Zosimas of Palestine in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

（Ζώσιμος). A Greek historian who lived as a high officer of State at Constantinople in the second half of the fifth century A.D., and composed a work, distinguished for its intelligent and liberal views, on the fall of the Roman Empire. It is in six books: i. giving a sketch of the time from Augustus to Diocletian; ii.-iv. a fuller account of events down to the division of the Empire by Theodosius the Great; v. and vi. treat in greater detail of the period from 395 to 410; the conclusion of book vi. is probably wanting, as Zosimus had the intention of continuing the history up to his own time. He attributes the fall of the Empire in part to the overthrow of heathenism and the introduction of Christianity, with which, of course, he was not acquainted in its purest form, but only in the degenerate state into which it had sunk in some places in the fourth century. This history is edited by Bekker (1837) and by Mendelssohn (1887). See Martin, De Fontibus Zosimi (1866). A monograph on the various prodigies, oracles, etc., recorded by Zosimus was published by H. Piristi in 1893.