ZENO ZENOBIA. 



16.9 



ans placed so much confidence in his integrity, that 

 they deposited the keys of their citadel in his hands, 

 and decreed him a golden crown and a statue. He 

 is said to have come rich into Greece, but he lived 

 with great simplicity and abstemiousness; and the 

 modesty of his disposition led him to shun crowds 

 and personal distinction. He reached the advanced 

 age of ninety-eight, when, hurting one of his fin- 

 gers in a fall, he interpreted the accident into a 

 warning to depart, and, repeating from the tragedy 

 of Niobe, "Here I am; why do you call me?" 

 went home and strangled himself, on the principle 

 that a man was at liberty to part with life when- 

 ever he deemed it eligible to do so. The Atheni- 

 ans honoured him with a public funeral and a tomb, 

 with an inscription recording his services to youth, 

 by his rigid inculcation of virtuous principles and 

 good conduct. His death is dated in the first year 

 of the 129th Olympaid (B. C. 263). As the foun- 

 der of a new school, he seems rather to have in- 

 vented new terms than new doctrines, and agreed 

 in many points with his masters of the Platonic 

 sect. In morals, he followed the principles of the 

 Cynics, freed of their practical indecencies, which 

 induced Juvenal to observe that the two sects only 

 differed in the tunic. For an account of his philoso- 

 phy, see Stoics. 



ZENO, NICHOLAS AND ANTHONY ; two cele- 

 brated Venetian navigators of the fourteenth cen- 

 tury, to whom the discovery of America, prior to 

 the voyage of Columbus, has been attributed. The 

 story is an follows : Nicholas having set sail in a 

 ship equipped at his own cost, on a voyage to Flan- 

 ders and England (about 1388), was driven by a 

 storm upon an island called by the inhabitants 

 Friseland, which geographers suppose to have been 

 one of the Faroe islands. Here he was kindly re- 

 ceived by a prince of some neighbouring islands, 

 called Porland, who was then meditating the con- 

 quest of Friseland. Having aided that prince in 

 conquering this and other northern islands, Nicho- 

 las Zeno sent for his brother Anthony, who joined 

 him there in 1391 or 1392. The former died about 

 1395 ; but the latter remained in the country till 

 about 1405, when he returned to Venice. During 

 their residence in Friseland, their attention was 

 attracted by the report of a fisherman concerning 

 some land about 1000 miles west of Friseland, in- 

 habited by people living in cities, acquainted with 

 the mechanical arts, and possessing some Latin 

 books, which, however, they did not understand. 

 While in that country, which he said was called 

 Estotiland, the same person declared that he went, 

 in a fleet fitted out by the prince of Estotiland, to 

 a country to the south, called Drogeo, the inhabit- 

 ants of which were naked and barbarous, though, 

 far to the south-west, there was another civilized 

 country, where the people had great abundance of 

 gold and silver, and in their temples sacrificed human 

 victims. This account determined the prince to 

 send an expedition thither under Anthony Zeno, 

 which, however, returned, after discovering the 

 island of Icaria, and visiting Greenland, without 

 accomplishing the objects of the voyage. The re- 

 lation and letters of the brothers Zeno, and the map 

 of the country mentioned in them, remained in the 

 family archives a century and a half, when they 

 were published by Marcolini, under the title of the 

 Discovery of the Isles of Friseland, Esland, En- 

 groveland, Estotiland and Icaria (Venice, 1588). 

 This work is given in the second volume of Ramu- 

 sio's collection, and in the third volume of Hakluyt, 



and has excited much discussion among geographi- 

 cal writers, such as Ortelius, Mercator, Forster, 

 Malte-Brun, &c. The latter considers Estotiland 

 to be Newfoundland, Drogeo, Nova Scotia or New 

 England, and the civilized people to the south, the 

 Mexicans, or some ancient nation of Florida or 

 Louisiana. Washington Irving (Life of Columbus, 

 appendix, No. xiii.) remarks that, although the 

 brothers Zeno probably visited Greenland, the rest 

 of the story resembles the fables circulated shortly 

 after the discovery of Columbus, to arrogate to 

 other nations and individuals the credit of the 

 achievement. See, further,Daru's/7sozVe de Venise 

 (vol. i, b. 40). At all events, it is evident that 

 Columbus had no knowledge of these accounts, as 

 he sailed under the expectation of finding land to 

 the west, and not to the north. 



ZENO, APOSTOLO, an eminent Italian man of 

 letters, was born at Venice, in 1668. He was the 

 son of a physician in that city, who was a descend- 

 ant from a noble family long settled in the island 

 of Candia. He was educated in a seminary of reli- 

 gion at Castelli, but principally cultivated polite 

 literature, and the study of Italian history and anti- 

 quities. He first acquired celebrity by his melo- 

 dramas a species of poetry then much in vogue in 

 Italy. In 1696, he instituted at Venice the aca- 

 demy Degli Animosi, and was the editor of the 

 Giornale de Letter ati d* Italia, of which he published 

 thirty-eight volumes between the years 1710 and 

 1719, and which still maintains its reputation. His 

 first musical drama, L'Inganni Felice, was per- 

 formed at Venice in 1695 ; and between that time 

 and his quitting Vienna, to which he was invited 

 by Charles VI., in 1718, who made him both his 

 poet and historian, he produced forty-six operas and 

 seventeen oratorios. He continued eleven years in 

 the imperial service, at the expiration of which he 

 obtained his dismission from the emperor, his per- 

 sonal friend, who allowed him to retain his salary 

 on condition of furnishing annually a drama for 

 music ; which he continued to do until the appoint- 

 ment of Metastasio. On his return to Venice, he 

 lived in literary leisure until his death, November 

 11, 1750, a few months before which he gave his 

 valuable library and collection of coins to the Do- 

 minicans. Zeno was of much service to the musi- 

 cal poetry of the Italians, especially the opera, to 

 which he gave a more regular form. (See Opera, 

 and Italian Poetry.) But his labours as a biogra- 

 pher and historian are of more importance. These 

 include his notes to Fontanini's Biblioteca della 

 Eloquenza Italiana, his Dissertazioni Vossiane, his 

 additions to Foresti's Mappamondo Istorico, and his 

 biographies of Sabellico, Guarini, Davila, and the 

 three Manutiuses. He also aided the labours of 

 others, as Muratori. The dramatic works of Zeno 

 were published at Venice in 1744 (10 vols., 8vo.). 

 They rank not very high as poetical compositions ; 

 but he is the first Italian poet who gave his country, 

 men good rules for tragedy, and freed it from the 

 intermixture of low buffoonery, with which the 

 Italian serious drama was before infected. His let- 

 ters, which were published in 1752 (3 vols., 8vo.), 

 contain much sound criticism, and many notices of 

 the literary history of his time. 



ZENOBIA, QUEEN OF PALMYRA, claimed her 

 descent from the Macedonian kings of Egypt. She 

 was instructed in the sciences by the celebrated 

 Longinus, and made such progress that, besides her 

 native tongue, she spoke the Latin, Greek and 

 Syrian languages. She also patronised learned men, 



