Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 10.djvu/575

ZEPHANIAH 495 ZEUS ria, and Asia Minor, and make good her vaunted title of Queen of the East. The accession of Aurelian, however, in 270, once more placed a soldier at the head of the Roman empire, and in 273 the armies of Zenobia were defeated in two pitched battles, while Palmyra was taken and its queen made prisoner. Ac- cording to Zosimus she died on her way to Rome, but according to Trebellius Pollio, whose narrative is much more particular, she was led in triumph through Rome in the train of Aurelian, and was afterward presented by her conqueror with a villa at Tibur, where she passed the remainder of her life with her sons after the manner of a Roman matron. Zenobia was one of the most remarkable women of antiquity. She resembled Cleopatra in her talents and her personal fascination, and she far surpassed her in purity and eleva- tion of character. "She is," says Gib- bon, "perhaps the only female whose superior genius has broken through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and manners of Asia." ZEPHANIAH, a prophet, son of Cushi, who again was the son of Geda- liah, son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah (the king?). ZERBST, a town of Germany in the republic of Anhalt, formerly capital of the principality of Anhalt-Zerbst ; on the Nuthe, 2614 miles S. E. of Magdeburg. The chief buildings are the Nikolai- kirche, dating from the 15th century; the great Schloss, surrounded with a park; and the stately old Rathhaus, dating from the 15th century, but dis- figured by additions in 1610, standing in the market place, in the center of which are the Roland column (1445), and the Butter jungfer, a slender column bearing a female figure. Zerbst con- tains a gymnasium of high repute — the Francisceum — and has manufactures of silks, plush, cloth, leather, gloves, gold and silver lace, soap, starch, essences, tobacco, chemicals, pottery, umbrellas, musical instru. lents, and machinery. Gardening, iron founding, and beer brew- ing are also carried on. ZERMATT (tser-maf), an important center for tourists in Switzerland; a small village near the upper end of th'; Visp valley in Valais; 25 miles S. S. W., of Visp. It stands 5,315 feet above the sea, having to the S. the great Theodule glacier, above which towers the Breit- horn on the E. and beyond the Monte Rosa group, and on the W, the rocky cone of the Matterhorn. Railway com- munication was opened in 1890, The churchyard contains the graves of many of the victims of mountaineering. The Theodule Pass or Matter joch (10,899 feet) leads to Aosta in Italy. ZERO, in common language, nothing: in arithmetic it is called naught, and means no number; in algebra, it stands for no quantity, or for a quantity less than any assignable quantity; a cipher: nothing, denoted by 0. In astronomy, the first point of Aries (q. v.). ZERRAHN, CARL, an American musical conductor; born in Malchow, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany, July 28, 1826; came to the United States with the Germania Orchestra in 1848; became musical director of the Handel and Hayden Society of Boston in 1854; was conductor of the Harvard symphony concerts in 1866-1882; and for many years directed the famous annual musi- cal festivals at Worcester, Mass. He edited "The Index," "The Apograph," "The Atlas," "Carl Zerrahn's Selec- tions," etc. He died in 1909, ZEUS ZEtrS (ziis), the greatest of the na- tional deities of ancient Greece; accord- ing to the most received mythology, son of Cronos and Rhea.