Premier Certamen League 2021 (PCL 2) - Final Round

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

0. Note to players: Danny Nguyen is not allowed to buzz on this tossup. According to former PCL tournament director Danny Nguyen at 2016 Yale Finals, what deity owned cattle at Thrinacia, although any half-competent player would know that he was the consort of Theia and the Titan personification of the sun?

HYPERION

B1: 4 years later in another Yale Finals, Danny Nguyen used what word to describe the phenomenon Alcathous’s walls underwent, which would mean “to be an animal with a backbone, again” if it wasn’t a completely made-up word?

REVERTEBRATE

B2: 1 year later in PCL 2 Finals, Danny Nguyen is projected to score how many tossups — the same number as the amount of Penelope’s suitors who survived Odysseus’ onslaught — possibly as retribution for ditching the very Certamen tournament he co-founded?

0 (ZERO)

N.B.: This question was included with Danny’s consent and is not meant to discredit his ability as a player.

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

1. An attack on the rhetorician Annius Cimber, a parody of Catullus 4 about a parvenu, a bad panegyric of Messalla, and possibly autobiographical references to Siro are all part of what 15-poem collection, attributed to Siro’s pupil, Vergil?

CATALEPTON

B1: According to Servius, what mythological character featuring prominently in the 6th Eclogue is a representation of Siro?

SILENUS

B2: The 6th Eclogue is addressed to what suffect consul of 39 B.C. and fellow pupil of Siro, who may have been one of the men to help Vergil get his farm back?

(P. ALFENUS) VARUS

2. Who closed himself in a smoke-filled room after the harsh words “He must die” proved that his attempts to claim credit for the victory at Campi Raudii had earned him the implacable hatred of his former co-consul Marius?

(Q.) LUTATIUS CATULUS

B1: Just as Marius killed his former friend Catulus, what loyal officer of Sulla was unceremoniously put to death during the period of Sulla’s dictatorship for illegally running for consul?

(Q.) LUCRETIUS {OFELLA / AFELLA

B2: Though nobody questioned whether Marius deserved the credit for Aquae Sextiae, what aide played an important role in the battle when he was sent to ambush the enemy rear?

(M. CLAUDIUS) MARCELLUS

3. Idiomatic phrases referring to judging the whole from a sample and to performing an impossible task — “ex pēde [blank]” and “clāvam extorquēre [blank]” — both contain the name of what mythological figure?

HERACLES / HERCULES / HERCULEM / HERCULĪ

B1: What mythological figure appears in a phrase referring to lack of inspiration, “invītā [blank],” and a Latin idiom for “jack of all trades,” “omnis [blank] homō”?

ATHENA / MINERVA / MINERVĀ / MINERVAE

B2: What other deity appears in the phrase “nōn ex quōvīs lignō [blank] fit”?

HERMES / MERCURY / MERCURIUS

4. Whiter than snowy privet petals according to a song played on a hundred-reed panpipe, whose beauty influenced her admirer to adopt twin cubs, trim his beard with a scythe, and ignore a prophecy from Telemus?

GALATEA

B1: All types of songs are mentioned in mythology! Who laments that she would receive no bridal song and now must take Acheron for her bridegroom as she waits to die, walled up in a cave?

ANTIGONE

B2: Whose death was so significant that a Phoenician expression meaning “woe to us,” a dirge sung at harvest time referenced in the Iliad, and an Egyptian mourning song for Maneros can all be traced back to his name?

LINUS

5. In what circumstance might an author use the pluperfect for a simple past tense, and the perfect or imperfect for the present, as if viewing time from the point of view of the reader?

WHEN WRITING A LETTER (SPECIFICALLY WHEN DESCRIBING THE ACT OF WRITING)

B1: What is the meaning of the phrase “sātius erat,” which surprisingly uses an imperfect indicative?

IT WOULD’VE BEEN BETTER

B2: What other adverb, with no corresponding adjective in the positive, has an irregular comparative meaning “worse” or “less,” often found after nihilō?

SECUS

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6. Who was ignored when he warned his commander not to trust his doctor, ignored again when he supported Darius’s peace proposal, then killed when his son Philotas was implicated in a conspiracy against Alexander?

PARMENIO(N)

B1: When Alexander rejected Parmenion’s advice about Darius’s peace proposal, he wittily retorted that he would've accepted it on what condition?

IF HE WERE PARMENION [ACCEPT EQUIVS.]

B2: Around the same time as Parmenion was assassinated, Alexander killed a son-in-law of Antipater, also named Alexander, who hailed from what region?

