When universal history reaches the present: narrative time and authorial presence in Zonara's account of Alexios Komnenos' reign

Abstract

The paper addresses the issues of Zonaras Epitome’s place within the tradition of Byzantine chronicle, using it as a test-case for the validity and meaning of genre istinction in Byzantine historiography. The discussion focuses on the last section of Zonaras'’' work, which recounts the reign of Alexios I Komnenos. The author shows hat Zonaras' choices with respect to the selection of narrative contents, their chronological arrangement, and the handling of narrative time push the boundaries of the chronicle genre in order to provide an ideological interpretation of the recent past.