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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

Publication History:

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

Publication History:

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).

Article

Zeno (4), of Rhodes, politician, early 2nd cent. BCE  

Kenneth S. Sacks

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
Zeno (4) was a politician who wrote a history of Rhodes from the beginnings to his own times. *Polybius (1) used it (along with the work of *Antisthenes(2)), although he criticized its patriotic exaggeration (Polyb. 16. 14); Zeno's tradition may also appear in *Diodorus (3).

Article

Zeno (5), of Sidon, Epicurean, b. c. 150 BCE  

William David Ross and Dirk Obbink

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Philosophy
Epicurean (See epicurus), pupil of the Epicurean Apollodorus and probably head of the school between him and *Phaedrus(3). *Cicero heard him lecture in Athens in 79–78, and found him querulous and irascible in manner and style: not only did he heap abuse on contemporaries, but he called *Socrates the scurra Atticus (the Attic equivalent of a Roman festive buffoon), and never referred to *Chrysippus except in the feminine gender (Nat. D. 1. 93). No writings by Zeno have been found among the Epicurean library excavated at *Herculaneum, but *Philodemus, whose writings were found there in abundance, studied with him at Athens, and boasts that he was a devoted ἐραστής (admirer) of Zeno while he lived, and an indefatigable ὑμνητής, ‘laudator’ i.e. ‘eulogist’ of him after his death. Philodemus' On Speaking Frankly (Περὶ παρρησίος) is a selection from Zeno's teachings, and Philodemus' On Signs (Περὶ σημείων) reiterates lectures by Zeno and his disputes with adversaries of his own day.

Article

Zeno (6), of Sidon, Stoic  

Julia Annas

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Philosophy

Zeno (6) of *Sidon, Stoic (See stoicism), pupil of *Diodorus(2) Cronus and of *Zeno(2).

Article

Zeno(7), Herophilean physician, 2nd cent. BCE  

Heinrich von Staden

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Science, Technology, and Medicine
Zeno (7) (2nd cent. bce), a physician of the ‘school’ of *Herophilus, participated in the Herophilean traditions of innovative pulse theory, *pharmacology, and Hippocratic lexicography (see hippocrates(2)). He achieved more lasting prominence, however, by ‘decoding’ (and attributing to Hippocrates himself) certain letter symbols (χαρακτῆρες), such as Δ̨ΕΗΘ or ΞΖΘ, found in clusters of four or five at the conclusion of individual case histories in some *Alexandrian manuscripts of the Hippocratic work Epidemics 3. Members of the Empiricist school of medicine (see medicine, § 5.3), including *Heraclides (4) of Tarentum, fiercely attacked Zeno's views about the provenance and meaning of the symbols. Some Empiricists, attributing the invention of the symbols to Mnemon of Side, charged Zeno with altering the marks whenever he could not find a plausible interpretation; another Empiricist, Apollonius Byblas, questioned the authenticity of the symbols, claiming that Zeno's version of the symbols in Epidemics 3, case-history 8, could not be found in any of three copies of the Hippocratic treatise that he had examined.

Article

Zenobia  

John Frederick Drinkwater

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Gender Studies
  2. Roman History and Historiography
Zenobia (Septimia), or in *AramaicBath Zabbai, one of the great women of classical antiquity (PLRE 1. 990 f.). The second wife of *Septimius Odaenathus of *Palmyra, on his death in ce 267, in suspicious circumstances, she secured power for herself in the name of her young son, *Septimius Vaballathus. As long as Zenobia kept the east secure, *Gallienus and *Claudius (II) Gothicus were prepared to accept her regime, including its bestowal upon Vaballathus of his father's Roman titles, and hence of the claim to be more than just king of Palmyra. However, in 270 Zenobia exploited the political instability that followed the death of Claudius to expand beyond Syria by taking over Egypt and much of Asia Minor, and further to enhance Vaballathus' Roman titles, while continuing to recognize *Aurelian as emperor. When Aurelian finally moved against her in 272, her forces failed to stop him at *Antioch (1) and *Emesa, and—now calling her son Augustus and herself Augusta—she was cornered in Palmyra.

Article

Zenodorus, mathematician, fl. 200 BCE  

G. J. Toomer

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Science, Technology, and Medicine

Zenodorus, mathematician (fl. 200 bce), wrote Περὶ ἰσοπεριμέτρων σχημάτων (On figures of equal boundary), parts of which are preserved by *Theon(4) and *Pappus.

Article

Zenodotus, of Ephesus, b. c. 325 BCE  

John Francis Lockwood, Robert Browning, and Nigel Wilson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Zenodotus of Ephesus (b. c. 325 bce), pupil of *Philitas, became the first head of the Library at *Alexandria (c. 284) and undertook the classification of the Greek epic and lyric poets, some of whom he edited.(1) Lexicography: Homeric Glossary (Γλῶσσαι), which was in alphabetical order. There was also a collection of words used in Greek dialects. (2) Editions (διορθώσεις). His recension of *Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, in which the poems may have been divided into twenty-four books for the first time, represented the first scientific attempt to get back to the original Homeric text by the collation of several manuscripts. He marked lines of the genuineness of which he felt doubt with a newly-invented sign, the obelus. Some modern critics have accused him of altering the text drastically; more recent research suggests that this picture of an arbitrary and subjective manipulator of the text is unfair. (3) He produced also recensions of .

Article

Zephyrus  

Alan H. Griffiths

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Myth and Religion
Zephyrus (W), Boreas (N), and Notus (S) winds catalogued by *Hesiod at Theog.378–80. But epic may conceive of them, as convenient, either as minor gods who feast in their own palaces (Il. 23. 200 ff.) or as unruly elemental forces who are controlled by *Aeolus(1) from his floating prison-island and can be confined in a leather bag (Od.

Article

zeugitai  

Arnold Wycombe Gomme, Theodore John Cadoux, and P. J. Rhodes

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Greek Law

Zeugitai (from zeugos, ‘yoke’), at Athens, Solon's third property class, said (perhaps by false analogy with *pentakosiomedimnoi) to comprise men whose land yielded between 200 and 300 medimnoi of corn or the equivalent in other produce (the other three classes were *pentakosiomedimnoi, *hippeis, *thētes). The name identifies them as those who served in the army in close ranks (cf. Plut.Pel.23), i.e. as *hoplites, or, less probably, as those rich enough to own a yoke of oxen. Despite recent doubts, this class probably included many of the farmers and craftsmen of *Attica, and provided the bulk of the hoplite army. Under Solon's constitution the zeugitai enjoyed full citizen rights except that they were not admitted to the highest magistracies (see magistracy, greek). The archon-ships (see archontes) were opened to them from 457/6.