Collegiate Questions—Intermediate

Question 1

What practice, which queen Teuta allowed or promoted among her Illyrian subjects, ran rampant in Cilicia until the tribune Aulus Gabinius placed Pompey in charge of its suppression?

Answer 1

PIRACY

B1: What general did Teuta assign to defend the island of Corcyra, only to have him betray her and give the Romans a victory?

DEMETRIUS OF PHAROS

B2: Shortly before Pompey defeated the pirates, what inept commander earned a humiliating cognōmen commemorating his defeat by Cilician pirates off the coast of Crete?

(MARCUS) ANTONIUS (CRETICUS)

Question 2

What man’s victory at the Battle of Colline Gate in 82 B.C. secured his control over Rome, allowing him to be made dictator and finally best the achievements of his rival, Marius?

Answer 2

(LUCIUS CORNELIUS) SULLA (FELIX)

B1: Marius and Sulla had begun their rivalry when they were fighting what Numidian chieftain in a war lasting from 112 to 105 B.C.?

JUGURTHA

B2: Sulla was the leader of what faction, representing the richer traditionalists who opposed the reform-minded populārēs?

OPTIMĀTĒS // OPTIMATES

Question 3

What war, incited by Servilius’s tone-deaf speech at Asculum and an unknown assassin’s murder of Livius Drusus in 91 B.C., saw the Marsi and other tribes rise up to gain citizenship?

Answer 3

SOCIAL WAR

B1: Name either of the two main commanders, one Marsian and one Paelignian, of the Italian rebels in the Social War.

(Q.) {POMPAEDIUS / POPPAEDIUS} SILO or (C.) PAPIUS MUTILUS

B2: The Social War was ended by a series of three laws passed in 90 and 89 B.C. Name two of them.

ANY TWO OF: LĒX IŪLIA / LĒX PLAUTIA PAPĪRIA / LEX POMPEIA

Question 4

What member of the gēns Licinia, said to have run a private fire brigade to purchase burning properties, put down the revolt of Spartacus and was the richest man in the First Triumvirate?

Answer 4

(MARCUS LICINIUS) CRASSUS

B1: Crassus met his unfortunate end after what battle between Rome and the Parthian empire?

(BATTLE OF) CARRHAE

B2: At what city did Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus meet in 56 B.C. to renew the Triumvirate?

LUCA

Question 5

By carrying out the “Asiatic Vespers” massacres, who caused a series of wars in which Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Pompey eventually conquered his kingdom of Pontus?

Answer 5

MITHRIDATES {VI // THE GREAT // EUPATOR}

B1: At what site, where Caesar later proclaimed “vēnī, vīdī, vīcī,” did Mithridates win a battle over a Roman force in 67 B.C.?

(BATTLE OF) ZELA

B2: What law passed the next year moved command against Mithridates from Lucullus to Pompey?

LĒX MĀNĪLIA

Question 6

When his palace on the Caelian Hill was struck by lightning, which king of Rome died after a career which involved the conquest of Alba Longa and other warlike activities?

Answer 6

TULLUS HOSTILIUS

B1: What specific god, with what epithet, had Tullus Hostilius offended by mis-performing a ceremony in his honor, leading to that lightning strike?

JUPITER ELICIUS

B2: What dictator of Alba Longa did Tullus Hostilius have executed after learning that he had been betrayed?

METTIUS FUFETIUS

Question 7

A pair of battles at Emesa and Antioch allowed what military emperor, who also began a massive brick wall around Rome, to reach Palmyra and defeat Zenobia in the 270s A.D.?

Answer 7

AURELIAN

B1: After subduing Zenobia, Aurelian defeated what ruler of the breakaway Gallic Empire?

TETRICUS

B2: Aurelian had succeeded what emperor, who received his cognōmen after defeating the Goths at Naissus?

CLAUDIUS {II / GOTHICUS}

Question 8

What man was so enamored with the island of Capri that he left rule to Macro and to Sejanus while there, making his time as emperor less celebrated than his predecessor, Augustus?

Answer 8

TIBERIUS

B1: Tiberius was forever jealous of what man, his nephew and adopted son, who died in 19 A.D. after a distinguished military career along Rome’s northern frontiers?

GERMANICUS (JULIUS CAESAR)

B2: Name Tiberius’ mother, whose funeral he refused to attend after she died in 29 A.D.

