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Epitome historiarum

AN EPITOME OF HISTORIES, COLLECTED AND COMPOSED BY JOHN ZONARAS THE MONK, WHO WAS GREAT DRUNGARIUS OF THE WATCH AND PROTOASECRETIS. PREFACE. Someone might well say, mocking me, "your side-work is greater than your main work." For it was truly necessary for me, having long ago given up public affairs and abstained from worldly turmoil, having migrated from public life and chosen to live by myself, and having condemned myself to perpetual exile—since He who is above us has so ordered my affairs, having broken my bonds by depriving me of my dearest ones, for reasons that He knows, painfully for me, but surely for my benefit—to pursue nothing else than those things which furnish the soul and cleanse it of the pollutions ingrained in it through the wickedness of actions, and such things as propitiate the Divine for those acts by which it has been angered by me, who have transgressed His commandments and ordinances, and thus to seek forgiveness for my stumblings. But I, being neglectful of my main work out of sluggishness toward good things, have directed my zeal to this side-work. 1.2 But to make some defense for myself, I did not embark on this undertaking of my own accord, but friends spurred me to it, seeing me at leisure and saying, "Use your leisure for a work of common benefit, and from this a reward will be laid up for you from God." For they added that those who have labored on histories and written of past events, some have written more discursively about the deeds of men of old and their stratagems, narrating battle formations and engagements of armies and encampments and palisades and whatever follows these, and in addition descriptions of places and difficult roads and steep and impassable mountains and the narrows of valleys and the fortifications of cities and towers soaring high and, as one might say, ethereal; while others have composed their writings for display, showing what power of writing they had, and for this reason they insert public speeches and use a more digressive or rhetorical style; and for some their ambition has ended in dialogues, so that whenever they write about certain people holding different opinions and erring concerning correct doctrines, they engage in disputations with them as if they were present, and refute their evil doctrine, and adduce refutations from holy scripture, or also argue against the Jews, and show them to be willfully malicious if they do not accept our mystery, and employ prophetic testimonies, and again oppose the Hellenes, and bring forth their mythology, and mock their myths, and bring forward their own writings as a refutation of their false belief, 1.3 and for some it is a matter of both delivering maxims and moralizing. "But these things," they said, "are considered by most of those who read the writings of those historians, not to say all, to be burdensome and superfluous, both because they require more leisure, and because, even if some of those who take up the histories should have this leisure, their labor on these things proves to be in vain, since the long narratives about battle lines and wars and the arrangement of armies and other similar things escape the memory, while the public speeches and the dialogues, for their part, prove unprofitable to those who go through the historical accounts. For what profit will there be for anyone," they said, "from knowing what this demagogue said to the people, or what the general said to the soldiers, or what that emperor said to the ambassadors from the Persians, or another to those from the Celts or Scythians or perhaps from Egypt or

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Epitome historiarum

ΕΠΙΤΟΜΗ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ ΣΥΛΛΕΓΕΙΣΑ ΚΑΙ ΣΥΓΓΡΑΦΕΙΣΑ ΠΑΡΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ ΜΟΝΑΧΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΖΩΝΑΡΑ ΤΟΥ ΓΕΓΟΝΟΤΟΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ∆ΡΟΥΓΓΑΡΙΟΥ

