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Article

Xenocles  

Andrew Brown

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Xenocles, son of the elder *Carcinus(1), was a tragic poet who defeated *Euripides in 415 with his Oedipus, Lycaon, Bacchae, and Athamas (satyric). His Licymnius is parodied by *Aristophanes(1) (Clouds 1264f.), and there are contemptuous references to him at Ar.Thesm.169, 440–2, Frogs86.

Article

Xenocrates (1), of Chalcedon, disciple of Plato (1) and head of the Academy, 339–314 BCE  

Guy Cromwell Field and Simon Hornblower

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Philosophy
Xenocrates (1) of Chalcedon, son of Agathenor, disciple of *Plato(1) and head of the *Academy from 339 to 314 bce. He is presented to us as a man of impressive personality, with a combination of austere dignity and kindliness which exercised a great influence on all who came in contact with him. He was generally respected in Athens and was employed by the citizens as ambassador to *Antipater (1) in 322 bce.His philosophical contributions, so far as we can reconstruct them from the scanty evidence, were less impressive. He seems, in general, to have attempted to reproduce Plato's thought in a stereotyped and formalized system, though on one or two points he probably preserved the correct tradition of interpretation as against Aristotle. He also interested himself in giving a systematic account of the nature of the gods and daemons and their relations to the heavenly bodies, in a way which foreshadowed the constructs of later *Neoplatonism.

Article

Xenocrates (2), of Aphrodisias, physician  

William David Ross

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Science, Technology, and Medicine
Physician of the time of *Nero and the Flavians (54–96 ce).Περὶ τῆς ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ τῶν ζῴων ὠφελείας (‘On the uses of human beings and animals’), full of superstitious means of treatment, borrowed largely from previous works such as Ps.-Democritus'Lithognomon, a lexicon of .

Article

Xenophanes, of Colophon, poet, theologian, and natural philosopher  

Charles H. Kahn

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
  2. Philosophy
Xenophanes of Colophon, poet, theologian, and natural philosopher, left Ionia (see ionians) at the age of 25, probably after the Persian Conquest in 545 bce, and led a wandering life for 67 years, as he tells us himself in a preserved passage from an elegiac poem (DK 21 B 8). He lived in several cities in Sicily, and is reported to have composed an epic on the colonization of *Elea (see colonization, greek), but the tradition that he was the teacher of *Parmenides is doubtful. He is credited with being the first author of satirical verses (Silloi). The extant fragments, in various metres and genres, include two long elegiac passages on how to conduct a civilized *symposium and on the civic importance of his own work and wisdom (sophiē).A skilful poet in the tradition of *Tyrtaeus and *Solon, Xenophanes carried the Ionian intellectual enlightenment to *Magna Graecia.

Article

Xenophon (2), Greek novelist  

Ewen Bowie

Article

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Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Greek novelist (see novel, greek), author of The Ephesian story of Anthia and Habrocomes (Τὰ κατὰ Ἀνθίαν καὶ Ἁβροκόμην Ἐφεσιακά). Mention (2. 13. 3) of an eirenarch, an office not attested before *Trajan, together with the early place in the genre's development suggested by Xenophon's unambitious treatment of his story, indicates a date between ce 100 and 150: so far no papyri have been published. The *Suda calls him a historian and alleges other works, specifying only one, On the city of Ephesus, and gives *Ephesus as his origin, though the novel's knowledge of Ephesus has been argued to be second-hand. Xenophon tells, as omniscient narrator, how the young lovers from Ephesus were sent abroad by their parents soon after marriage in response to an oracle, became separated whilst on a voyage, and were conveyed round much of the Mediterranean world (even Italy), surviving all sorts of trials (shipwrecks, attacks by pirates and brigands, enslavement, advances by powerful suitors) and remaining faithful to each other. Reunited at last in *Rhodes they returned to Ephesus, to live happily ever after.