LIVIA (DRUSILLA)

Question 9

At what battle did Valerius Falto help the admiral Lutatius Catulus achieve a decisive victory in 241 B.C. over a Carthaginian fleet, effectively ending the First Punic War?

Answer 9

(BATTLE OF) AEGATES ISLANDS

B1: Which Roman general had earned a victory at Cape Ecnomus before being defeated and taken prisoner by Xanthippus at the Bagradas Valley?

REGULUS

B2: Another Lutatius Catulus helped Marius defeat the Cimbri at what battle of 101 B.C., which followed a battle at Aquae Sextiae?

VERCELLAE

Question 10

What century A.D. included the so-called “Year of the Five Emperors,” when Pertinax and Didius Julianus succeeded Commodus, who ended the period of the Five Good Emperors?

Answer 10

100s (A.D.) // SECOND CENTURY (A.D.)

B1: What name is given to the harmonious period between 27 B.C. and 180 A.D. that ended with the death of the last of the Five Good Emperors?

PĀX RŌMĀNA // ROMAN PEACE

B2: What praetorian prefect of Commodus once sold 25 consulships at auction in one day?

CLEANDER

Question 11

What nōmen is shared by 306 soldiers in 479 B.C. — not counting the child surnamed Vibulanus — who went to fight the Veientes and all died at the Cremera River?

Answer 11

FABIUS

B1: What man gained the second set of spolia opīma for killing the Veian king Lars Tolumnius in single combat at Fidenae?

(AULUS) CORNELIUS COSSUS

B2: At what battle were the third set of spolia opīma awarded?

(BATTLE OF) CLASTIDIUM

Question 12

What emperor rose to the throne at 12 years old after the deposition of Julius Nepos, though he was himself deposed by Odoacer and ended up as Rome’s last emperor in 476 A.D.?

Answer 12

ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS

B1: Name Romulus Augustulus’ father, who placed him on the throne.

ORESTES

B2: The Eastern Roman Empire continued until what century A.D.?

15TH CENTURY // 1400s

Question 13

Plautia Urgulanilla, Agrippina the Younger, and Messalina were wives of what emperor, depicted as a confused old man who accidentally became emperor after Caligula?

Answer 13

CLAUDIUS

B1: What son of Claudius was poisoned in 55 A.D.?

BRITANNICUS

B2: Name two of Claudius’s most prominent freedmen: either his secretary, his examiner of petitions, his treasurer, or his record-keeper.

ANY TWO OF: NARCISSUS, CALLISTUS, PALLAS, POLYBIUS

Question 14

What man ended the period of the Barracks Emperors by making Galerius his co-ruler in 293 A.D., establishing a system that became known as the tetrarchy?

Answer 14

DIOCLETIAN

B1: What man was Augustus in the West as Diocletian was Augustus in the East?

MAXIMIAN

B2: In 301 A.D., Diocletian issued an important edict on what subject?

(MAXIMUM) PRICES (OF GOODS)

Question 15

By inducing the Chatti to invade, what governor of Upper Germany started a rebellion that Lappius Maximus put down in 89 A.D., contributing to Domitian’s increasing paranoia?

Answer 15

(LUCIUS ANTONIUS) SATURNINUS

B1: Before Lappius Maximus defeated Saturninus, Domitian had called up what future emperor from Spain to contribute to the fight?

TRAJAN

B2: The rebellion of Saturninus prevented Domitian from campaigning further against what king, who had invaded Moesia and killed the legate Oppius Sabinus?

DECEBALUS

Question 16

When he learned of Metellus Scipio’s defeat, what man, stationed at Utica, realized that Thapsus marked the end of the Pompeian cause and committed suicide to avoid Caesar’s pardon?

Answer 16

CATO THE YOUNGER

B1: What general, one of Caesar’s most trusted during his Gallic campaigns, was the only Pompeian general to survive the Battle of Thapsus?

(TITUS) LABIENUS

B2: The Battle of Thapsus also saw the suicide of what Numidian king, who had allied with Pompey’s forces?

JUBA (I)

Question 17

A plot by Petronius Maximus brought down what general, who enjoyed virtual rule of Rome from 434 to 454 A.D. and won the battle of the Catalaunian Plains against Attila the Hun?

Answer 17

(FLAVIUS) AETIUS

B1: Aetius’s career and fate paralleled that of what earlier general, who was brought down by a resentful palace official in 408 A.D.?

