Zosimus (historian)

Zosimus (Greek: Ζώσιμος [ˈzosimos]; fl. 490s–510s) was a Greek historian who lived in Constantinople during the reign of the eastern Roman Emperor Anastasius I (491–518).^[1] According to Photius, he was a comes, and held the office of "advocate" of the imperial treasury.^[2] Zosimus was also known for condemning Constantine’s rejection of the traditional polytheistic religion.^[3]

Little more is known about the life of Zosimus except that he was Greek and a pagan.^[4] He was not a contemporary of the events of his books.^[5]

Reception[edit]

Zosimus’ work contains multiple errors, some of them not found in any other extant source, such as wrongly reporting that all three of Constantine’s successors were not the sons of his wife Fausta.^[14] Edward Gibbon judged him as “unworthy of esteem and trust,” “poor in judgment,” and “a disingenuous liar.”^[15] Ludwig Mendelssohn observed that, “The more familiar one becomes with Zosimus, the more one learns to distrust him.”^[15]

Goffart, Walter (1971). "Zosimus, The First Historian of Rome's Fall". The American Historical Review. 76 (2): 412–441. 1858706.

JSTOR

Potter, David S. (2004). . New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-10057-7.

The Roman Empire at Bay: AD 180–395

on Google Books

Greek text with Latin translation

of Mendelssohn's 1887 Teubner edition of the Historia Nova (from the Lace collection at Mount Allison University)

Raw OCR Greek text

from the First One-Thousand Years of Greek Project

Greek text

The manuscripts of the Historia Nova

book 2, book 3, book 4, book 5, book 6

Translation of the Historia Nova (published in 1814), book 1

. Catholic Encyclopedia. 1913.