Article

Xenophon (1), Greek historian  

Christopher J. Tuplin

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
Xenophon (c. 430–c. 353 bce) came from a wealthy Athenian background and in his youth associated with Socrates. Participation in Cyrus’s unsuccessful rebellion in 401 and mercenary service with Spartan armies in Anatolia in 399–394 bce was followed by exile and prolonged residence near Olympia. Although there was a reconciliation with the Athenian state after 371, he may never have returned to live there permanently. In exile Xenophon became a writer, producing historical narratives, Socratic literature, technical treatises, an encomium of Agesilaus, a dialogue on tyranny, an analysis of Spartan success and failure, and a pamphlet on Athenian political economy. Many of these are the earliest (surviving) examples of particular genres or unusual variants on existing genres. Common to this extraordinarily diverse range of works are a didactic inclination, an intimate relationship with the author’s personal experiences combined with a variable authorial persona, use of the past as a way of talking about the present, a belief that purely practical pursuits have a moral component because they have social implications, and a style of exposition designed for engaged and informed readers who will ask questions of an apparently straightforward text while being prepared to be unsettled or wryly amused by the answers. The topic most persistently addressed by Xenophon’s oeuvre is leadership, broadly conceived—a task that demands special personal qualities, requires persistent careful effort, and, thanks to the unpredictability of events and of human behaviour, can rarely be pursued with prolonged and continuous success.

Article

Xerxes I  

Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg and Amélie Kuhrt

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Near East
Xerxes I (OP Khšāyaršā), son of *Darius(1) and Atossa, king of *Persia486–465 bce, chosen by his father as successor (XPf ll. 31 ff.; Hdt. 7. 2–3). At the beginning of his reign he crushed a revolt in Egypt (Hdt. 7. 3) and later two rebellions in *Babylon. Plans for an expedition against Greece were inherited from Darius: for the course of events see persian wars. No Persian document mentions the expedition.The more important palaces on the terrace of *Persepolis were built in Xerxes' reign, including the *Apadana with its impressive reliefs, illustrating the structure and the extent of the empire: king, court, and subject populations with their ethnographic characteristics. In the Daiva-inscription (XPh ll. 28–41) rebellion is equated with the neglect of *Ahuramazda and the worship of daiva's (‘bad gods’). Xerxes' destruction of the daiva-sanctuary marks no breach with his ancestors' presumed religious tolerance, as is often thought, since DB 5 already contains similar phraseology. Xerxes' reputation as a weakling and a womanizer depends on certain recognizably novelistic passages in Herodotus (7. 2–3, 9. 108–13) and on the reading of royal inscriptions as personal messages by the kings, rather than as formulaic royal statements. Seen from the heartland, his reign forms a period of consolidation, not of incipient decay. Xerxes was murdered in 465.

Article

Xuthus  

Emily Kearns

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Myth and Religion
Xuthus, a mythological figure connected with the perceived racial divisions among the Greeks. According to *Hesiod (fr. 9 M–W) he was son of *Hellen and brother of Dorus and Aeolus (2), the eponyms of the *Dorians and Aeolians; his sons by the Athenian Kreousa, *Ion(1) and Achaeus (fr.

Article

Zacharias, bishop of Mytilene, c. 465–c. 536 CE  

Geoffrey Greatrex

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
26 May 2021
Subjects:
  1. Christianity

Zachariah rhetor or scholasticus, following an education at Gaza and Alexandria, trained as a lawyer in Beirut (Berytus). A close friend of the future patriarch Severus of Antioch, he wrote a detailed biography of his life until his nomination as patriarch in 512; he also composed biographies of three other anti-Chalcedonian holy men and an Ecclesiastical History. The one biography that survives and the latter work exist only in a Syriac translation because of their anti-Chalcedonian line. Zachariah spent much of his life in Constantinople practising as a lawyer, where he composed two works refuting Manichaeanism and a philosophical dialogue, set in Alexandria, rebutting pagan views. He appears to have accepted the pro-Chalcedonian policies of Justin I and Justinian, becoming metropolitan bishop of Mytilene at some point before 536, the year in which he attended the Council of Constantinople. At this gathering he was absent for the session that condemned Severus and other leading opponents of Chalcedon.

Article

Zacynthus  

W. M. Murray

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
Zacynthus, the southernmost of the western Greek islands, located in the *Ionian Sea south of *Cephallenia, 16 km. (10 mi.) west of *Elis. Prehistoric remains (paleolithic to Mycenaean; see mycenaean civilization) attest to the early habitation of Zacynthus which bears the distinctive ‘-nthus’ form of pre-Greek names. A part of *Odysseus' realm in *Homer's Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2. 634), in historical times the island was settled either by the Achaeans (Thuc. 2. 66) or the Arcadians (Paus. 8. 24. 3; see achaea; arcadia) and may have served as a staging point for Greek colonization to the west (see colonization, greek). During the *Peloponnesian War, Zacynthus was a fleet station for Athens, and after the war, allied to Sparta. The island participated in the panhellenic alliance with *Philip (1) II and *Alexander(3) the Great, was conquered by the Romans in 211, and was granted the status of a ‘free state’ in 189.

