K-Agon, Finals

K-Agon - Finals

Moderator says: “I will read one test question for no points. This question is not necessarily reflective of the difficulty of the round or tournament. Topics in test questions may appear later in the tournament.”

0. Athena supposedly repudiated what man when the braided rope connecting him and his followers to her statue suddenly snapped, leading a member of the Alcmaeonid genos, Megacles, to treacherously stone him to death in 632 B.C.?

CYLON (OF ATHENS)

B1: What tyrant of Megara provided Cylon, his son-in-law, with troops to help with his coup attempt?

THEAGENES (OF MEGARA)

B2: Because of Megacles’ treachery, the Alcmaeonids were cursed and exiled from Athens. According to Plutarch, what Cretan seer was consequently brought to Athens to expiate the city of the crimes?

EPIMENIDES (OF CRETE / KNOSSOS / PHAESTUS)

Moderator says: “Subsequent questions will count for points. Good luck and have fun!”

1. What creatures haul in the chest in which Danaë and Perseus travel to Seriphos, track down the stolen cattle of Apollo, and fail to help Odysseus blind Polyphemus while acting as the chorus of three plays in a genre invented by Pratinas?

SATYRS

B1: Name the second of those works, a satyr play by Sophocles that was discovered at Oxyryhnchus.

ICHNEUTAE

B2: What play, first produced in 438 B.C. as its author’s earliest or second-earliest surviving work, unconventionally occupied the fourth spot in a Dionysia tetralogy, taking the place of a satyr play?

(EURIPIDES’) ALCESTIS

2. What Greek word, which “is the strength of” the House of Glücksburg according to its motto, “does not envy, does not boast, is not proud” and “is patient, is kind” according to a passage from 1 Corinthians that is often read at weddings?

(ἡ) ἀγάπη

B1: Another passage from 1 Corinthians states: “And now these three remain: [blank], [blank] and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Please give the Greek words that would fill in these blanks and give their meanings.

πίστις = FAITH and ἐλπίς = HOPE [RESPECTIVELY]

B2: Just before this, 1 Corinthians offers the famous phrase “βλέπομεν γὰρ ἄρτι δι’ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι.” Please translate this phrase into English.

FOR NOW WE SEE THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY // FOR NOW WE SEE
THROUGH A MIRROR IN {RIDDLES / DARKNESS} [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

3. When Heracles passed by the foot of Mount Pelion and the city of Ormenium, he killed what man, whose son once seduced his concubine at his mother’s encouragement and was exiled to Phthia, where he became Achilles’ guardian?

AMYNTOR

B1: The exile was, of course, Amyntor’s son Phoenix. In addition to becoming Achilles’ guardian, Phoenix was also made king of what tribe by Peleus?

DOLOPIANS

B2: Name either Amyntor’s daughter, who became the mother of Ctessipus by Heracles, or his other son.

DEÏDAMEIA or CRANTOR

4. What city, whose democratic faction slaughtered suspected opponents in 427 B.C. while Eurymedon watched on, lost to its mother city in Greece’s first naval battle in 664 B.C. and touched off the Peloponnesian War by fighting with Corinth?

CORCYRA

B1: Unhappiness over a war with Corcyra in the 7^th century B.C. may have led to the overthrow of what Corinthian ruling family by what disgruntled member thereof?

BACCHIAD(S) by CYPSELUS

B2: What Illyrian city, which was jointly colonized by Corcyra and Corinth, appealed to both poleis after a similar democratic stasis, leading to the dispute that became the Peloponnesian War?

EPIDAMNUS

5. Using the adverb ἀνδρείως, say in the best Attic Greek: They fight so bravely that the enemies flee.

οὕτως ἀνδρείως μάχονται, ὥστε οἱ πολέμιοι φεύγουσι(ν).

B1: Now say in the best Attic Greek: He runs so quickly that he is never caught.

οὕτω ταχέως τρέχει, ὥστε μήποτε ἁλίσκεσθαι

B2: Now, conjugating the primary verb in the middle voice, say in the best Attic Greek: They will not stop until all the enemies flee.

οὐ (πρότερον / πρόσθεν) παύσονται πρὶν ἂν {πάντες οἱ πολέμιοι // οἱ πολέμιοι πάντες} φύγωσι(ν)

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6. What work, which was composed at the suggestion of Antigonus Gonatas and was based on a treatise by Eudoxus of Cnidus, contains a section on weather forecasts called Diosemeia and was a poem on the constellations written by Aratus?

(ARATUS’) PHAENOMENA

B1: Aratus hailed from what Cilician city, whose dialect was considered so barbarous that it eventually gave rise to an English word meaning “an ungrammatical combination of words in a sentence”?

SOL(O)I [THE WORD IS “SOLECISM”]

B2: What author of the Greek romance The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon authored a commentary on Aratus?

