K-Agon - Preliminary Round 1

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. Which element of the periodic table, like neon and argon first discovered in residue from evaporated liquid air, was so named because it long remained “hidden” and names the fictional planet home to Superman?

KRYPTON

B1: Similarly, what Greek verb lies at the root of a metal that was first discovered in cerium nitrate and was named because it had long “escaped notice”? This verb has approximately the same meaning when taking a supplementary participle.

λανθάνω

B2: Similarly, what element in the lanthanide series has a Greek-derived name meaning “hard to get at” or “badly approachable” because it was difficult to isolate from yttria?

DYSPROSIUM

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

1. Who was the basis of a debate between the “Unitarians” and the “Analysts,” the focus of Milman Parry’s research, and the center of scholarship by Aristarchus of Samothrace, who split his two major poems into 24 books each?

HOMER(OS)

B1: What modern-day country was the primary home of the “Unitarians” and “Analysts,” as well as most of the classical scholarship published in the 19^th century?

GERMANY

B2: In what general region did Milman Parry conduct the research on the oral tradition that allowed him to form his ideas on Homer’s poetry?

BALKANS / YUGOSLAVIA

2. What use of the accusative case is found in 2(“"Second"”) Timothy’s famous phrase “τὸν καλὸν ἀγῶνα ἠγώνισμαι,” which is commonly translated as “I have fought the good fight”?

COGNATE (ACCUSATIVE) // (ACCUSATIVE OF) KINDRED SPECIFICATION

B1: What use of the accusative case is found in Homer’s phrase “πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς”?

(ACCUSATIVE OF) RESPECT

B2: What use of the accusative case is exemplified by the first accusative in Xenophon’s sentence “Ἐξόν εἰρήνην ἔχειν αἱρεῖται πολεμεῖν”?

(ACCUSATIVE) ABSOLUTE

3. Differentiate in meaning between πῶς and φῶς, the former of which is an interrogative.

HOW? and LIGHT [RESPECTIVELY]

B1: Differentiate in meaning between πόνος and φόνος.

TOIL / WORK and MURDER / SLAUGHTER [RESPECTIVELY]

B2: Differentiate in meaning between πύλη and φυλή.

GATE / DOOR and TRIBE / CLAN [RESPECTIVELY]

4. Moderator says: I will now paste a link to a visual that depicts a scene from mythology. You will have fifteen seconds
to examine it. The answer to the question will be the name of the upper of the two figures. [Moderator pastes this link:
http://keartamenrounds.com/Cq2cWjJW8AAsod9.jpg]. What man is the upper of the two figures in this relief from Pyrgi, which depicts a scene from the Seven Against Thebes where he disgusted Athena by swallowing the brains of a defender?

TYDEUS

B1: Name this defender, a son of Astacus who killed Mecisteus during the battle.

MELANIPPUS

B2: Which of the Seven Against Thebes, similar in name to the king of Thebes at that time, was killed by Leades and honored at Argos for his integrity?

ETEOCLUS [DO NOT ACCEPT OR PROMPT ON “ETEOCLES”]

5. What man uniquely packed his left wing with a fifty-man-deep column of infantry to defeat a Spartan army led by Cleombrotus at a site near Leuctra, securing a decade-long hegemony for Thebes?

EPAMINONDAS

B1: What man, generally considered to be Thebes’ other great commander, led the Sacred Band at Leuctra?

PELOPIDAS

B2: After the Battle of Leuctra, Epaminondas helped found what city to serve as the capital of the Arcadian League?

MEGALOPOLIS

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6. What poet enigmatically began “water is best” while addressing “Hieron, who wields the scepter of law in Sicily” in the first of his odes dedicated to victors at the Olympic Games?

PINDAR

B1: What Greek poetess was said to have taught Pindar to write good poetry?

CORINNA

B2: What is the Greek name of the “victory odes” that men such as Pindar and Bacchylides wrote?

EPINIKION / EPINIKIA

7. What type of tree, which furnished the wood for the stake that blinded Polyphemus and formed the basis of Odysseus’ marriage-bed, was judged by Cecrops to be a better gift than Poseidon’s salty spring?