Article

Zagreus  

Radcliffe G. Edmonds III

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Myth and Religion
The ancient lexica (Etymologicum Magnum, Photius, Hesychius, Suda) identify Zagreus as a poetic name for Dionysus in a chthonic aspect, χθόνιος Διόνυσος, and he is invoked along with Gē (Earth), in the early, lost epic Alkmaionis (fr. 3 Bernabé). Other early evidence identifies Zagreus as an underworld deity, Plouton or the son of Hades. In the Sisyphos (fr. 228 TrGF), he is the son of Hades, while the fragment from Aeschylus’s Aigyptioi identifies him as the savage Zeus of the deceased (fr. 5 TrGF, cp. Supp. 157). The name “Zagreus” here seems to be understood as the “mighty hunter” (ὁ μεγάλως ἀγρεύων in Etymologicum Gudianum) who snatches away mortals into the kingdom of the dead, hence the application of the euphemistic epithet of the lord of the dead, the “host of many,” πολυξενώτατος.In other sources, Zagreus is chthonic because of his mother, Persephone, queen of the underworld, a genealogy first attested in a fragment of the Hellenistic poet Callimachus (Aetia fr.

Article

Zaleucus  

Rosalind Thomas

Article

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Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Law

Zaleucus, lawgiver of Italian *Locri Epizephyrii, and probably the earliest lawgiver in Greece, perhaps c.650 bce. The traditions about him are poor, later accounts (e.g. Diod. Sic. 12. 19–21) largely legendary and influenced by Pythagoreanism (see pythagoras (1); cf. FGrH566, F 130 with Jacoby's comments), and he is best seen in conjunction with other early lawgivers. He prescribed exact penalties for crimes (in the earlier, more reliable tradition), and is attributed with the use of the lex talionis (‘eye for eye’: Dem. 24. 139). His legislation was notorious for its severity, and was intended to remain unchanged (Dem. 24. 140, Polyb. 12. 16). Like other lawgivers, he was probably a conciliator of social unrest, though a conservative one (Locri remained aristocratic). There are signs of at least later (5th cent.) influence of his laws in Italian and Sicilian cities.

Article

Zalmoxis  

Alan H. Griffiths

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Myth and Religion
According to *Herodotus(1) (4. 94–6), a god of the *Getae in Thrace (‘also called Gebeleizis’) who promised immortality to his devotees; the tribe communicated with him by despatching a messenger-victim every four years. Also offered is an alternative, euhemeristic version (cf. euhemerus) in which Zalmoxis was a charlatan who imported ideas picked up from *Pythagoras (1), whose slave he had been, and faked a ‘resurrection’ by reappearing from a hidden underground chamber after three years.

Article

Zama  

R. J. A. Wilson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
Zama was the name of more than one locality in present-day Tunisia. It is best known as the alleged site of Hannibal's defeat by P. *Cornelius Scipio Africanus (see punic wars; and next entry) in 202 bce (so Nep. Hann. 6. 3); but Hannibal only camped at Zama (Polyb. 15. 5. 3), before moving to another camp (15. 6. 2) immediately before the battle. Livy (30. 29) says explicitly that Scipio camped before the battle at Naraggara (the Margarion of Polyb. 15. 5. 14 is probably a corruption), and this is modern Sakiet Sidi Youssef on the Tunisio-Algerian border 32 km. (20 mi.) west of Sicca; the battlefield of ‘Zama’ must lie nearby. The town of Zama where Hannibal camped is likely to have been Zama Regia, besieged unsuccessfully by Q. *Caecilius Metellus Numidicus in 109 bce (Sall.Iug. 56. 1), and Juba I's capital (hence Regia) until its capture by T.

Article

Zama, battle of  

John F. Lazenby

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman History and Historiography

Zama is the name given to the final battle of the Second *Punic War, though it was not actually fought near any of the places so called (see preceding entry). *Hannibal had perhaps 36,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and 80 *elephants, P. *Cornelius Scipio Africanus perhaps 29,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. The elephants, opening the battle, were either ushered down corridors Scipio had left in his formation or driven out to the flanks where they collided with Hannibal's cavalry, which was then routed by the Roman cavalry. When the infantry lines closed, the Roman first line may have defeated both Hannibal's first and second lines, though the remnants may have reformed on the wings of his third line, composed of his veterans from Italy. Scipio, too, reformed his lines at this point, and a titanic struggle developed until the Roman cavalry, returning from the pursuit, charged into Hannibal's rear, whereupon his army disintegrated.