LYNCESTIS

7. What type of event, the subject of a work published in 238 A.D. for the nobleman Quintus Cerellius, provided the context for Tibullus’s poem 1.7 to Messalla and 2.2 to Cornutus, both called genethliaca?

BIRTHDAY

B1: Several years after his death, what poet’s birthday was celebrated in a poem by Statius addressed to his widow Polla Argentaria?

(M. ANNAEUS) LUCAN(US)

B2: What author declares in one of his poems “nātālēs mihi Martiae Kalendae” — “my birthday is March 1” — though the year might be anywhere from 38 to 41 A.D.?

(M. VALERIUS) MARTIAL(IS)

8. What location in a “secret region of the dark earth,” home to a Massylian priestess and a multiple-voiced snake with a hundred heads, was revealed after a hero refused to release the shapeshifting Nereus?

GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES

B1: Who in Vergil’s Aeneid describes the Massylian priestess’s ability to free the hearts of mortals she favors, while inflicting cruel pain on others?

DIDO

B2: During Heracles’s search for the Hesperides, he fought Ares until Zeus threw a thunderbolt between them at what Macedonian river?

ECHEDORUS (RIVER)

9. Translate the following sentence: “Sī virtūtum expertibus dīcendī cōpiam trādiderimus, furentibus arma dederimus.”

IF WE {HAND // WILL HAVE HANDED} OVER THE ABILITY TO SPEAK TO PEOPLE LACKING IN VIRTUES, WE WILL HAVE GIVEN WEAPONS TO MADMEN [ACCEPT EQUIVS.]

B1: Translate idiomatically: “Nēmō umquam ōrātōrem idcircō laudāvit, quod ita dīxisset ut quī adessent intellegerent quid dīceret.”

NO ONE HAS EVER PRAISED AN ORATOR FOR THIS REASON, THAT HE HAD SPOKEN IN SUCH A WAY THAT THOSE WHO WERE THERE COULD UNDERSTAND WHAT HE WAS SAYING [ACCEPT EQUIVS.]

B2: You have 50 seconds. Translate idiomatically: “Nēcunde orerentur quōrum verbīs velut bellicīs lituīs sēditiō ciērētur, omnēs scholās imperātor claudendās cūrāvit.”

LEST PEOPLE RISE UP FROM ANYWHERE BY WHOSE WORDS, AS IF BY WAR-TRUMPETS, A REBELLION WOULD BE ROUSED, THE EMPEROR TOOK CARE THAT ALL SCHOOLS BE CLOSED [ACCEPT EQUIVS.]

10. Criticized by one editor for devoting “the same space” to “the first 300 years” as to “the remaining 980,” what 6-volume work describes “the triumph of barbarism and religion” — alleging Christianity as a cause for Rome’s fall — and secured fame for its author, Edward Gibbon?

(THE HISTORY OF) THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

B1: What 19th-century German historian wrote a Römische Geschichte on the Roman Republic, marked by “a fire of imagination and emotion almost unknown in a professional history,” and was the chief mover behind the Corpus Īnscrīptiōnum Latīnārum?

(CHRISTIAN MATTHIAS THEODOR) MOMMSEN

B2: What 20th-century historian, a stylistic imitator of Tacitus, is best known for pioneering the method of prosopography in The Roman Revolution, an examination of Rome’s transition from Republic to Empire?

(SIR RONALD) SYME

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11. Listen carefully to the following passage about the aftermath of a battle between Boeotians and the Spartans under Agesilaus, which I shall paste into the chat and read once, then answer in Latin the question that follows:

ἄδηλον ἦν ὁπότεροι νικήσειαν· νὺξ γὰρ διέλυσε τὴν μάχην. ὁ δὲ Ἀγησίλαος μέσης νυκτὸς τοὺς πιστοτάτους διέπεμψε, κελεύσας ἀποκρύψαι οὓς εὑρεῖν δύναιντο Σπαρτιάτας νεκρούς. οἱ μὲν τοῦτο ἔπραξαν· οἱ δὲ πολέμιοι, ἡμέρας γενομένης, ἑαυτῶν εἶναι ἰδόντες τῶν νεκρὼν τοὺς πλείστους, ἄθυμοι ἐγένοντο ὡς Λακεδαιμονίων νικησάντων.

Remember, you are answering in Latin. The question: Quibus imperātum est ab Agēsilāō ut cadāvera Spartāna cēlārent?

FĪDISSIMĪS // FIDĒLISSIMĪS // (EĪS) QUIBUS MAXIMĒ FĪDĒBAT [ACCEPT EQUIVS.]