ACHILLES TATIUS

7. What use of the subjunctive is found in Plato’s phrases “Ἄνυτος ὅδε παρεκαθέζετο, ᾧ μεταδῶμεν τῆς ζητήσεως” and “ἀναλάβωμεν οὖν ἐξ ἀρχῆς”?

HORTATORY (SUBJUNCTIVE)

B1: What use of the subjunctive is exemplified by Plato’s sentence “βούλει τολμήσω εἰπεῖν οἷόν ἐστι τὸ ἐπίστασθαι;”?

DELIBERATIVE (SUBJUNCTIVE)

B2: What Homeric use of the subjunctive, denoting a possible future action, is exemplified by the Iliad’s line “καί ποτέ τις εἴπῃσι καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἀνθρώπων”?

ANTICIPATORY (SUBJUNCTIVE)

8. What resource, which was continually brought to Pythagoreion due to the efforts of a Megarian named Eupalinos, was provided communally via Athens’ Enneakrounos and to individual houses by women with hydria vases?

FRESH (WATER)

B1: At the behest of what ruler did Eupalinos design a tunnel through modern-day Mount Kastro to serve as an aqueduct for Pythagoreion and his island more generally?

POLYCRATES (OF SAMOS)

B2: During the First Sacred War, the Amphictyonic League and Cleisthenes of Sicyon took over what city after poisoning its water supply with hellebore during a siege?

CIRRHA / CRISSA

9. What man’s effort is diverted “like when a mother swats away a fly from her sweetly sleeping child” after he uses a gold-tipped bow made of sixteen-handed ibex horns to treacherously shoot Menelaüs and break the truce in Iliad 4?

PANDARUS

B1: Pandarus’ father, Lycaon, ordered him to take a chariot and horses to Troy, but Pandarus went as a bowman instead. In the Iliad, what reason does Pandarus cite for failing to bring horses to Troy? A description is fine.

HE FEARED THAT THE HORSES WOULD NOT HAVE ENOUGH (FODDER) TO EAT
[ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: What city was ruled by Pandarus’ father, Lycaon?

ZELEIA

10. What are the meanings of the adverb and noun that lie at the root of “chameleon”—“χαμαί” and “λέων”?

ON THE GROUND and LION

B1: Give the two Greek nouns, as well as their meanings, that lie at the root of “rhinoceros.”

ῥίς = NOSE and κέρας = HORN

B2: Give the two nouns, as well as their meanings, that lie at the root of “squirrel.”

σκιά = SHADOW and οὐρά = TAIL

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11. What author, who complained that a Lesbian girl “dislikes [his] hair, for it is already white” and asked “Thracian filly, why do you look askance at me with your eyes” in two poems, spent time in the courts of Hipparchus and Polycrates before returning to Teos?

ANACREON (OF TEOS)

B1: Which of the other eight lyric poets also served in the court of Polycrates of Samos?

IBYCUS (OF RHEGIUM)

B2: Please fill in the blank words in this couplet from the fragments of Anacreon. The first and second blanks are the same verb, as are the third and fourth verb. Your syntax may differ slightly from the blanks, depending on what translation you choose: “Again I [ … ] and not [ … ], I [ … ] and not [ … ].

LOVE and AM MAD [FOR BLANKS 1&2, 3&4 RESPECTIVELY; ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

12. Note to players: a non-English answer is required. What concept, participants in which the Magna Mōrālia says have the strongest possible φιλία, is explicitly mocked by Ctessipus when he throws a bull’s hoof but binds such men as Glaucus and Diomedes, who trade armor to continue the guest-friendship?

ξενία

B1: What name is given to immigrants that lacked citizenship in city in which they resided, but gained certain guarantees under the system of ξενία?

METIC(S)

B2: What name is given to the system in which a citizen would host foreign ambassadors from another state and advocate for that state’s interests? In a famous example, Cimon participated in this system by advocating for Sparta’s interests at Athens, leading him to become so enamored with the polis that he named his son Lacedaemonius.

PROXENY / PROXENIA

13. Translate this line from Sophocles’ Philoctetes: ἔστιν τις, ἔστιν ὅς σε κωλύσει τὸ δρᾶν.

THERE IS SOMEONE, IS SOMEONE WHO WILL PREVENT YOU FROM ACTING [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: Please translate this sentence from Demosthenes’ First Olynthiac: Πολλάκις δοκεῖ τὸ φυλάξαι τἀγαθὰ τοῦ κτήσασθαι χαλεπώτερον εἶναι.

TO KEEP GOOD THINGS OFTEN SEEMS TO BE HARDER THAN SEIZING THEM. [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Please translate the following sentence from Isocrates: τὸ δὲ καλῶς ἀποθανεῖν ἴδιον τοῖς σπουδαίοις μοίρα ἀπένειμεν.

