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Quiz about Nero Was a Hero
Quiz about Nero Was a Hero

Nero Was a Hero Trivia Quiz


History is full of heroes and villains, but were they really that good or bad? Take this quiz and you may be surprised! (All dates given as CE or BCE - Current Era or Before Current Era).

A multiple-choice quiz by BlueLemming. Estimated time: 7 mins.
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Author
BlueLemming
Time
7 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
363,888
Updated
Jul 23 22
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Tough
Avg Score
5 / 10
Plays
311
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. The story has been written in history books, sung in opera, and portrayed on screens, both large and small. But is it true? What did the Emperor Nero actually do when the city of Rome suffered a catastrophic fire in 64 CE? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. Richard I of England has gone down in history as Richard the Lionheart, a celebrated hero and a noble king (especially among the Victorians, who regarded him with adulation and even commissioned a special statue of him on horseback to adorn the Palace at Westminster). But his reputation is probably not justified. During the Third Crusade, what was the first town he captured and sacked? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. King Richard III of England, thanks largely to William Shakespeare, is known as a wicked, hunchbacked villain who usurped the throne and murdered his own nephews, the rightful heirs. How did he prepare for this usurpation in ? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Bonnie Prince Charlie, also known as the Young Pretender, is a hero much beloved by not only the Scots; as an English schoolchild I learned to sing the 'Skye Boat Song', which commemorates his flight into exile following the terrible battle of Culloden. What was the cause for which the prince raised the Highlands in 1745 CE? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. Ivan the Terrible - with a nickname like that, he had to be a villain - didn't he? He certainly killed a great many people, and not just enemies in battle (for instance he killed his eldest son and heir in a violent quarrel over Ivan's having beaten his pregnant daughter-in-law). But not all that is said about him is true. For example, how did he reward the architect Postnik Yakovlev, who built St Basil's Cathedral for him? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. One of the founding fathers of Protestantism, Martin Luther is famous for his criticism of the contemporary Catholic Church, and his heroic stance at the Diet of Worms - a stance which led to his excommunication and which could easily have cost his life. Other acts in his life were not so exemplary, however. For instance, when his patron Philip I of Hesse wanted to make a bigamous second marriage in 1539 CE, what was Luther's advice? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. The wife of the Byzantine ruler Justinian (born c. 482, reigned 527-565 CE), the Empress Theodora I has been portrayed as a shameless, libidinous harlot who used sex to achieve power and then exploited her position to satisfy all her desires, whether for debauchery, money, revenge or simple spite. One of her actions involved prostitutes in the city of Byzantium. What did she do to them? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. Alexander the Great is a shining example of a hero - a brave soldier and brilliant commander who led his small nation of Macedon to conquer the mighty Persian empire and liberate the states of Greece and Asia from its tyranny. So they say. How did Alexander liberate the Greek city of Thebes in 336 BCE? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. In 1789 CE, a famous mutiny took place on the British naval ship Bounty. Most people believe this was because the captain, William Bligh, was a sadistic disciplinarian who drove his crew to breaking point. What did Bligh do to his men that was considered unusual among Royal Naval commanders of the period? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. Leader of a rebellion of slaves against the might of ancient Rome in a doomed attempt to end slavery, Spartacus the gladiator has become a cultural icon as a freedom fighter. In 72 BCE his friend and fellow gladiator Crixus was killed in battle against the Romans. How did Spartacus celebrate his funeral? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. The story has been written in history books, sung in opera, and portrayed on screens, both large and small. But is it true? What did the Emperor Nero actually do when the city of Rome suffered a catastrophic fire in 64 CE?

Answer: Organised relief for the homeless and injured, and took part in the rescue of survivors.

Some Roman sources such as Cassius Dio claim that Nero started the fire, that he sang or played music while it raged, and that he planned it to create space for an ambitious building program; but the historian Tacitus says he was at Antium when it began, that he returned at once and opened his palace grounds to house the homeless and took an active and heroic part in the efforts to save lives and provide for the victims.