OLIVE (TREE)

B1: To provide material for garlands, Heracles brought an olive tree from the land of the Hyperboreans to plant in a precinct of Zeus in what town in Elis?

OLYMPIA

B2: Which Argonaut had a wild olive tree planted on his barrow after he was killed among the Mariandyni?

IDMON

8. What Greek verb—acting through an intermediate in Scots—is the root of “glamor,” as well as its linguistic predecessor “grammar” and the word “autograph”?

γράφω (= [I / TO] WRITE)

B1: What Greek verb, with what meaning, is the root of “kaleidoscope” and “idyll”?

ὁράω / ἰδεῖν = (I / TO) SEE

B2: What Greek verb, with what meaning, is the ultimate root of “apostle”?

στέλλω = (I / TO) SEND / PREPARE / SUMMON

9. To what class of objects do the following belong: the θολία; the καυσία, which protected against excessive καῦσις; the πιλίδιον or πῖλος, which are related to a similar-sounding Latin word; and the πέτασος for travelers?

HATS

B1: What material was originally used to make a hat called a κυνία, as its derivation suggests?

DOG’S SKIN / HIDE

B2: What region in the Greek world names a soft, conical cap that became a symbol of freedom during the American Revolution?

PHRYGIA

10. Translate the following sentence into the best Attic Greek: Do not abandon your brothers!

μὴ λ(ε)ῖπε τοὺς ἀδελφούς

B1: Now, using the verb κομίζω, say in the best Attic Greek: Brother, care for the woman you love!

ἄδελφε, {κόμιζε / κόμισον} τὴν γυναῖκα ἥν φιλεῖς [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Using an imperative, say in the best Attic Greek: Brother, let others suffer these dangers.

ἄδελφε, {πασχόντων / παθόντων} ἄλλοι τούτους κινδύνους [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

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11. What man, who produced a pouch full of tongues to prove that he had won a hunting contest against Acastus, captured his divine wife despite her various transformations and became the father of Achilles by her?

PELEUS

B1: Who saved Peleus when Acastus stranded him atop Mount Pelion?

C(H)EIRON

B2: What wife of Acastus had accused Peleus of rape, causing Acastus to strand him atop Mount Pelion?

ASTYDAMEIA / HIPPOLYTE

12. What man, who titles a 58-book history by Theopompus, was the effective target of the three Olynthiacs, the speech On the Peace, and three polemical speeches by Demosthenes that Cicero imitated?

PHILIP II (OF MACEDON) [PROMPT ON “PHILIP” or “PHILIP OF MACEDON”]

B1: What speech of Demosthenes, a reply to an attack by Aeschines, is the orator’s most famous work?

ON THE CROWN

B2: What orator originally proposed that Demosthenes be honored with a crown, causing the conflict with Aeschines?

CTESIPHON

13. Identify the grammatical error in the following Greek sentence: τὰ δῶρα τῶν θεῶν ἀγαθὰ εἰσιν.

VERB IS PLURAL // NEUTER PLURALS TAKE SINGULAR VERBS [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: Identify the grammatical error in the following Greek sentence, which I will paste into chat: Μυρμιδόνων δ᾽ ἔξ εἶμι, πατὴρ δέ μοί ἐστι Πολύκτωρ.

WRONG εἶμι / εἰμί // εἶμι MEANS “I GO” INSTEAD OF “I AM” [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Identify the grammatical error in the following Greek sentence, which I will paste into the chat: εἰ λάβοις τὸν χρυσόν, πάθοις κακά.

NO ἄν // FUTURE LESS VIVID REQUIRES “ἄν” [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

14. What city, one of whose rulers financed the construction of a covered portico in Athens’ agora called a “stoa,” was home to a massive frieze of the Gigantomachy that adorned an altar ordered by Eumenes II?

PERGAMUM / PERGAMON

B1: The sculptor Epigonus carved a famous statue of a “dying” soldier of what ethnicity to celebrate a Pergamene victory ca. 225 B.C.?

GAUL / GALLIC / GALATIAN / CELT(IC)

B2: What ruler of Pergamum financed the construction of the “stoa” in Athens’ agora to thank the city for the education he received there from the philosopher Carneades?

