Zenobios, life from Zeus, is by far the easiest way of explaining the name of the brilliant Queen of Palmyra; but, on the other hand, she was of Arabian birth, the daughter of Amrou, King of Arabia, and it is highly probable that she originally bore the true Arabic name of Zeenab (ornament of the father); and that when she and her husband entered on intercourse with the Romans, the name Zenobia was bestowed upon her as an equivalent, together with the genuine Latin Septima as a mark of citizenship. When her glory waned, and she was brought as a prisoner to Rome, she and her family were allowed to settle in Italy; and her daughters left descendants there. Zenobius, the Bishop of Milan, who succeeded St. Ambrose, bore her name, and claimed her blood; and thus Zenobio and Zenobia still linger among the inhabitants of the city.
The romance of her story caught the French fancy, and Zénobie has been rather in fashion among modern French damsels.
A Cilician brother and sister, called Zenobius and Zenobia, the former a physician and afterwards Bishop of Ægæ, were put to death together during the persecution of Diocletian, and thus became saints of the Eastern Church, making Sinovij, Sinovija, or for short, Zizi, very fashionable among the Russians.
It is much more difficult to account for the prevalence of Zenobia in Cornwall. Yet many parish registers show it as of an early date: and dear to the West is the story of a sturdy dame called Zenobia Brengwenna, (Mrs. Piozzi makes the surname Stevens,) who, on her ninety-ninth birthday, rode seventeen miles on a young colt to restore to the landlord a 99 years' lease that had been granted to her father, in her name, at her birth.
Probably Zenaïda means daughter of Zeus. Although not belonging to any patron saint, it is extensively popular among Russian ladies; and either from them, or from the modern Greek, the French have recently become fond of Zenaïde.[[25]]
[25]. Smith, Dictionary; Butler, Lives; Gibbon, Rome; Miss Beaufort, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines; Hayward, Mrs. Piozzi.
Section III.—Ἡρα—Hera.
The name of the white-armed, ox-eyed queen of heaven, Ἡρα or Ἡρη (Hera or Heré), is derived by philologists from the same root as the familiar German herr and herrinn, and thus signifies the lady or mistress. Indeed the masculine form ἥρως, whence we take our hero, originally meant a free or noble man, just as herr does in ancient German, and came gradually to mean a person distinguished on any account, principally in arms; and thence it became technically applied to the noble ancestors who occupied an intermediate place between the gods and existing men. The Latin herus and hera are cognate, and never rose out of their plain original sense of master and mistress, though the heros was imported in his grander sense from the Greek, and has passed on to us.
It is curious that whereas the wife of Zeus was simply the lady, it was exactly the same with Frigga, who, as we shall by-and-by see, was merely the Frau—the free woman or lady.