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Zeno of Citium ZENOOF CITIUM self-interest. Zeno was also one of the first (335-263 B.c.) Greek philosophers to end his life by sui- Founder of Stoic philosophy, cide when he believed that his usefulness born at Citium on Cyprus, probably of was at an end, an example emulated Phoenician ancestry. In 313 he went to by such followers as Cato the Younger Athens to attend the Platonic Academy, and Seneca the Younger, the most famous but converted to Cynicism, in which vein Roman adherents except for the Emperor he wrote his earliest treatises. Marcus Aurelius, himself also an ex- He taught in the Stoa Poikile pounder of Stoicism. (Painted Porch) at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, where he drew many listeners. BIBLIOGRAPHY. J. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge When Antigonus Gonatas, king of University Press, 1969. Macedonia, invited him to his court in William A. Percy Pella, he dispatched a disciple instead of going in person, breaking Plato's and Aristotle's tradition of serving tyrants. ZOROASTRIANISM Zeno's complete philosophical system The most important indigenous borrowed physics from Heraclitus and religion of ancient Iran, Zoroastrianism Aristotelian logic from Antisthenes and bears on the history of homosexuality Diodorus the Megaran, but it was his eth- because of its crucial influence on this ics, according to which virtue is the only aspect of Judaism and its sacred writings, good and vice or moral weakness the only as well as on the folk angelology and real evil, that comforted many during the demonology of the intertestamental pe- wars and tyrannies of the successors of riod and later centuries. The religion of Alexander the Great, the late Roman Zoroaster survives today among the small Republic, and the Empire. A protCgC of the Parsi community in India. Scipios, Paenatius of Rhodes (ca. 150 B.c.), Although it reached its apogee introduced Stoic philosophy to Rome and during the Achaemenid Period (ca. 550- harmonized it with the mos rnaiomrn to 330 B.c.), the roots of Zoroastrianism ex- make it the favorite philosophy of Romans tend much further back into Persian reli- until the third century when Neo-Plato- gious traditions relating to nature worship nism replaced it. and good and evil spirits, and beyond these Antigonus of Carystus named to Aryan (Indo-European]mythology with Zeno as having been an exclusive boy- its division of celestial beings into two loverwith no interest inwomen. Ethically warring classcs. This ancient dualism Zeno regarded the choice of sexual object, appeared in Greek mythology as the gods whether male or female, as a purely per- versus the titans, and in Indian tradition sonal matter. No objective criteria, he as the gods (devas) versus the demons opined, can be adduced for preferring ei- (asuras], but in Persia the labels were re- ther homosexuality or heterosexuality. versed, so that the Aryan asuras became What is important is the management of the good ahuras and the devas became the one's life in accordance with enlightened evil daevas. The prophet Zoroaster (from a 9 ZOROASTRIANISM Greek version of Zarathustra), believed to woman lies with mankind, is the man have lived about 630-550,~.c.,refined the that is a Daeva; this one . is a female ancient faith into a belief in seven good paramour of the Daevas, that is a she- spirits and seven evil spirits, perpetually Daeva."' (Vendidad,FargardVIII, V:3 1-32]. at war. Zoroaster said that Ahura Mazda, Noteworthy here is the equal guilt of the chief of thegood spirits, would triumph both parties, unusual for the ancient in the end. world, and the ascription of femininity to The war between good and evil the guilty. The same chapter proscribes that is being waged in the universe has its 800 stripes for involuntary emission of counterpart within each individual. semen. Elsewhere in Zoroastrian tradition Zoroastrians were encouraged toseek piety permission is given for the killing of a by leading pure lives and doing good homosexual man caught in the act (Com- works. This would lead to a victory of good mentary onFargardVIII, Vm74j. Leviticus over evil in their personal lives and in the 20:13 similarly rules: "If a man also lie world. This worldview, which can be seen with manlund, as he lieth with a woman, emerging in the sixth century B.c., exerted both of them have committed an abomina- tremendous influence on Judaism, espe- tion: they shallsurely be put todeath; their cially the later Essenes, the Greek and blood shall be upon them." The Levitical Roman Stoics, the early Christian gnos- laws, like the comparable Zoroastrian tics, the Manichaeans, and the Mithraists, rules, are cultic--certain behaviors are a hero cult which competed with early condemned because they pollute the cult. Christianity. The emphasis on sexual They may never have been intended to purity in early Christianity may well stem condemn anything other than cohabita- ultimately from this Iranian influence. tion of males with male cultic prostitutes, Shortly after Zoroaster, the who were sacred functionaries of the old Achaemenid family under Cyrus the Great religions that preceded Zoroastrianism (d. 529 B.c.) established the Persian Em- and Judaism. pire, which conquered most of western The major contribution of Zoroas- Asia, including Judea, homeland of the trianism to Western religion, however, Jews. Darius I (d.486 B.c.), the first Persian was its extreme emphasis on moral dual- ruler certain to have been a Zoroastrian, ism, the irreconcilable and never-ending placed Jews in positions of power and conflict between Good and Evil. This encouraged the restoration of their de- dualism has had incalculable effects, paint- stroyed main temple and the adoption of a ing any deviation from what is termed statute book to govern their reorganized Good as something abhorrently Evil, thus community. This included the Holiness giving rise to the notion that sodomites Code of Leviticus 12-26; it is here that the werel'in league with theDevil" and had to death penalty for certain forms of homo- be combatted with every available means. sexuality appears for the first time (20:13). The Persian influence can be BIBLIOGRAPHY. Vem Bullough, Sexual Variance in Society and History, New seen if we compare Leviticus 18:22 and York: JohnWiley, 1976; Edward 20: 13 with the following passage from the Westermarck, The Origin and Develop- Zoroastrian Zend Avesta: "Who is the ment of the Moral Ideas, vol. 11, London: man who is a Daeva? . Ahura Mazda Macrnillan, 1906-08. answered: 'The man that lies with man- Tom Homer kind as man lies with womankind, or as a .
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