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.