ΤΗΣ ΒΙΓΛΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΡΩΤΟΑΣΗΚΡΗΤΙΣ. ΠΡΟΟΙΜΙΟΝ. Εὐστόχως αν τις ειποι ἐπιτωθάζων μοι, μεῖζόν σοι τοῦ εργου τὸ πάρεργον. εδει γάρ με ὡς ἀληθῶς πάλαι τῶν πραγμάτων ἀφέμενον καὶ τυρβάζεσθαι ἀποσχόμενον καὶ τοῦ μέσου μεταναστεύσαντα καὶ καθ' ἑαυτὸν ἑλόμενον ζῆν ἀειφυγίαν τε ἑαυτοῦ καταψηφισάμενον, ουτω τὰ καθ' ἡμᾶς οἰκονομήσαντος τοῦ ὑπὲρ ἡμᾶς, ἐπεὶ τοὺς δεσμούς μου διέρρηξε τῶν φιλτάτων στερήσας με, οις οιδεν ἐκεῖνος λόγοις, ἀλγεινῶς μὲν ἐμοί, συμφερόντως δὲ πάντως, μηδὲν ετερον μετιέναι η οσα ψυχὴν καταρτίζουσι καὶ καθαίρουσι τῶν ἐντακέντων αὐτῇ μολυσμάτων διὰ φαυλότητα πράξεων, καὶ αττα ἐξιλεοῦνται τὸ θεῖον ἐφ' οις παρώργισται παρ' ἐμοῦ, παραβεβηκότος τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ δικαιώματα, καὶ ζητεῖν ουτω συγγνώμην ἐπὶ τοῖς πταίσμασιν. ἐγὼ δ' ἀμελῶς πρὸς τὸ εργον ἐκ τῆς πρὸς τὰ καλὰ νωθρείας διατιθέμενος περὶ τὸ πάρεργον κατέτεινα τὴν σπουδήν. 1.2 ̓Αλλ' ινα τι καὶ ὑπεραπολογήσωμαι ἐμαυτοῦ, οὐκ οικοθεν ὡρμήθην πρὸς τὸ ἐγχείρημα, ανδρες δέ με φίλοι πρὸς τοῦτο παρέθηξαν, σχολάζοντα βλέποντες καὶ "χρῆσαι" λέγοντες "τῇ σχολῇ πρὸς εργον κοινωφελές, καὶ κείσεταί σοι πρὸς τοῦ θεοῦ κἀκ τούτου ἀνταπόδομα." προσεπῆγον γὰρ ὡς οἱ περὶ τὰς ἱστορίας πονήσαντες καὶ τὰ πάλαι γενόμενα συγγραψάμενοι, οἱ μὲν διεξοδικώτερον τὰς αλλας τε πράξεις τῶν παλαιῶν ἀνδρῶν καὶ τὰ στρατηγήματα συγγεγράφασι, παρατάξεις διηγούμενοι καὶ συμπλοκὰς στρατευμάτων καὶ στρατοπεδείας καὶ χάρακας καὶ ει τι τούτοις ἑπόμενον, πρὸς δὲ τοῖς περιηγήσεις χωρίων καὶ δυσχωρίας ὁδῶν καὶ ορη προσάντη καὶ δύσβατα καὶ αὐλώνων στενοχωρίας καὶ πόλεων ὀχυρότητας καὶ πυργωμάτων υψη μετέωρα καὶ ὡς αν τις φαίη αἰθέρια· τοῖς δὲ καὶ πρὸς ἐπίδειξιν συντέθεινται τὰ συγγράμματα, ἐπιδεικνυμένοις οπως ειχον περὶ τὸ γράφειν δυνάμεως καὶ διὰ τοῦτο δημηγορίας τε μεταξὺ τιθεῖσι καὶ παρεκβατικώτερον η καὶ ῥητορικώτερον κεχρημένοις τῷ λόγῳ· ἐνίοις δὲ καὶ εἰς διαλόγους τὸ φιλότιμον ἐτελεύτησεν, ωσθ' ὁπηνίκα περί τινων ἑτεροδοξούντων καὶ σφαλλομένων περὶ τὰ ὀρθὰ συγγράφονται δόγματα, διαλέξεις ποιεῖσθαι πρὸς ἐκείνους ὡς πρὸς παρόντας, καὶ διελέγχειν αὐτῶν τὸ κακόδοξον, κἀκ τῆς ἱερᾶς γραφῆς τοὺς ἐλέγχους παράγειν, η καὶ ̓Ιουδαίοις ἀντιλέγειν, καὶ ἐθελοκακοῦντας δεικνύειν αὐτούς, εἰ μὴ τὸ καθ' ἡμᾶς μυστήριον δέχοιντο, καὶ χρήσεσι κεχρῆσθαι προφητικαῖς, καὶ πρὸς Ελληνας αυθις ἀντικαθίστασθαι, καὶ τὸν υθλον ἐκείνων εἰς μέσον παράγειν, καὶ καταμωκᾶσθαι τῶν μυθευομένων αὐτοῖς, καὶ τὰς αὐτῶν γραφὰς προφέρειν τῆς κακοδοξίας εἰς ελεγχον, 1.3 εστι δ' ου γνωμολογεῖν τε καὶ ἠθικεύεσθαι. "ταῦτα δ'" εφασαν "τοῖς πλείοσι τῶν ἀναγινωσκόντων τὰ τῶν ἱστοριῶν ἐκείνων συγγράμματα, ινα μὴ λέγωμεν πᾶσιν, φορτικά τε καὶ παρέλκοντα ηγηνται, οτι τε σχολῆς εἰσι δεόμενα πλείονος, καὶ οτι, καν ταύτης τύχοιεν τῶν ἐπιόντων τὰς ἱστορίας τινές, μάταιον ἐκείνοις ἀποβαίνει τὸ περὶ ταύτας πονεῖν, τῶν μακρῶν διηγημάτων τῶν περὶ παρατάξεων καὶ πολέμων καὶ τοῦ τῶν στρατιῶν διακόσμου καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν τῶν ὁμοίων διαφευγόντων τὴν μνήμην, τῶν δέ γε δημηγοριῶν καὶ τῶν διαλέξεων καὶ εἰς τὸ ἀνόνητον περιισταμένων τοῖς ἐπιοῦσι τὰ ἱστορούμενα. τίνι γὰρ εσται τις λυσιτέλεια" ελεγον "ἐκ τοῦ γνῶναι τί μὲν ὁ δημαγωγὸς οδε διειλέχθη τῷ δήμῳ, τί δὲ τοῖς στρατιώταις ὁ στρατηγός, η τί τοῖς πρέσβεσιν ὁ αὐτοκράτωρ ἐκεῖνος εφη τοῖς ἐκ Περσῶν, η αλλος τοῖς ἐκ Κελτῶν η Σκυθῶν η τοῖς ἐξ Αἰγύπτου τυχὸν η