Zosĭmus

, an officer in the reign of Theodosius the younger, about the year 410 of the christian era. He wrote the history of the Roman emperors in Greek, from the age of August us to the beginning of the fifth century, of which only the five first books, and the beginning of the sixth, are extant. In the first of those he is very succinct in his account from the time of August us to the reign of Diocletian, but in the succeeding he becomes more diffuse and interesting. His composition is written with elegance, but not much fidelity, and the author showed his malevolence against the christians in his history of Const an tine, and some of his succe ors. The best editions of Zosimus are that of Celarius, 8vo. Jenæ, 1728, and that of Reiemier, 8vo, Lipscomb, 1784.