Collegiate Questions—Novice Flashcards
What type of event, originating in Etruria, was first held by the Romans in 264 B.C. at the funeral games of Brutus Pera and saw prisoners of war fight each other, sometimes to the death?
GLADIATOR FIGHTS / GLADIATORIAL COMBAT
B1: Soon enough, the Romans put their own twist on gladiatorial combat and began training men to fight as gladiators. What was the term for the instructor tasked with this job?
LANISTA
B2: However, apprentice gladiators did not train with real weapons. Instead of metal gladiī, what type of wooden sword would gladiators first train with?
RUDIS / RUDĒS
Constructed after a scapegoating of Christians and occupying much of the Oppian Hill, what complex took advantage of the great fire of 64 A.D. to rework Rome in Nero’s image?
DOMUS AUREA // GOLDEN HOUSE
B1: Succeeding Roman emperors were ashamed by the complex’s opulence and stripped it of its wealth. They also built on its grounds: name either of the buildings Titus built there in his reign.
{COLOSSEUM // FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATER} // BATHS (OF TITUS)
B2: Hadrian also built Rome’s largest temple on the site, dedicated to the city of Rome and what deity?
VENUS
If you were sent back in time to the Roman Republic, what modern-day country would you be in if you found out you were in the city of New Carthage in the province of Hispānia?
SPAIN
B1: What modern day country would you be in if you found out you were in the city of Byzantium in the province of Thrācia?
TURKEY
B2: What modern day country would you be in if you found out you were in the city of Alexandrīa near the island of Pharos?
EGYPT
Which room of the Roman house, where patrons received their clients, contained compluvia and impluvia and was the most important room of the house?
THE ATRIUM / ĀTRIUM
B1: What is the Latin name for the hallways, referred to in English as “wings,” found to the left and right of the ātrium?
ĀLAE
B2: What was the term for the wax busts that Romans kept of their ancestors in these ālae?
IMĀGINĒS
Located between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, what site in Rome included the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, the Temple of Vesta, and the Temple of Castor and Pollux?
(ROMAN) FORUM/FORUM (RŌMĀNUM)
B1: What did the Romans call the road that ran through the Forum?
VIA SACRA
B2: Three of what type of monument were built in or near the Forum and dedicated to Septimius Severus, Titus, and Constantine?
ARCHES
As Roman provinces completely surrounded it, what was the Roman term for the Mediterranean Sea, which literally translates as “our sea?”
MARE NOSTRUM
B1: What smaller sea was originally known by this name and is surrounded by Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and the Italian Peninsula?
TYRRHENIAN SEA
B2: Sailing from the Tyrrhenian Sea through the Strait of Messana between Italy and Sicily, one would enter what sea, possibly named after a character who was transformed into a cow?
IONIAN SEA
