While an exile from Constantinople, the 12th-century Byzantine functionary and canonist John Zonaras culled earlier chronicles and histories to compose an account of events from creation to the reign of Alexius Comnenus. This title presents the key section of the Epitome central to the study of late Roman and Byzantine historiography.

For his account of the first two centuries of the Principate, Zonaras employed now-lost portions of Cassius Dio, and from the point where Dio's History ended, to the reign of Theodosius the Great (d. 395), he turned to other sources to produce a uniquely full historical narrative of the critical years 235-395. This key section of the Epitome, together with Zonaras' Prologue, here appears in English for the first time, both complemented by a historical and historiographical commentary. A special feature of the latter is a first-ever English translation of a broad range of sources which illuminate Zonaras' account and the historiographical traditions it reflects.