Article

Zealots  

Martin Goodman

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Jewish Studies
Zealots, a Jewish political group in the 1st cent. ce. According to *Josephus the Zealots were one of the three factions who controlled *Jerusalem in the last years of the Jewish revolt against Rome (ce 66–70). In 68 the Zealots attacked the existing leaders of the rebel Jewish state, seized control of the Temple and, despite reverses at the hands of other Jewish factions, maintained an independent role until the capture of Jerusalem by *Titus in ce 70.Josephus' depiction of the excesses of the Zealots when in power in Jerusalem is deeply hostile (BJ 4. 128 ff.), but he none the less described their leaders as priests of distinguished lineage (BJ 5. 6). Their supporters included country people from northern Judaea. They signalled a break from the previous leadership in Jerusalem by execution of political opponents and by appointing a high priest from a non-traditional family. The name zēlōtēs was apparently a self-designation (BJ 4.

Article

Zela  

Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton and Stephen Mitchell

Article

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Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography

Zela (mod. Zile), an ancient temple-state of *Pontus with a large and fertile territory and a considerable population of sacred slaves (*hierodouloi) attached to the land and to the service of Anaitis (*Anahita) and ‘the Persian deities’. Here *Mithradates VI defeated C. *Valerius Triarius in 67 and Caesar *Pharnaces II in 47 bce, the occasion of his famous remark ‘veni, vidi, vici’, ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’. Originally ruled by priests, it became one of Pompey's Pontic cities. It was handed over to dynasts by Antony (M. *Antonius(2)) but was reannexed with the rest of the kingdom of *Polemon(1) in ce 64.

Article

Zeno (1), of Elea, philosoper and friend of Parmenides  

Malcolm Schofield

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Philosophy

Zeno (1), of Elea is portrayed by *Plato(1) (Prm. 127b) as the pupil and friend of *Parmenides, and junior to him by 25 years. Their fictional meeting with a ‘very young’ *Socrates (ibid.) gives little basis for firm chronology. We may conclude only that Zeno was active in the early part of the 5th cent. bce. Whether the work from which Plato makes him read was his only book is uncertain.

The most famous of Zeno's arguments are the four paradoxes about motion paraphrased by *Aristotle (Ph. 6. 9), which have intrigued thinkers down to Bertrand Russell in our era. The Achilles paradox proposes that a quicker can never overtake a slower runner who starts ahead of him, since he must always first reach the place the slower has already occupied. His task is in truth an infinite sequence of tasks, and can therefore never be completed. The Arrow paradox argues that in the present a body in motion occupies a place just its own size, and is therefore at rest. But since it is in the present throughout its movement, it is always at rest. The Dichotomy raises the same issues about infinite divisibility as the Achilles; the Arrow and the Stadium (an obscure puzzle about the relative motion of bodies) are perhaps directed against the implicit assumption of indivisible minima.

Article

Zeno (2), of Citium, founder of Stoicism  

Julia Annas

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Philosophy
Zeno (2), of Citium (*Cyprus), (335–263 bce), founder of *Stoicism. He came to Athens in 313 and is said to have studied with or been influenced by various philosophers, notably *Crates (2) the Cynic, *Antisthenes(1) the Socratic, and the Academics *Xenocrates (1) and particularly *Polemon(2), who seems to have stressed the notion of nature. Zeno taught in the *Stoa Poecile (‘Painted Colonnade’) which gave its name to Stoicism. He was well respected at Athens, and in old age, around 276 bce, was invited by *Antigonus(2) Gonatas to go to his court, but, according to Diogenes Laertius 7.9, he did not go, but sent two students, *Persaeus and Philonides of Thebes, instead.Zeno's writings established Stoicism as a set of ideas articulated into three parts: *logic (and theory of knowledge), *physics (and metaphysics), and ethics. See the general account of Zeno's School and its doctrines under Stoicism. The early writings of Zeno stressed that even basic moral rules could have justified exceptions. In Zeno's Republic an ideal community, radically rejecting convention, was developed.

Article

Zeno (3), of Tarsus, Stoic  

Julia Annas

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Philosophy

Zeno (3) of *Tarsus, Stoic (See stoicism), *Chrysippus' successor as head of the Stoa in 204 bce. He had many followers, but wrote little; he had doubts about ekpyrōsis (conversion into *fire).