He also paid for supplies to relieve hunger and cold from his own funds. Given that Tacitus was actually alive at the time of the fire, and that the sources which paint Nero as an arsonist mostly were not even born within a century of the event, his version may be more reliable - especially as he does not attempt to gloss over some of Nero's other offences.
2. Richard I of England has gone down in history as Richard the Lionheart, a celebrated hero and a noble king (especially among the Victorians, who regarded him with adulation and even commissioned a special statue of him on horseback to adorn the Palace at Westminster). But his reputation is probably not justified. During the Third Crusade, what was the first town he captured and sacked?

Answer: Messina, a Christian town in Sicily

Richard looted and burned Messina in 1190 CE, on the excuse that the ruler of Sicily had failed to give his sister Joan (widow of the former king of Sicily) her rightful inheritance. He also attacked Cyprus in 1191 CE before arriving in the Holy Land and turning his military ability on the actual enemy.

He had previously joined in numerous rebellions against both his father Henry II and his older brother who had been the heir to the throne, and his coronation was marked by extensive violence against the Jews in England. (When leading Jews brought gifts for him as their feudal lord and waited outside Westminster Abbey to present them they were savagely beaten up. Rumours spread to the effect that he had ordered this or even the killing of all Jews in London.

The violence spread to the provinces). Though king of England he never bothered to learn the language of the country, and spent only about six months there out of a ten year reign.
3. King Richard III of England, thanks largely to William Shakespeare, is known as a wicked, hunchbacked villain who usurped the throne and murdered his own nephews, the rightful heirs. How did he prepare for this usurpation in ?

Answer: Issued invitations to his nephew Edward's coronation

Richard, far from showing signs of wanting to snatch the crown from his late brother's son, made diligent preparations for the boy's coronation in 1483 CE, including having expensive and lavish robes prepared for young Edward, sending out summonses to young squires who were to be knighted by the new king, and issuing invitations to various nobles. All proclamations and warrants issued were made in the name of the young king-in-waiting, not his uncle.

There is no evidence of a plot to seize the throne from the moment his brother died, nor of Richard having been involved in killing either of two previous kings or his own brother the Duke of Clarence, and it's unlikely he had his nephews murdered.
4. Bonnie Prince Charlie, also known as the Young Pretender, is a hero much beloved by not only the Scots; as an English schoolchild I learned to sing the 'Skye Boat Song', which commemorates his flight into exile following the terrible battle of Culloden. What was the cause for which the prince raised the Highlands in 1745 CE?

Answer: To put his father on the throne of Great Britain

The charming prince's only motive was to restore the ousted Stuart dynasty to the throne of Great Britain, which he saw as theirs by divine right. He neither knew nor cared about the sufferings of any of the nation's people. The whole enterprise had virtually no chance of success anyway, as the majority of the English and many Scots had no great desire to exchange even the unpopular but Protestant Hanoverian King George II for a Catholic pretender backed by the enemy nation of France. Though there were both English and Scots who did support Charles Edward, he coolly lied to the Highlanders about the extent of English support; it was his military incompetence which led to the massacre at Culloden; and in the aftermath he left his followers to suffer terrible reprisals while he fled back to France, where he died a drunk with a reputation for domestic abuse.
5. Ivan the Terrible - with a nickname like that, he had to be a villain - didn't he? He certainly killed a great many people, and not just enemies in battle (for instance he killed his eldest son and heir in a violent quarrel over Ivan's having beaten his pregnant daughter-in-law). But not all that is said about him is true. For example, how did he reward the architect Postnik Yakovlev, who built St Basil's Cathedral for him?

Answer: Paid him and commissioned him to design several more churches.

The glorious cathedral still stands today, as does the chapel Yakovlev added to it in 1588 CE, long after Ivan's death; it is only in folk tales that Ivan blinded the man so he could never surpass the church he built for the first Tsar of All Russia. Though Ivan I was no angel, his reign was marked by reform and modernisation, and he secured Russia's borders against enemies on all sides.

He opened up new trade routes and diplomacy in Europe and the east, and introduced printing presses to the country.

His 'reign of terror' was more of a response to a period of natural disasters and foreign invasions which needed drastic measures to combat. A better translation of his nickname is Ivan the Formidable.
6. One of the founding fathers of Protestantism, Martin Luther is famous for his criticism of the contemporary Catholic Church, and his heroic stance at the Diet of Worms - a stance which led to his excommunication and which could easily have cost his life. Other acts in his life were not so exemplary, however. For instance, when his patron Philip I of Hesse wanted to make a bigamous second marriage in 1539 CE, what was Luther's advice?

