ABSTRACT
John Zonaras’ Epitome of Histories recounts events from creation through the death of the emperor Alexius Comnenus in 1118— about 6,619 years by Byzantine reckoning. Composed in the first half of the twelfth century and the most substantial extant historical work written in Greek between Cassius Dio’s Roman History of the early third century AD and the fall of Constantinople, it comprises three substantial volumes and slightly more than 1,700 pages of text in its best modern edition. 1 The production of the original copy would have required much time, labor, and expense: the large number of manuscripts of the Epitome and its early translation into a number of languages are measures of the esteem it long commanded. 2 Yet since the advent of modern scholarship in the nineteenth century, few have thought there was any good reason to read the whole Epitome, fewer have attempted to do so, and fewer still have finished the job.
