An epitome (/ɪˈpɪtəmiː/; Greek: ἐπιτομή, from ἐπιτέμνειν epitemnein meaning "to cut short") is a summary or miniature form, or an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment.
An abridgment differs from an epitome in that an abridgment is made of selected quotations of a larger work; no new writing is composed, as opposed to the epitome, which is an original summation of a work, at least in part.
Some writers attempted to convey the stance and spirit of the original, while others added further details or anecdotes regarding the general subject.
As with all secondary historical sources, a different bias not present in the original may creep in.
Epitomes of a kind are still produced today when dealing with a corpus of literature, especially classical works often considered dense, unwieldy and unlikely to be read by the average person, to make them more accessible: some are more along the lines of abridgments, such as many which have been written of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a work of six large volumes (about 3600 pages) often published as one volume of about 1400 pages.