Zonaras, John

   Author of one of the great world chronicles (q.v.) of the Palaiologan (q.v.) period, on par with that of John Skylitzes (q.v.). The chronicle (entitled Epitome historion), which goes from the Creation of the world to 1118, draws on the works of Skylitzes, Psellos, and Attaleiates (qq.v.). Zonaras was an original thinker whose consideration of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire led him to the conclusion that Byzantium (q.v.) in his own day had strayed far from the greatness of republican institutions. As a result, his treatment of Alexios I Komnenos (q.v.), however independent, critical (in places brilliantly original), and a product of his personal experience as chief imperial secretary (protoasekretis) and megas droungarios tis viglas (qq.v.), nevertheless reflects an antiquarian view of what an emperor (q.v.) should be like. The influence of this chronicle spread beyond Byzantium (q.v.) due to its translation into Church Slavonic (q.v.).