Zacynthus, a native of Bœotia, who accompanied Hercules when he went into Spain to destroy Geryon. At the end of the expedition he was entrusted with the care of Geryon’s flocks by the hero, and ordered to conduct them to Thebes. As he went on his journey, he was bit by a serpent, and some time after died. His companions carried his body away, and buried it in an island of the Ionian sea, which from that time was called Zacynthus. The island of Zacynthus, now called Zante, is situate at the south of Cephalenia, and at the west of the Peloponnesus. It is about 60 miles in circumference. Livy, bk. 26, ch. 24.—Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 12.—Strabo, bks. 2 & 8.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 7.—Homer, Odyssey, bk. 1, li. 246; bk. 9, li. 24.—Ovid, Ars Amatoria, bk. 2, li. 432.—Pausanias, bk. 4, ch. 23.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 3, li. 270.——A son of Dardanus. Pausanias, bk. 8.
Zadris, a town of Colchis.
Zagræus, a son of Jupiter and Proserpine, the same as the first Bacchus, of whom Cicero speaks. Some say that Jupiter obtained Proserpine’s favours in the form of a serpent in one of the caves of Sicily, where her mother had concealed her from his pursuits, and that from this union Zagræus was born.
Zagrus, a mountain on the confines of Media and Babylonia. Strabo, bk. 11.
Zalates, an effeminate youth brought to Rome from Armenia as a hostage, &c. Juvenal, satire 20, li. 164.
Zaleucus, a lawgiver of the Locrians in Italy, and one of the disciples of Pythagoras, 550 B.C. He was very humane, and at the same time very austere, and he attempted to enforce his laws more by inspiring shame than dread. He had wisely decreed that a person guilty of adultery should lose both his eyes. His philosophy was called to a trial when he was informed that his son was an adulterer. He ordered the law to be executed; the people interfered, but Zaleucus resisted, and rather than violate his own institutions, he commanded one of his own eyes, and one of those of his son, to be put out. This made such an impression upon the people, that while Zaleucus presided over the Locrians, no person was again found guilty of adultery. Valerius Maximus, bk. 1, ch. 2; bk. 6, ch. 5.—Cicero, de Legibus, bk. 2, ch. 6; Letters to Atticus, bk. 6, ltr. 1.—Ælian, Varia Historia, bk. 2, ch. 37; bk. 3, ch. 17; bk. 13, ch. 24.—Strabo, bk. 6.
Zama, or Zagma, a town of Numidia, 300 miles from Carthage, celebrated for the victory which Scipio obtained there over the great Annibal, B.C. 202. Metellus besieged it, and was obliged to retire with great loss. After Juba’s death it was destroyed by the Romans. Hirtius, African War, ch. 91.—Cornelius Nepos, Hannibal.—Livy, bk. 30, ch. 29.—Sallust, Jugurthine War.—Florus, bk. 3, ch. 1.—Silius Italicus, bk. 3, li. 261.—Strabo, bk. 17.——A town of Cappadocia,——of Mesopotamia.
Zameis, a debauched king of Assyria, son of Semiramis and Ninus, as some report. He reigned 38 years.
Zamolxis, or Zalmoxis, a slave and disciple of Pythagoras. He accompanied his master in Egypt, and afterwards retired into the country of the Getæ, which had given him birth. He began to civilize his countrymen, and the more easily to gain reputation, he concealed himself for three years in a subterraneous cave, and afterwards made them believe that he was just raised from the dead. Some place him before the age of Pythagoras. After death he received divine honours. Diodorus.—Herodotus, bk. 4, ch. 19, &c.
Zancle, a town of Sicily, on the straits which separate that island from Italy. It received its name from its appearing like a scythe, which was called ξανκλον in the language of the country, or, as others say, because the scythe with which Saturn mutilated his father fell there, or because, as Diodorus reports, a person named Zanclus had either built it or exercised its sovereignty. Zancle fell into the hands of the Samians 497 years before the christian era, and three years after it was recovered by Anaxilaus the Messenian tyrant of Rhegium, who gave it the name of his native country, and called it Messana. It was founded, as most chronologers support, about 1058 years before the christian era, by the pirates of Cumæ in Italy, and peopled by Samians, Ionians, and Chalcidians. Strabo, bk. 6.—Diodorus, bk. 4.—Silius Italicus, bk. 1, li. 662.—Ovid, Fasti, bk. 4, li. 499; Metamorphoses, bk. 14, li. 6; bk. 15, li. 290.—Pausanias, bk. 4, ch. 23.