B1: ἀποκρίνου Ἑλληνιστί: πότε ἦλθον οἱ Βοιωτοὶ ὡς τοὺς τεθνηκότας σκεψόμενοι;

ἡμέρας γενομένης [ACCEPT EQUIVS.]

B2: Verbō ex “emō, emere” compositō ūtēns, dīc mihi optimō Latīnitātis genere cūr initiō discernī nōn potuerit utrī vīcissent.

(QUIA) NOX PROELIUM {DIRĒMIT / DIRĒMERAT}

12. What manager of the “wheel of birth” reveals her dual nature by rescuing Ethemea and transforming the Coronides into comets, while still refusing to relinquish a boy she received in a chest and trapping Pirithous?

PERSEPHONE / PROSERPINA

B1: What nymph incurred Persephone’s jealousy when she became Hades’s mistress, and was consequently trampled by the goddess?

MINTHE / MENTHE

B2: According to Orphic tradition, what specific requirement had to be fulfilled before Persephone could release the Orphic believer from the “wheel of birth,” allowing them to ascend to Elysium?

TO LIVE THREE (CONSECUTIVE) {BLAMELESS / VIRTUOUS} LIVES

13. Quod verbum Anglicum, significāns hominem studiō cuidam modicē tantum vel leviter dēditum, ductum est per Ītalicam linguam ā Latīnō verbō “dēlectō”?

DILETTANTE

B1: Quod verbum Anglicum, ā Latīnō verbō “mōns” ductum, significat iactātōrem aliquem quī fūmō vēndendō hominēs pecūniā dēfraudat?

MOUNTEBANK

B2: Quod verbum Anglicum, ā Latīnō verbō “habeō” per multās ambāgēs ductum, significat pābulum vel cibum?

PROVENDER

14. What battle, some of whose survivors settled in the Vīcus Tuscus, or “Tuscan Quarter,” is of great importance for scholars of early Rome because it’s also found in a separate Greek tradition about Cumae and its ruler Aristodemus?

ARICIA

B1: The Vīcus Tuscus may also have been settled during the monarchy by followers of what man, who is depicted in a painting along with his brother Aulus and a certain Marcus Camitilius?

CAELIUS VIBENNA // CAILE VIPINAS

B2: Another Greek reference to early Rome is Aristotle's claim that Rome was saved by “Lucius” during the Gallic sack. This has been interpreted as referring to what man, a plebeian who gave up his carriage so that the Vestal Virgins could get to Caere?

(L.) ALBINIUS

15. What city still has traces of the library which its most famous native sponsored alongside a children’s home and a school, though its eponymous lake has no sign of the villas called “Comedy” and “Tragedy” described in that man’s Epistulae?

(NOVUM) COMUM / COMO

B1: To what man does Pliny address the prefatory letter of his Epistulae, explaining how he intended to publish them?

(C.) SEPTICIUS CLARUS

B2: What poet, called “gentle” and praised for an epyllion about “the mistress of Dindymus,” was also a native of Comum?

CAECILIUS

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16. At what seaport — the burial site of Tisamenus — did Achaeans remove and kill suppliants of a shrine to Poseidon, bringing forth an earthquake then a flood to destroy the city Ion had named after his wife?

HELICE

B1: These Achaeans received their name thanks to what influential pair of brothers, who moved to Argos and married Scaea and Automate?

ARCHANDER and ARCHITELES

B2: According to Herodotus, Poseidon invoked an earthquake to create what Thessalian river, which was visited by Aristaeus to consult his mother Cyrene?

PENE(I)US (RIVER)

17. Of the nouns fustis, praecō, cautēs, noxa, and lacinia, which is being described here? “Cum bona quaedam veneunt, turbam ad mercēs emendās cōgit, cumve quid aliud prōnūntiandum est, hic adest.”

PRAECŌ

B1: Of the nouns fustis, spadō, cautēs, noxa, and lacinia, which is being described here? “Hoc aut ad necandum aut ad ambulandum ūtile est.”

FUSTIS

B2: Of the nouns laquear, dūmētum, tūber, carchēsium, and iaspis, which fills in the following sentence, though not necessarily in its base form? “Nōn inpendēbant caelāta [blank], sed in apertō iacentīs sīdera superlābēbantur.”

LAQUEAR

18. Shortly after vomiting up a parcel of miscellaneous books, who sees before her seven young women, representing the bridal gift of seven liberal arts which Mercury was presenting at their wedding?

PHILOLOGY / PHILOLOGIA

B1: Name either the three liberal arts of the trivium or the four of the quadrivium.

