Classic Mythology (Powell) Final Practice Questions Chapters 19-24

Who is this person? "Grim and unyielding he stood, uunmoved by scruple. Wicked intention arouses a sort of courage, stubborn, deranged, begetter of endless sorrow. He nerved himself to be his daughter's butcher."

Agamemnon (532)

Which Roman emperor promoted himself and Roman power through mythical allusions in literature and architecture?

Augustus

"Woman, you've spoken a bitter word. Who has set my bed elsewhere? Hard would it be to do, although highly skilled, unless a god should easily by his will move it to another place." Who is the "woman" in the quotation?

Penelope (603)

What Amazonian leader does Achilles kill?

Penthesilea

Who was the blind Thracian King? (p.486-490)

Prophet, but the Harpies took his food; repays Jason with information about his journey

Who tested the omniscience of the gods by serving them his son Pelops?

Tantalus (518)

What early Roman woman is famously attributed with betraying her city by allowing the Sabines access to the Capitoline Hill?

Tarpeia (641)

According to other sources, Odysseus begot a son with Circe. What was his name?

Telegonus (603)

What are the people named who finally bring Odysseus home to Ithaca?

The Phaeacians

Whose oar broke?

Heracles B/c he was showing off his strength

How did Pelias Die?

His daughters boiled him, thinking it will make him younger, as said by Medea

What two things do we see Achilles mourn for when Priam visits his camp at the end of the Iliad? (550)

His father/Patroclus

Who got Achilles' weaponry after his death?

Odysseus (555)

Who is being talked about? "Think of his quickness of wit and courage in moments of peril like that in the wooden horse, when all we bravest Achaeans crowded together . . ."

Odysseus (559)

How does Odysseus win Achilles' armor?

Odysseus made a very eloquent speech to a Greek assembly, who gave it to him instead of Ajax

Whose horses were sired by the wind?

Oenomaus

What name does Odysseus give Polyphemus?

"Nobody" OR oudeis (586)

How long was Odysseus away from Ithaca?

20 years

Who does Hesiod say would have married Helen if he had been older at the time of the wooing?

Achilles (524)

Who is speaking? "See here, you good-for-nothing, greedy for ill-gotten profit, why should and honest Achaean be ready to follow your orders"

Achilles (539)

Fill in the blank in the following passage from Homer's Iliad: "You know how the son of Cronus now hates the household of Priam; / know too that mighty _____ is to hold the rule of the Trojans, / he and his children's children, for generations to come."

Aeneas (621)

Which of the following does not belong in the list? Polyphemus, Laestrygonians, Aeolus, Scylla.

Aeolus. The rest eat members of Odysseus' crew, while he tries to help them.

What tragedian gives us the account of Agamemnon's murder?

Aeschylus (568)

Who attacked Cassandra as she clung to the statue of Athena?

Ajax, son of Oileus (567)

Who committed suicide after not winning Achilles' arms?

Ajax, son of Telamon (555)

"We lost an impregnable tower when you died, and all the Achaeans continue mourning your death,, as deeply as that of Achilles." Who is this "impregnable tower"?

Ajax, son of Telamon (556)

"They say this was the only time that the son of Amphitryon, fearless in battle, let tears of pity well from his eyelids..." Who is the son of Amphitryon? (p.512-515)

Alcaeus

Who is one of the unluckiest men in Greek legend? (p.482-485)

Althamas

Who is speaking? "'Hector,' she pleaded, your prowess is going to be your undoing."

Andromache (541)

In the Judgement of Paris, who wins and why?

Aphrodite; she offers him Helen as a reward

Who composed his poetry in writing, unlike the oral poets, Hesiod and Homer? (p.493-496)

Apollonius of Rhodes

______pinned the Greek fleet down in Aulis with a contrary wind because she was angry with Agamemnon.

Artemis

Who is the famous female athlete who joins in the Calydonian boar hunt?

Atalanta (511)

_______________ helps the Argonauts pass through the Symplegades

Athena

What is the "prize of my valor" Achilles refers to in his speech to Agamemnon? When Agamemnon takes it away, what keeps Achilles from killing him? (539-540)

Briseis; Athena tells him not to as orders of Hera

What city does Queen Dido rule?

Carthage (624)

Who is speaking? "For this I tell you, a certain mangy lion plots his revenge on my returning master keeping his house and reveling in his bed" (569).

Cassandra (569)

Besides Medea, who is the best known sorceress in Greek myth?

Circe (508)

What are the names of the two goddess with whom Odysseus has affairs?

Circe and Calypso

Which Roman general led the Volsci against Rome?

Coriolanus (653)

Who does Heracles arrange to marry at the end of the poem by Bacchylides?

Deianira (514)

Who is Helen's Trojan husband when Menelaus finally finds her?

Deiphobus

Who is speaking in the following passage from Vergil's Aeneid? "Traitor, did you expect to conceal the crime you were planning, and quietly sneak away from my land? Was our love unable to hold you, or the mutual vows that we gave, or the thought of [me] abandoned, doomed to a piteous death?"

Dido (626)

The Tarquins were not Romans but _____________

Etruscans

This line is from a play by _______________: "Better three times to face the foe in battle than only once to bear the pangs of childbirth."