BUT FATE HAS APPORTIONED DYING BEAUTIFULLY AS A SPECIAL THING FOR THE SERIOUS / GOOD [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

14. What battle, after which Ariaeus declined the kingship due to lack of royal blood, led the satrap Tissaphernes to treacherously murder five Greek generals, including the Spartan Clearchus, after Artaxerxes was defeated by the Ten Thousand?

(BATTLE OF) CUNAXA

B1: Tissaphernes was the satrap of Lydia, which was ruled from what city? After a surprise burning of this city, Darius reportedly forced a slave to tell him thrice a day, “Master, remember the Athenians!”

SARDIS

B2: What other coastal satrap, who ruled over Hellespontine Phrygia from Dascylium, arranged for the remains of the Ten Thousand to be sailed away from Asia to Byzantium?

PHARNABAZUS (II) [DO NOT ACCEPT OR PROMPT ON “PHARNABAZUS I”]

15. What manner of death was commemorated in the Athenian festival of Aiora, was forced by a group of nursemaids dressed as Furies onto Helen, and conducted by Phyllis as a suicide after Demophon failed to return?

HANGING [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: What woman, the widow of Tlepolemus, blamed Helen for her husband’s death and thus drove her maids to dress as Furies and hang her?

POLYXO

B2: After her death, what woman cursed Athenian girls to “swing” just as she had, leading the city to institute the Aiora festival, in which girls would “swing” on chairs hanging on trees as a loophole for the curse?

ERIGONE

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16. Of the words ὄχλος, ἥρως, τόξον, μάντις, and καρπός, which is being described in the following Greek sentence: τοὺς μέλλοντας, ὅ τι πράξει, λέγει.

μάντις

B1: Of the words ὄχλος, ἥρως, τόξον, καρπός, and ὥρα, which would fill in the blank in this Homeric sentence: [blank] ἔφερε ζείδωρος ἄρουρα.

καρπός

B2: Of the words ὄχλος, ἥρως, τόξον, ὥρα, and δίαιτα, which fills in the blank in this Homeric sentence: δ᾽ ἤδη [blank] μετὰ χερσὶν ἐνώμα, θάλπων ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα σέλᾳ πυρός: ἀλλά [pronoun] οὐδ᾽ ὣς ἐντανύσαι δύνατο.

τόξον

17. What city was home to the writer of the Genealogiai, a philosopher who argued that the Earth was a flat disk floating on air, a genre of lewd stories invented by Aristides, and a philosopher who said all was made of water?

MILETUS

B1: What Milesian philosopher argued that the Earth was a flat disk floating on air?

ANAXIMENES (OF MILETUS)

B2: What Milesian poet is often credited with writing the cyclic epics Aethiopis and Iliupersis?

ARCTINUS (OF MILETUS)

18. In history, what name is shared by a ruler who was succeeded by Idrieus after putting down a revolt of Rhodian democrats ca. 353 B.C. and a ruler who brought five Carian ships to Salamis to help her ally, Xerxes?

ARTEMISIA (OF CARIA)

B1: During the battle of Salamis, Ameinias stopped pursuing Artemisia when she rammed a friendly ship, assuming that she must be Athenian. This Ameinias was the brother of Cynaegirus and what veteran of Marathon and Salamis, who is better known for successes in another sphere?

AESCHYLUS

B2: Xerxes, who watched the battle from the slopes of Mt. Aegaleus, also saw Artemisia ramming a friendly ship and assumed she had sunk an Athenian vessel. According to Herodotus, what quotation did Xerxes consequently utter in admiration of her and disparagement of his own forces?

“MY MEN HAVE BECOME WOMEN; MY WOMEN, MEN”

19. Words such as ἔτος, ἔαρ, ἕσπερος, and οἶνος—as evidenced by their Latin cognates vetus, ver, vesper, and vīnum—originally began with what letter, which is represented by a symbol resembling an “F”?

DIGAMMA

B1: What Ancient Greek word for “twenty” also had a digamma, as evidenced by its Latin cognate vīgintī?

εἴκοσι

B2: Now scan this line from Iliad 1, keeping in mind that one of the words originally had a digamma: ἐσθλὸν δ’ οὔτέ τί πω εἶπας ἔπος οὔτ’ ἐτέλεσσας· You have 30 seconds.

SDSDDS

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20. On what mountain is a sacrifice offered to two “Idaean Dactyls” named Titias and Cyllenus, helping to end the twelve days of storms that prevented the Argonauts from leaving the harbor of the Doliones?

(MOUNT) DINDYMUS / DINDYMON // BEAR MOUNTAIN

B1: The Argonaut Mospus realized that a sacrifice on Dindymus was required after he heard the cries of what type of bird?

KINGFISHER

B2: According to the Argonautica, what nymph gave birth to Titias and Cyllenus on Mount Dicte in Crete?

ANCHIALE

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