Zosimus (redirected from Zozimus)

Zosimus 

Greek scholar of the third or fourth century, considered one of the founders of alchemy.

Zosimus worked in Alexandria. In his works, he gives a mystical, allegorical description of chemical operations, particularly the “sacred art” of imparting to base metals a silvery white or golden yellow color, which supposedly began their transformation into silver and gold.

REFERENCE

Figurovskii, N. A. Ocherk obshchei istorii khimii ot drevneishikh vremen do nachala 19 v. Moscow, 1969.

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Zosimus 

A late Roman (end of the fifth century) historian.

Zosimus was the author of A New History (in six books; written about 498), in which he summarizes the history of the Roman Empire from Augustus to the seizure of Rome by Alaric I in 410, relating events of the period from 270 through 410 in greatest detail. As an ideologist of the old Roman pagan aristocracy, he was unfavorably disposed to Christianity, the spread of which he considered one of the major reasons for the destruction of the Roman Empire. Zosimus sharply criticized the policy of the emperors Constantine I and Theodosius I.

WORKS

Historic! nova. Edited by Z. Mendelssohn. Leipzig, 1887.