Euripides From Medea

What is the name of Jason's new wife? (499-502)

Glauce

How does Odysseus come to marry Penelope?

He helps Tyndareus develop his oath, in exchange for his Niece's hand

Who is speaking? "Priam, my poor luckless partner, what desperate purpose is this? What frenzy spurs you to arm and hurry your fate?"

Hecuba, wife of Priam (562)

Where was Troy built?

Hissarlik

The women of Lemnos murdered all the men of the island. Only _______________ spared a man, her father.

Hypsipyle

What Roman deity (origininally the numen of bridges) was represented as a man with two faces, one looking forward, the other back?

Janus (614)

"The horns of the right-hand ox he seized in a powerful grip and twisted, to force the beast to bow its head in submission." Who is this person?

Jason (491)

"No woman ever born of Greek blood has ever dreamed such a deed - women whom I rejected, choosing you." Who is speaking and to whom? (p.502-505)

Jason to Medea

What is the choice Achilles faces in his life, told to him by his mother Thetis? (547)

Keep his glory but never go home, or go home and die at an old age

How does Hector die?

Killed by Achilles, Dragged on chariot

Who is speaking? "Hither, my daughter, come sit beside me here on the rampart, to watch your first husband, your bother-in-law, and your friends. You bear no blame in my eyes. The gods themselves were the authors of our war . . ."

King Priam (535)

What does the priest of Poseidon tell his fellow Trojans about the wooden horse they find outside the walls of Troy?

Laocoon said to destroy it

What is the name of the woman who laid a pair of eggs from which came Zeus's children and Tyndareüs's children?

Leda (521)

What is the name of the man-less island that Jason makes landfall on?

Lemnos (486)

Who faces immediate exile? (p.496-499)

Medea

Whose shrewd and clever advice did Jason recall? (p.490-493)

Medea

Who is speaking? "An unexpected chance has struck me down and blasted my heart. I only long to die, forsaking all the charm that life once held."

Medea (498)

Who killed King Priam?

Neoptolemus (562)

Homer's Odyssey is the only epic to survive from what genre of stories?

Nostoi

This is the Latin word for the native Roman divinities, often no more than personifications of various qualities and/or objects.

Numen OR numina (612-613)

Who was the author of the "Oath of Tyndareüs?"

Odysseus

Who proposed to Tyndareüs an oath that would get him out of his dilemma of rejecting powerful suitors and being attacked?

Odysseus (523)

What are the names of Agamemnon's son and daughter who avenge his murder?

Orestes and Electra (572)

dysseus does not want to go to the Trojan War, so he feigns madness. _______________ finds a way to expose him, for which he wins the everlasting enmity of Odysseus.

Palamedes

What is the name of Jason's arrogant and intolerant half-brother?

Pelias (484)

Who was refashioned by Hermes minus his shoulder?

Pelops (518)

Who is this? "[He] arose to meet the heroes, aware that those who approached him were restorers, promised by Zeus, of all his pleasure in feasting" (488).

Phineus, King of Thrace (488)

This Latin word, which we sometimes translate as "duty," refers to the extraordinary devotion that a good Roman shows to the paterfamilias, the state, and the gods.

Pietas (620)

Where was Oenomaus' Kingdom?

Pisa

Before Augustus' reign in the imperial period, Rome was a _________________

Republic

Who is "the Vestal" in the following passage? "The Vestal presently gave birth to twins [...] She named Mars as their father, either because she really believed it, or because she felt that putting the responsibility on a god would lessen her own dishonor."

Rhea Silvia (638)

What were the names of the two sets of brothers (from Rome and Alba Longa, respectively) who warred against each other on behalf of their cities?

The Horatii and Curiatii (644)

"Then the gods all sang at the blessed marriage of the high-born eldest daughter of Nereus." Who is the "high-born eldest daughter of Nereus"?

Thetis (527)

What Roman historian, who lived at the end of the Roman Republic, wrote an enormous history of the Roman people?

Titius Livius OR Livy (637)

Roman generals could celebrate victory in a great parade called a __________________.

Triumph (653)

What is the "four-legged wagon" in Euripides' Trojan Women?

Trojan Horse

Who is the divine parent of the hero Aeneas?

Venus OR Aphrodite (621, 622)

The temple honoring this Roman goddess held the eternal flame of the Roman state.

Vesta (620)

Which archaeologist concluded that Troy VII is the most likely candidate for the Troy of Homer's Iliad.

Wilhelm Dorpfeld

What are the names of the Boreads who save King Phineas from the Harpies?

Zetes and Calaïs (489)

Why was Peleus married to the sea nymph, Thetis?

Zeus wished to prevent her from having a son greater than he.

What is the key term that means "the process of becoming a god"?

apotheosis (641)

How does Calchas say that the Greeks can be saved from the plague that afflicts them at the beginning of the Iliad? (538)

only by giving up the girl Chryseis

What innovative features of narrative does Powell attribute to Homer? (551)

plot, characters

What is the name of Jason's ship?

the Argo (485)

What does Achilles use to describe after Agamemnon's attempt to reconcile? (545)

the simile of the bird and her nestlings

What crimes do Tantalus and his descendants commit? (What do many of these crimes have in common?)

was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any.