Greek / Roman

Question 1

This god of fire is the Roman counterpart to Hephaeustus.

Answer 1

Vulcan

Question 2

This king pursued Britomartis, a Cretan goddess, for nine months. She leaped into the sea to escape him.

Answer 2

Minos

Question 3

In Greek mythology, the muses were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who was the goddess of this.

Answer 3

Memory

Question 4

In Greek mythology, Arachne is turned into a spider, doomed to spin forever, after challenging which goddess to a weaving competition?

Answer 4

Athena

Question 5

This is the name of the two-faced Roman god of doorways.

Answer 5

Janus

Question 6

This pair who accompanied their father into battle were called Timor and Formido, “fear” and “terror”, by the Romans.

Answer 6

Phobos, Deimos

Question 7

In most versions of the Greek myth, what woman is not born to her mother in normal human fashion, but hatches from a swan’s egg?

Answer 7

Helen of Troy

Question 8

This mythological figure and son of Helios met his end after being struck down by Zeus when he was unable to control his father’s chariot.

Answer 8

Phaeton

Question 9

Though the tale is commonly referred to as “Pandora’s Box,” the word “Box” is actually the result of an eventual mistranslation. What type of container did Pandora actually open?

Answer 9

Jar

Question 10

What name is shared in Greek mythology by one of the sea nymphs known as the Nereids, one of the Graces (with Aglaea and Euphrosyne), and one of the Muses (the Muse of comedy)? The name is also used (with a different pronunciation) by a popular Mexican musical artist and “Queen of Latin Pop.”

Answer 10

Thalia

Question 11

In Greek mythology, this is the leader and youngest of the first generation of Titans, born from Uranus and Gaia.

Answer 11

Cronus

Question 12

In Greek mythology, this was the primal god personifying the sky and one of the Greek primordial deities.

Answer 12

Uranus

Question 13

In Greek mythology, these were the female deities of vengeance. When Cronus castrated his father and threw his genitalia into the sea, these creatures from the drops of blood that fell on the earth.

Answer 13

Furies / Erinyes

Question 14

The second half of his service to Eurystheus took him to 6 different places, like Crete, Thrace and the Underworld.

Answer 14

Hercules

Question 15

In Greek myth she was a half-serpent and mother of the sphinx; in zoology it’s a weird mammal that lays eggs.

Answer 15

Echidna

Question 16

In Greek mythology, this is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon for the Titans. It is sometimes referred to as a primordial force or deity, one that with Gaia fathered the monster Typhon.

Answer 16

Tartarus

Question 17

This Greek primordial entity is the personification of the upper air that the gods breathed (as opposed to the normal air of mortals).

Answer 17

Aether

Question 18

This Greek primordial entity is the personification of darkness. Its name is also sometimes used to describe a portion of the underworld which people pass through immediately after dying.

Answer 18

Erebus

Question 19

Considered to be the most deadly creature in Greek mythology, this monster attempted to overthrow Zeus for rule of the Cosmos and lost. According to Hesiod, he is the son of Gaia and Tartarus.

Answer 19

Typhon

Question 20

This Greek mythological figure, the half-giant son of Poseidon and Gaia, would challenge passers-by to wrestling matches and remain invincible if he was in contact with the ground. Heracles defeated him by lifting and crushing him with a bear hug.

Answer 20

Antaeus

Question 21

These twin sons of Ares always accompanied him into war.

Answer 21

Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Terror)

Question 22

In Greek mythology, Jason and the Argonauts went to this actual polity to retrieve the Golden Fleece. While no longer in existence, today it would have been located along the Black Sea in Western Georgia.

Answer 22

Colchis (Greek) Lazica (Roman) Egrisi (Georgian)

Question 23

This is the Roman counterpart to Hera.

Answer 23

Juno

Question 24

This son of Odysseus and Circe ended up killing his father when searching for him in Ithaca. He latest became known as the founder of Tusculum in Italy. He is the subject of a lost eponymous epic poem.

Answer 24

Telegonus

Question 25

The first four chapters of Homer’s Odyssey focus on this son of Odysseus & Penelope and his search for his father.

Answer 25

Telemachus

Question 26

Thalia, the muse of bucolic poetry, carries the staff of these workers.

Answer 26

Shepherds

Question 27

What is the name of the cyclops who tries to eat Odysseus in “The Odyssey”? In Greek his name means “abounding in songs and legends.”

Answer 27

Polyphemus

Question 28

The title character of Margaret Atwood’s “The Penelopiad” tells the story of running this kingdom while waiting for Odysseus to get back

Answer 28

Ithaca (Penelope)

Question 29

Nereus, Glaucus, Phorcys, and Proteus were all Greek gods of what, more famously represented by a different deity?

Answer 29

The Greeks had a lot of sea-gods, which I’m sure annoyed Poseidon.

Question 30

Identify the mythological figure, characterized as “memory personified”, who was the mother of Calliope, Clio, and others.

Answer 30

Mnemosyne

Question 31

As per their name, a tribe in Greek mythology lured Odysseus’s scouts to eat what, after which the men had to be dragged back to their ship and chained to benches?

Answer 31

Lotus

Question 32

In many versions of the Greek myth, who kills her own sons Alcimenes and Tisander at Corinth?

Answer 32

Medea

Question 33

According to Greek mythology, what daughter of Inachus (and namesake of the innermost Galilean moon) was turned into a heifer by Zeus after he fell in love with her, in order to protect her from the wrath of Hera?

Answer 33

Io

Question 34

According to a story in Greek mythology, what mortal was chosen by Zeus to judge the beauty of the goddesses Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera? This mythical event has been depicted in many works of art over the years, perhaps most famously by Peter Paul Rubens.

Answer 34

Paris

Question 35

While Homer mentions only a single Gorgon, the later Greek poet Hesiod speaks of three, all daughters of the sea god Phorcys and his sister-wife Ceto: Stheno, Euryale, and what third (the only one of the three who was mortal)?

Answer 35

Medusa

Question 36

The firstborn child of Titans Cronus and Rhea, this virgin goddess of the hearth customarily received the first offering at every sacrifice in an ancient Greek household.

Answer 36

Hestia

Question 37

Rhea Silvia was the legendary mother of what two siblings?

Answer 37

In Roman myth, Rhea Silvia was a vestal virgin before being assaulted by the war-god Mars leading to the birth of twin boys: Romulus and Remus.

Question 38

The Nereids, Naiads, Dryads, Oceanids, and Napaeae were among the groups of minor divinities in Greek mythology who are collectively classified by what term, from the Greek for “bride” or “young wife”?

Answer 38

Nymph

Question 39

The Greek goddesses of vengeance are called the Eumenides, better known as these, a word from Latin

Answer 39

The Furies

Question 40

The principal religious structure in Ancient Rome was a temple on Capitoline Hill dedicated to what Roman god, who was referred to generally (and in the name of this temple) as “Optimus Maximus”?

Answer 40

Jupiter

Question 41

According to one story in Greek mythology, what sprang from the body of Medusa upon her death at the hands of Perseus, and was later captured by Bellerophon, helping him defeat the hybrid Chimera?

Answer 41

Pegasus