ATTALUS / ATTALOS II (PHILADELPHUS) [PROMPT ON “ATTALUS”]

15. Name or describe the event related in the following clues: a foreigner, speaking as if it were common knowledge, first reported this event’s result to a barber in Piraeus; a lunar eclipse prolonged this event, in which Lamachus and Nicias were killed; before this event, phallic stone pillars were desecrated in the so-called “mutilation of the herms.”

SICILIAN EXPEDITION // ATHENS’ INVASION OF SICILY
(DURING THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR) [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: During the Sicilian Expedition, what Spartan general took command of the Syracusan forces and molded them into an army capable of opposing Athens?

GYLIPPUS

B2: What orator was charged with mutilating the herms, leading him to—perhaps falsely—confess and reveal his accomplices, who were put to death?

ANDOCIDES

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16. In the Catalogue of Ships, what man’s wife is “left tearing both cheeks in their half-built house” while his younger brother assumes command of the 40 ships from Phylace, because he has already died as the first Greek to leap ashore?

PROTESILAÜS

B1: Protesilaüs’ wife is not named in the Iliad. She is typically given as Laodameia but the lost epic Cypria calls her Polydora, the daughter of what man and Cleopatra?

MELEAGER

B2: Name that younger brother of Protesilaüs.

PODARCES

17. Which letter of the Greek alphabet, lost in forms such as ἐλάβου, replaces the Attic tau in most dialects when the tau is doubled and changes orthographically depending on whether it is written within a word or at a word’s end?

SIGMA

B1: What Greek verb meaning “to watch” or “to guard” contains double tau in the Attic but double sigma in the other dialects?

φυλάττω / φυλάσσω

B2: What original, intervocalic-sigma form of ἐλάβου fit much more naturally into the aorist middle system?

ἐλάβεσο

18. Notices about what author’s life—such as that he was the son of a greengrocer, that losses in the City Dionysia led him to decamp to Archelaüs’ court, or that he wrote his plays on Salamis in a cave—are largely fictional?

EURIPIDES

B1: How did Euripides supposedly die while staying at Archelaüs’ court? A description is fine.

(THE MOLOSSIAN) DOGS (OF ARCHELAÜS) TORE HIM TO PIECES [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Euripides was reportedly friends with what Greek philosopher from Clazomenae, who was among the first to correctly explain the science of eclipses?

ANAXAGORAS (OF CLAZOMENAE)

19. Translate into English this sentence, which has been adapted from Diomedes’ speech to Glaucus in Iliad VI: οὐδ᾽ ἐγὼ θεοῖς ἐθέλω μάχεσθαι.”

(AND) I DO NOT {WANT / WISH} TO FIGHT (AGAINST) THE GODS

B1: Now translate this line, which concludes Glaucus’ reply to Diomedes: ταύτης τοι γενεῆς τε καὶ αἵματος εὔχομαι εἶναι.

I {BOAST / PROCLAIM / PRAY / SAY}{TO BE // THAT I AM} OF THIS {LINEAGE / DESCENT} AND BLOOD

B2: Now translate these lines, which have been taken from Glaucus’ reply to Diomedes: “ἐπέτελλεν αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι ἄλλων, μηδὲ γένος πατέρων αἰσχυνέμεν.” Keep in mind that ἐπέτελλεν is equivalent to ἐκέλευσεν, as well as that “ὑπείροχον” means “distinguished above” and agrees with an implied με.

HE ORDERED (ME) {TO ALWAYS BE THE BEST // EVER TO EXCEL} AND TO {BE / REMAIN} DISTINGUISHED ABOVE {OTHERS // THE REST}, AND NOT TO DISHONOR THE RACE OF MY FATHERS

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20. What city, where birds supposedly consumed the barley flour laid out to mark its original boundaries, was the site of a 400-foot tower built by a ruler nicknamed Philadelphus that served as a beacon for ships approaching Pharos?

ALEXANDRIA

B1: Give the name and the regnal number—e.g., Henry V—of the ruler nicknamed Philadelphus who built the lighthouse of Alexandria.

PTOLEMY II

B2: According to tradition, Ptolemy II once ordered how many Jewish scholars into separate rooms to produce translations of the Torah into Greek, after which they produced identical translations?

70 / 72 [HENCE “SEPTUAGINT”]

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