from reading them.
Often, therefore, by saying these things and finding fault with the historical writings in this way, they urged me to take the books into my hands and to omit both those things which, because of their length, the memory could not contain, and those which had no utility; and, having reduced the long narrative into a compendium, to produce a brief history, [one] which [might convey] facts and things more worthy of remembrance than
PREFACE
of the later Caesarean codex these things are written: "This book belongs to Michael Glycas." But Allatius indiscriminately praises these epistles under the name of Zonaras or Glycas, lib. II, *De consensu utriusque Ecclesiae*, cap. 18, n. 17; lib. III, cap. 15, n. 8, cap. 16, n. 24; cap. 18, n. 8, and against Creygton A (39). In which places, indeed, he transcribed certain of them in their entirety, so that, when he was writing, it was not altogether held by him as beyond doubt to whom they belonged. It is certain, however, that their author lived under Manuel Comnenus, both from the *Antapologeticus* which we have mentioned, and from the principal men of the Constantinopolitan court to whom several are inscribed—among them John Ducas, grand hetairiarch and sebast, whose mention occurs above others, to pass over the rest, in Nicetas (40), and Manuel Comnenus the sebastocrator, who is none other than he whom Cinnamus also remembers (41).
But when Glycas lived, it is not easy to gather from his History; although we gather that he was later than Zonaras, or certainly wrote after Zonaras, from the fact that he praises his *Annals* more than once (42). Whence it is not lacking that some conjecture he was much later. Nor, indeed, can the age of John Zonaras be clearly discerned from his *Annals* or from other works published to date, except that he himself appears to indicate that he prolonged his life after the reign of John Comnenus, and thus lived while Manuel was emperor, by whom, I think, he and Theodore Balsamon—then nomophylax and chartophylax of the Great Church of Constantinople, later Patriarch of Antioch—were chosen to examine the sacred canons and to interpret what obscure matters occurred in them, or to observe what might seem to conflict in some degree with the laws; which Balsamon himself testifies in his Preface to the explanation of the *Nomocanon*. And this can indeed be referred to Zonaras himself, who reveals that he did not write his *Commentaries* on the canons of his own accord, but by the order of another, as we observed above, yet in such a way that Zonaras issued his before Balsamon, by whom he is praised more than once and with an encomium. B From which one may at least gather that Zonaras lived under Manuel, and indeed Glycas himself, if these are his epistles about which we are speaking; which the method of writing that he employs in the *Annals* certainly seems to persuade, where he is occupied with sacred Scripture rather than with illustrating history. Moreover, in them he attacks astronomers and those who attribute whatever happens on earth to the movements of the stars, such that he makes out, "some to be fornicators, others, on the other hand, adulterers, and others murderers and thieves" (45); which is also expressed in almost the same words in the *Antapologeticus* which we mentioned above: although he may admit, as does the author of the *Antapologeticus*, that we can conjecture many things that will come to pass from the affections of the stars and heavenly signs. From this, however, it is not altogether concluded that Michael Glycas is the author of the epistolary works about which we speak, since such an opinion regarding the influence of the stars is trivial and common to everyone, and belongs indeed to Zonaras himself, who writes in the *Annals* (44) that God created the stars so that the circumference of the earth might be illuminated by them and the measure of time might be sought from their circuits, not that all our affairs should be whirled about along with the movement of the stars. But now, that the Emperor Manuel bestowed more care than was fitting upon astronomy, and took the trifles of astrologers for oracles, Nicetas testifies in more than one place in his *Life* (45). It is, therefore, no wonder that he should have confirmed his own opinion in the letter to the monk with so many authorities of sacred Scripture and the Fathers, since he is said by Cinnamus (46) to have been well instructed in divine as well as human letters, and held in high repute in war, and to have worshipped Mars and Mercury together and at the same time: so that what Calpurnius (47) sang of the Emperor Carinus could be applied to Manuel:
*However, we beheld him from afar,* *And, if my sight has not deceived me,* *I thought him to possess the countenance of Mars and Apollo in one.*
TO THE READER
The following admonition was prefixed to the historical Notes of Du Cange, which we have brought back from the end of volume II and placed beneath the text.—*Editor.*
Such are those which especially look to general history, just as are the *Annals* of Zonaras which we are now reprinting, so that they should by no means be illustrated by more diffuse commentaries: for whoever would propose to himself to do this would fatigue the reader with useless and superfluous observations rather than relieve him with any labor. For such is the method of this kind of writing, that those things which are plucked from authors are merely touched upon, nor are they composed with a fuller discourse. A continuous series of events, and digested according to more certain notes of time, is what is attended to most of all in them, so that it is necessary for him who seeks more lengthy narrations to consult the sources themselves; since the principal purpose of those who write annals is that by a certain universal [summary of] things...
