A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

ΣαλαμάνηςἙρμείαςΣωζόμενος, (Phot. Bibl. Cod. 30; comp. Sozomen, H. E. lib. 6. c.32 : Ἑρμείας Σωζόμενος, ὁ καὶ Σαλαμίνως, Niceph. Callist. H. E. lib. i. c. i.), with the additional epithet SCHOLASTICUS; usually called in English SOZOMEN; a Greek ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century. He was probably a native of Bethelia or Bethel, a populous village in the territory of Gaza in Palestine. His grandfather was the first of his family who embraced the Christian religion, being influenced thereto by the wonderful recovery of Alaphion, a person of property in the same village, and a demoniac, who had been relieved by the prayers of the monk Hilarion, after he had resorted in vain to Jewish and Heathen exorcists. The grandfather of Sozomen, with some of his kindred, fled from Bethelia during the reign of Julian, fearing the violence of the heathen multitude : but they appear to have returned; and the grandfather being a person of some education, and skilled in the exposition of the Scriptures, and especially in solving difficulties, was much esteemed by the Christians of Ascalon, Gaza, and the neighbouring parts (SOZOM. H. E. lib. 5. c.15). That Sozomen was born and educated at Bethelia is inferred from his familiarity with the locality (ibid.), and from his intimacy, when quite young, with some persons of the family of Alaphion, who were the first to build churches and monasteries near Bethelia, and were pre-eminent in sanctity (ibid.); a description which, as Valesius notices, appears to identify them with the four brothers, Salamanes, Physcon, Malachion or Malchion, and Crispion, mentioned by him in another place (lib. 6. c.32). Valesius supposes Sozomen to have derived that great admiration of the monastic life which he shows in various parts of his work from his early intercourse with these monks ; and it was perhaps from the first-mentioned of them that he derived his own name of Salamanes. That the early life of Sozomen was spent in the neighbourhood of Gaza, appears also from his familiar acquaintance with the deportment of Zeno, the aged bishop of Maiuma, the port of that city (lib. 7. c.28). The statement of some writers that Sozomen was a native of Cyprus is an error, arising apparently from the corrupt form Σαλαμίνιος, Salaminius, in which Nicephorus has given his name. According to Valesius, whom Cave follows, Sozomen studied civil law at Berytus; but we have not been able to trace any reference to this circumstance in Sozomen's history : he practised at the bar at Constantinople, and was still engaged in his profession when he wrote his history (lib. 2. c.3). Of his subsequent life nothing appears to be known. As he mentions, in the prefatory epistle to his history, an incident which probably occurred in A. D. 443, he must have survived that year; and Ceillier thinks that, from the manner in which he speaks of Proclus of Constantinople (lib. 9. c.2, ad fin., Πρόκλου ἐπιτροπεύοντος τὴν Κωνσταντινουπόλεως ἐκκλησίαν, "in the episcopate of Proclus of Constantinople"), he must have written after the death of that prelate in A. D. 446 ; but we think the words do not necessarily lead to that conclusion.

[J.C.M]