(FLAVIUS) STILICHO

B2: In what year did the battle of the Catalaunian Plains take place?

451 A.D.

Question 18

What Roman opposed an embassy led by Cineas with an impassioned speech against Pyrrhus, completing a career where he built Rome’s first aqueduct and first major road?

Answer 18

APPIUS CLAUDIUS (CAECUS)

B1: What position did Appius Claudius hold in 312 B.C., when he built the aqueduct and road?

CENSOR

B2: Name Appius Claudius’ younger brother, who convinced the Romans to aid the Mamertines against the Carthaginians and the Syracusans.

(APPIUS CLAUDIUS) CAUDEX

Question 19

What kingdom, whose final defeat came in 148 B.C., fought a war against Rome where a battle at Cynoscephalae showed the decline of the phalanx with Philip V’s defeat?

Answer 19

(KINGDOM OF) MACEDON(IA)

B1: What Roman led the victorious forces in the Second Macedonian War before declaring the “peace and freedom of Greece” in 196 B.C.?

(TITUS QUINCTIUS) FLAMININUS

B2: At what event did Flamininus make this declaration?

ISTHMIAN GAMES

Question 20

What pair of brothers got along so poorly that one murdered the other in 211 A.D. in Julia Domna’s arms, ignoring the advice of their father Septimius Severus?

Answer 20

CARACALLA and GETA

B1: What sister of Julia Domna was the mastermind behind the rule of her two grandsons Elagabalus and Severus Alexander?

JULIA MAESA

B2: At what British city did Septimius Severus die?

EBORACUM / YORK

Question 21

The Battle of Mount Gaurus was part of what war, which centered around Capua, lasted from 343 to 341 B.C., and was the first of three wars fought against the same enemy?

Answer 21

FIRST SAMNITE WAR

B1: Who was the commander at Mount Gaurus, a man who, five years earlier, defeated a Gallic opponent with the help of a raven, a victory for which he gained his cognomen?

(MARCUS) VALERIUS CORVUS

B2: The Second Samnite War broke out over a dispute over what other Campanian city, which had a Greek name?

NEAPOLIS / NAPLES

Question 22

What woman, whose husband boasted she was the most virtuous wife of men at a feast, caused a revolt by Junius Brutus and Tarquinius Collatinus when Sextus Tarquinius raped her?

Answer 22

LUCRETIA

B1: In the ensuing war, the Tarquins received help from what Etruscan king?

(LARS) PORSENNA (OF CLUSIUM)

B2: Sextus Tarquinius fled to what city, whose leading citizens he had killed after interpreting a coded message of his father striking off the heads of the tallest poppies in their garden?

GABII

Question 23

Whose allies included the renegade Rhodian admiral Polyxenidas and the Romans’ perennial enemy Hannibal as his forces fought in battles like Myonessus during the Seleucid War?

Answer 23

ANTIOCHUS {III / THE GREAT}

B1: At the Battle of Magnesia, what monarch, succeeded by Attalus II, fought alongside the Roman forces to defeat Antiochus?

EUMENES II

B2: Besides Myonessus, name another naval battle in the Seleucid War. One saw Polyxenidas defeated by Gaius Livius, the other saw Hannibal lose to the loyal Rhodian Eudamus.

{CAPE CORYCUS // KISSOS} or {SIDE // EURYMEDON}

Question 24

In what war did battles at Dertosa, Ilipa, and Baecula in Spain and the siege of Syracuse on Sicily made up for a series of defeats in Italy, including at Lake Trasimene and Cannae?

Answer 24

SECOND PUNIC WAR

B1: During which battle of that war was Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, killed by the Romans?

(BATTLE OF) METAURUS RIVER

B2: Another major victory in Spain came with the capture of what city in 209 B.C.?

CARTHAGO NOVA // NEW CARTHAGE // CARTAGENA

Question 25

What battle near Aquileia was seen as the final triumph of Christianity over paganism in 394 A.D. when Eugenius and Arbogast were defeated by Theodosius the Great?

Answer 25

(BATTLE OF THE) FRIGIDUS RIVER

B1: When Theodosius first took power in the East, he had two co-emperors, one of whom shared his name with the previous Western emperor. Name either of them.

GRATIAN or VALENTINIAN II

B2: Before he usurped power, Arbogast had actually defeated what other goofily named usurper who had invaded the West and killed Gratian?

MAGNUS MAXIMUS