A nor let anyone censure the discourse or me, its author. For since I must aggregate this history, as it were, from many books, I must in many places use the diction and composition of those writers. If, however, I should interject or insert anything of my own, the style will be adapted to the form of the author I am following, so that the writing may not appear discordant with itself.
III. But before I enter upon the history itself, let me state more summarily what things are to be narrated, so that those who encounter this work may know how many and how extremely necessary histories they are going to learn. B Contained, therefore, in this Compendium are the first eight books of the Scriptures, and what is narrated in them; likewise the books of Kings, and the Chronicles, and whatever is found in the Antiquities of the Hebrew Josephus, or is related by older writers—either more copiously or slightly differently than they did—and the books of Ezra, and the captivities of the Hebrews. The first of these occurred in the time of the ten tribes under the Assyrian Salmanassar, who captured Samaria and the nation under siege, and after leading them away beyond the Euphrates and settling them there, he transported certain nations into Samaria who were called Cuthæans. Then followed the captivity brought upon Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and how the city became a desert, and the temple was burned, and the whole nation was enslaved. C And how, after seventy years, according to the oracles of the prophets, it was granted to the people by Cyrus, who had overthrown the Assyrian kingdom, to return to Jerusalem and to raise up the city and renovate the temple; and who Cyrus was, and how he overthrew the Assyrian kingdom, and which persons held the kingdom after him, and how and by whom the building of the city was hindered, and by whose order its erection was again permitted. Also, regarding the prophet Daniel, and how he interpreted the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar, and the vision of Balthasar, when that barbarian saw the fingers of a hand writing upon the wall, and regarding certain other visions of the prophet: all these things are recounted with a condensed explanation. Regarding the three youths, and the miracles performed by God either upon them or through them; regarding Esther, and how she averted the destruction of the Hebrew race; D regarding Judith, who through guile slew Holofernes and delivered his army to destruction; and regarding Tobias, how he was struck with blindness, reduced from wealth to extreme poverty, and then, because of his benevolence, recovered his sight by the providence of God and received an abundance of riches. Furthermore, the affairs of Alexander of Macedon are here summarized, mention of whom had to be made not only for other reasons, but because after the first defeat of Darius at Issus, he had traveled to Jerusalem and bestowed the highest honor upon the high priest; as also how he overthrew the Persian kingdom, how long he reigned, and how after his death the empire was divided into four kingdoms; what the Jews suffered from Antiochus Epiphanius, one of the posterity of Alexander’s successors, how the Asamoneans resisted them, and delivered their own people from his tyranny; who they were, in what manner, and when
to instruct the reader's mind. A Thus, it was Zonaras's primary aim, as Wolf truly says in his Preface, to establish a certain discipline as it were for history, and to bring together into one single body its members and parts, which were scattered in many places. For he chose for himself not the histories of all nations, but of the principal ones: nor indeed all of those, but only the principal ones, or those which seemed to contribute to an understanding of the course of the Church. In this exposition, therefore, of so many events and matters which the *Annals* comprise—which relate the origins of the world and the histories of the Old Testament, which Zonaras reports from the sacred Books and from Josephus and George Syncellus, or Greek matters, or even Roman ones, whether looking to the times of the republic or of the empire—if he had wished to compare them with these, and to confirm with the authority of those who treated each singly and professedly what he himself had omitted to bring forward on purpose, he would have incurred two drawbacks: that he would say too much and yet not everything, to use the words of Quintilian. It must be admitted, however, that there occur at times in them many things that need a critical hand; for in the narration itself, or in the nomenclature of persons or places, and even in the facts themselves, they depart from the authentic ones, and it is in the reader's interest to be admonished of these things. There are, besides, some things that can be adorned by exotic locations, since writers often lend one another light; this we have done to the best of our ability in the notes which we publish here for the present, especially in those matters that conduce to the illustration of Byzantine history, since we are publishing these *Annals* to be added to the other writers of Byzantine history hitherto expressed in royal types. For as I compared with Zonaras himself Theophanes and his continuators, or those who, like Zonaras, brought the *Annals* from the foundation of the world to their own times by a perhaps different method—George Cedrenus, George Hamartolus, Symeon Logothetes, John Scylitzes, Constantine Manasses, Michael Glycas, Joel, and others of this kind—it would have seemed completely absurd, since it is quite enough and to spare if matters that are outside common usage, or left untouched by others, are referred to the notes, from which light may somehow shine upon the writer. B Indeed, since I had previously published continuous