Joannes
56. Of EPIPHANEIA in Syria, a Byzantine historian, who flourished toward the close of the sixth century. Evagrius Scholasticus, the ecclesiastical historian (H. E. v. 14, sub fin.), speaks of him as his kinsman and townsman. Vossius, misled by the latter expression of Evagrius, has considered Joannes as a native of Antioch instead of Epiphaneia.
Works
history of the affairs of the Byzantine Empire
He wrote a history of the affairs of the Byzantine Empire, from the latter part of the reign of Justinian to the restoration of the Persian king Chosroes or Khosru II. by the Byzantine emperor Maurice. Evagrius says the history had not been published at the time his own work was written A. D. 593 or 594 [see EVAGRIUS, No. 3.].
The history of Joannes has never been published; a MS. of it, the only one known, is said to be in the library at Heidelberg.
Confusion with Joannes Rhetor
Joannes of Epiphaneia is sometimes improperly confounded with another writer, Joannes Rhetor [See below, No. 105], who wrote a history of the times of Theodosius II., Marcian, Leo, and Zeno, and who is repeatedly quoted by Evagrius.
Further Information
Valesius, Not. ad Evagr. H. E. 1.16; Cave, Hist. Litt. vol. i. p. 546; Vossius, De Historicis Graecis, 4.20, sub fin.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.