Ancient Greece Through Ancient Words Quiz

Answer: Polytheistic

Polytheism is the worship of or belief in more than one god. Ancient Greek religion was based on a mixture of beliefs, practices and myths. Of the ancient Greeks writers, some of Hesiod, Homer and Pindar's writings are considered reference texts for the religion. The epic poems of Homer and Hesiod are the earliest surviving examples of Western literature.

Answer: Hesiod

"Works and Days" runs to 800 lines and is about the agriculture arts. It is better known for the myths of Prometheus, Pandora and his Five Ages of man. The term "Pandora's box" arises from a 16th century mistranslation. The word used by Hesiod was for a large storage jar typically used for storing wheat, wine or olive oil.

Hesiod, a possible contemporary of Homer, was at times a shepherd and farmer of poor land although, it seems, wealthy enough to have slaves.

Answer: Herodotus

One source of criticism, for example, was Athenians unhappy with his version of the Battle of Marathon and, in particular, the honours accorded to certain prominent families. Another criticism relates to his Egyptian notes with doubt expressed because of the inaccuracies that he ever visited.

Then there is his story of fox-sized gold-mining furry ants to be found in a far-eastern province of the Persian Empire. It turns out there is a desert area in Pakistan where marmots bring gold dust to the surface, which has been collected by generations of locals. Mistranslation of the Old Persian word for 'marmot' may explain his 'ants' but not the story of them chasing and devouring camels.

Answer: Xerxes I

Modern historians tend to come up with a figure of between 100,000 and 150,000 for the Persians. The terrain however meant that the ground could be easily defended and resulted in the Persian army being delayed by seven days. The estimated losses were about 2,000 on the Greek side versus 20,000 on the Persian side.

The battle is famous for the Spartans' last stand when they chose to fight to the death once they learnt that the Persians had outflanked them with the help of a Greek traitor. Popularised in films like "The 300 Spartans" (1962) and "300" (2007), even this number is misleading, as an estimated 1,500 Greeks fought during the last stand. Primary written sources are Herodotus and Ephorus (as preserved through the writings of Diodorus Siculus).

Answer: He served as a priest at Delphi

Oracles and seers played an important part in guiding people's actions. Pythia, the Delphic oracle, was always a woman (with celibacy a requirement), gained her powers from Apollo (and perhaps some hallucinogenic gases) and said to have never been wrong. This was perhaps helped by her ambiguous pronouncements. An example is of Croesus, King of Lydia in the Sixth century BC, who planned to attack the Persians. According to Herodotus, Croesus was told that if he crossed the river "a great empire will be destroyed". He crossed and lost. Ultimately it was his own empire that was destroyed.

Records of some 500 of the Oracle's pronouncements have survived to this day.

Answer: Lyre

Also known as melic poetry, the performance of poems was traditionally accompanied by the lyre, a hand-held stringed instrument. The Nine Lyric Poets, a grouping put together by scholars in Third century BC Alexandria, were perhaps the most respected poets of this type and lived between the Seventh and Fifth centuries BC.

Answer: Olive oil

Most modern-day knowledge of ancient Greek cooking comes from the comedies of Aristophanes and the works of Athenaeus, with artworks also supplying some information. It is through Athenaeus that the writings of Archestratus have been preserved and we also learn that cooking competitions date back to at least 500 BC (the winner got exclusive rights to use his recipe for a year). Meat and fish were relatively uncommon at most tables unless you were wealthy.

Answer: Hemlock poisoning

His students Plato and Xenophon provide much of our information on the man. Plato arguably provided an overly-glowing picture. This is tempered to some extent by satirical plays such as the comedy "The Clouds" by his contemporary Aristophanes.

It appears that Socrates passed up the chance to escape his execution, even though his followers had bribed the guards. Plato's "Crito" is a dialogue that takes place in Socrates' prison cell between Socrates and his would-be rescuer Crito and describes the arguments for and against escape.

Answer: It was fought on land

Beaten at the Battle of Salamis the previous year and keen to avoid another battle, the Persian navy chose to beach their fleet at Mycale and build a palisade around the boats with the help of the Persian army encamped there. The Greeks decided to attack anyway, beached their fleet and sent forward their hoplites (armoured soldiers), who had been carried as marines, to take on the Persians. The Persians gave up the advantage of the palisade and met the Greeks on the plain but proved no match, despite superior numbers. The Persians were routed and their fleet was destroyed. This battle, along with the Battle of Plataea on possibly the same day, changed the tide of the war in favour of the Greeks.

Other than hastening the end of the second Persian invasion, it also reinforced the point that the lighter-armoured Persian infantry were no match for the Greek hoplites and their phalanx formation. Thereafter the Persians started recruiting Greek mercenaries into their armies.

Answer: Cleisthenes

For such a major development, there are few writings that survive to describe its beginnings. It is to Aristotle's "Athenian Constitution" that we must turn to as the primary source of information. The development of democracy in Athens started with Solon, however, his reforms failed. He did, however, set the stage for Cleisthenes as well as remove the punitive laws implemented by Draco in 621 BC (where, for example, you could lose your life for stealing a cabbage, hence the term 'draconian').

Draco was the first to codify the penal law. Prior to this, the ordinary Athenian was basically enslaved and subject to arbitrarily-applied oral law, with blood feuds amongst the aristocracy leading to tyrannical leaders.

Cleisthenes introduced the democratic reforms to the Athenian constitution around 508 BC that gained him the title of Father of Athenian Democracy. Ephialtes introduced further democratic reforms of significance in the 460s BC however he was assassinated soon after, leaving his political ally Pericles to carry on. He picked up the baton and became the leading statesman in Athens for decades.