Answer: Do it if he really must, but keep it secret

The secret marriage soon became not so secret and Philip threatened to tell everyone Luther advised him to do it. Luther's response? To 'tell a good, strong lie' and deny it. Luther may have had courage in his convictions but he was not a nice person; for instance he wrote pamphlets railing against the 'murderous, thieving hordes of peasants' and 'the Jews and their lies'. Angry that the common people had taken his criticism of the church's wealth as a signal to redistribute some of it, and that the Jews had rejected his efforts to convert them to Protestantism, he wrote tirades suggesting that peasants should be put down like mad dogs and that Jews' property should be seized or smashed and synagogues set on fire.
7. The wife of the Byzantine ruler Justinian (born c. 482, reigned 527-565 CE), the Empress Theodora I has been portrayed as a shameless, libidinous harlot who used sex to achieve power and then exploited her position to satisfy all her desires, whether for debauchery, money, revenge or simple spite. One of her actions involved prostitutes in the city of Byzantium. What did she do to them?

Answer: Freed hundreds from forced prostitution and gave them a refuge in a convent

Theodora may or may not have been a prostitute herself - sources differ - but it is certain that she led legal reforms which put an end to the prostitution of girls and women by force, provided places for victims of such trafficking to retire to, and made rape a capital offence.

She in fact championed women's rights to have some say over the custody and care of their children, increased their property rights, ended the death penalty for women who committed adultery (it had never applied to men), and abolished the practice of exposure of unwanted babies.

In other spheres her influence seems to have been equally forward-thinking and beneficial.
8. Alexander the Great is a shining example of a hero - a brave soldier and brilliant commander who led his small nation of Macedon to conquer the mighty Persian empire and liberate the states of Greece and Asia from its tyranny. So they say. How did Alexander liberate the Greek city of Thebes in 336 BCE?

Answer: Stormed it, killing 6,000 men, women and children and taking thousands more as slaves

Thebes, along with many other Greek city-states, had been conquered by Alexander's father Philip II, and were not at all happy about it. So when word came Philip had been assassinated (which may have been at the orders of Alexander and/or his mother Olympia) they rebelled against Macedonian rule. Alexander made an incredible forced march and burst into the city, his troops slaughtering everyone in sight and hauling some 30,000 survivors off into servitude.

They also plundered and razed it, leaving only the temples and the house of the poet Pindar standing.

He followed the same pattern wherever he met resistance.
9. In 1789 CE, a famous mutiny took place on the British naval ship Bounty. Most people believe this was because the captain, William Bligh, was a sadistic disciplinarian who drove his crew to breaking point. What did Bligh do to his men that was considered unusual among Royal Naval commanders of the period?

Answer: Encouraged cleanliness, regular exercise and consumption of fruit juice

Bligh was actually thought to be a lighter disciplinarian than many of his colleagues, preferring to give miscreants a tongue-lashing rather than a real lashing. Unfortunately his harsh scolding may have triggered the mutiny, though it probably had a lot more to do with his crew having spent a long time in Tahiti and formed attachments to the local lifestyle (and ladies), and not wanting to return to England. Bligh had given them an extra six months of shore leave when the breadfruit trees he was there to collect needed more time to mature; perhaps he should have done what other captains did, and sailed around the region mapping it instead.
10. Leader of a rebellion of slaves against the might of ancient Rome in a doomed attempt to end slavery, Spartacus the gladiator has become a cultural icon as a freedom fighter. In 72 BCE his friend and fellow gladiator Crixus was killed in battle against the Romans. How did Spartacus celebrate his funeral?

Answer: Sacrificed 300 captive Roman soldiers to his spirit

Sources are limited for the facts of Spartacus' life, but at least two historians report that Spartacus killed people in Roman fashion to honour his fallen officers - and that does include making captives fight to the death in gladiatorial games, and at least once to crucifying them. Undoubtedly a brave fighter and a clever strategist, Spartacus was not fighting for an ideal of liberty or an end to slavery, but only to go home.
Source: Author BlueLemming

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
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