commentaries on the whole of Byzantine history, so to speak, or those which could be appropriate for its individual writers—in two volumes, of which one embraces the *Augustan and Dalmatian Families*, together with a description of the city of Constantinople, and the other a *Glossary of Middle and Late Greek*, in which not only semi-barbarous (μῑξοβάρβαρα) words, but also palatine, military, ecclesiastical, and monastic dignities are explained—it remained only for me to consider that the facts themselves could be illustrated. This, indeed, has been performed by me in such a way that if anything had been overlooked in the aforementioned researches, I would note it down from time to time, and that often from unpublished writers, so that the reader might not suffer a loss either by our negligence orby a lapse of memory. But we also occasionally insert various readings from manuscripts described by Zonaras's hand, which it was our fortune to see, omitting in the meantime synonyms as being of no use, which the translator Wolf also professes to have done; whose notes, otherwise, which were placed beneath the previous edition, we have taken care to edit in their proper places with our own, indicated by the initial letter W, having omitted certain useless ones. And these, indeed, especially concern the former part of the *Annals*, and the second part up to Constantine the Great, where he seemed slightly more accurate than in those matters which were subjoined to the history of the Byzantine emperors, in which it is clear he was less knowledgeable, which he himself also ingenuously acknowledges; just as Xylander, in his notes to Cedrenus, in almost every place that concerns Byzantine affairs, is not only forced to hesitate, but confesses outright that the meanings of words unfamiliar to him—partly hybrid and μιξοβάρβαρα (semi-barbarous), partly entirely unknown and unread elsewhere among both the Latins and the Greeks—are unknown to him. Which is not altogether to be wondered at, since at that time there were almost no writers of Byzantine history edited, and among those who were, no one of the many learned men had devoted his studies to illustrating them until now.
PREFACE OF HIERONYMUS WOLF TO THE ANNALS OF JOHN ZONARAS
To the magnificent and generous man, D. Antonius Fugger, Lord of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn, Councilor to His Imperial Majesty, etc.
This work of the histories of John Zonaras, a man in his own time most illustrious in the Constantinopolitan empire, which has long been desired by many a most learned man, seems to be worthy of recommendation for two reasons in particular: both on account of the breadth and variety of the matters contained therein, and on account of its brevity, which is pleasant and most suitable for men who are occupied in public or domestic affairs or more serious studies, or for those whose memory is weaker. For it is not convenient for everyone to unroll all the writers...
they took A charge of the nation, and how after the return to Jerusalem from the captivity under the Assyrians, the Jewish nation was not ruled by kings, but by the high priests; and that the descendants of the aforementioned Asamoneans, when they were invested with the high-priestly honor and were guiding B the affairs of the nation, also set the diadem upon themselves; and how, when Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, the brothers, had disagreed concerning the Jewish kingdom, Magnus Pompeius, who was at that time the general of the Romans, having been invited to settle the dispute for those who were of the same blood, took the city of Jerusalem and subjected the nation to the Romans; and how Herod, the son of Antipater, after these events obtained the kingdom of the Jews; who he was, and whence he was descended, and all the things that happened to him at home, and until when those of his line held the kingdom, and in what manner, and from what time the governors were sent from Rome to Judea; and what Josephus wrote concerning our Savior Jesus Christ; but also concerning John the Baptist, and for what reasons the Jews revolted from the obedience to the Romans, and how their nation was warred upon by the Romans, and by whom Jerusalem was taken, and how it was despoiled in its final destruction, from which it had no recovery.
IV. Regarding the Romans and Rome
C IV. Since I have made mention of the Romans and of Rome, it seemed necessary to me also to write and relate these things: whence the Roman nation is, and from whom it had its beginning, and by whom the region of Italy was inhabited of old; from whence Romulus was brought into the light, he who became the founder of Rome, and how Remus his brother was slain, and then he also ceased to be among mortals; and how this city was first ruled by kings, and what customs and laws it used; and how Tarquinius Superbus, having changed the kingship into a tyranny, was expelled, and how many and what kind of wars Rome endured because of his D overthrow; and how the affairs were transferred for the Romans to an aristocracy, and afterwards to a democracy, with consuls and dictators, and then also tribunes, taking charge of the management of public affairs; and what the consulship of old was, and what the dictatorship, and what was the work of the censors, and how much time was fixed for each of these offices; and what kind of triumph there was among them, and from whence this name was derived; and whatever was done in the times of the consuls, even if not everything, by reason of the scarcity of books that relate these matters. And how, later, the rule fell for the Romans into a monarchy; and how first Gaius Julius Caesar, though not purely, managed these things, and then, after he had been slain upon the tribunal by those who were concerned for liberty, Augustus, Octavius Ca-