ONE OF: {GRAMMAR; DIALECTIC / LOGIC; RHETORIC} or {ARITHMETIC; GEOMETRY; ASTRONOMY; MUSIC}

B2: What author came very close to the principles of modern philology with his work, which included the concepts of ēmendāre, distinguere, and adnōtāre?

(M.) VALERIUS PROBUS

19. What is grammatically infelicitous about the following sentence? “Audēn tū mihi, quasi umquam ūllum negōtium rēctē cōnfēcissēs, fortem fidēlemque operam tuam prōmittere?”

QUASI SHOULD TAKE A PERFECT SUBJUNCTIVE (CŌNFĒCERĪS)

B1: What, if anything, is incorrect about this one? “Numquam in animum indūcam ut saevum istum mandātum, quō omnēs bonōs tibi inimīcōs reddidistī, exsequar.”

ISTUM SHOULD BE ISTUD

B2: What, if anything, is incorrect about this one? “Crēdō ego vōs, sociī, et ipsōs cernere, omnī Hispāniā pācātā, aut fīniendam nōbīs mīlitiam aut in aliās terrās trānsferendum bellum.”

NOTHING

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Moderator says: At this point, all challenges on the first 19 questions must be resolved. If anyone has any protests regarding the questions thus far, now is your last chance.

20. Description acceptable. What objects were placed in the temple of Mars Ultor by Augustus after a major diplomatic victory where Tiberius obtained them from Phraates IV, finally atoning for Surenas’s defeat of Crassus more than 30 years earlier?

THE STANDARDS CAPTURED AT CARRHAE [ACCEPT EQUIVS.]

B1: Later in Augustus’s reign, who died at Limyra after repeating Tiberius’s feat and overawing Phraates’s son Phraataces into submission?

GAIUS CAESAR

B2: The restoration of the standards forms the centerpiece of Augustus’s breastplate on the famous Prima Porta statue, found in a villa belonging to what woman?

LIVIA (DRUSILLA) [TYING BACK TO THE R1 TEST TU]

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Tiebreakers:

1. What woman, whose daughter spent her last years in high towers, was the subject of a Babylonian myth referenced by a daughter of Minyas in the Metamorphoses, which describes how scales covered her limbs as she became a fish?

DERCETIS

B1: Another daughter of Minyas, Alcithoe, promises to tell the story of what shepherd, whom a nymph turned to stone in anger at him taking a concubine, though a seemingly unconnected version connects him to the story of Lityerses?

DAPHNIS

B2: According to a version not mentioned by Ovid, what son of Leucippe did the Minyads tear to pieces before going outdoors to join the reveling Maenads?

HIPPASUS

2. In the early medieval period, what modern-day country saw the benevolent rule of the poet king Sisebut and the flourishing of the doctor ēgregius who wrote a 20-book Orīginēs sīve Etymologiae, Isidore?

SPAIN

B1: In his relations with the Visigoths, Isidore followed the ideas of what Italian author, whose 6th-century encyclopedic works show his desire for a fusion of Roman and German culture and a peaceful transition to a new civilization?

CASSIODORUS

B2: What author from the generation before Isidore, living in modern-day Portugal, wrote moral works inspired by Seneca and a Dē Corrēctiōne Rūsticōrum which gives information about pagan practices in the Galician countryside?

MARTIN(US) (OF BRAGA/BRACARA)

3. What three literary devices, excluding sound effects, can be found when Silius Italicus describes a region as “Nec Cererī terra indocilis nec inhospita Bacchō”?

LITOTES; METONYMY; CHIASMUS

B1: What three literary devices, excluding sound effects, can be found when Tacitus writes “Ut Sinōpēn vēnēre, mūnera precēs mandāta rēgis suī Scydrothemidī adlēgant.”

TRICOLON; ASYNDETON; ZEUGMA

B2: Besides tricolon and asyndeton yet again, and ellipsis, what literary device can be found in this sentence? “Lēgātī quoque foedā incōnstantiā nōminātī, excūsātī, substitūtī, ambitū remanendī aut eundī, ut quemque metus vel spēs impulerat.”

SYNCHYSIS

4. What type of clause can be introduced by nōn quīn and appears in the sentences “Mercātōrēs admittunt magis ad sua vēndenda quam quō aliēna importārī dēsīderent” and “Dī bene vortant, quandō ita vīs”?

CAUSAL (CLAUSE)

B1: Translate the first of those sentences.

THEY LET IN MERCHANTS MORE TO SELL THEIR OWN THINGS THAN BECAUSE THEY WANT OTHER PEOPLES’ THINGS TO BE IMPORTED [ACCEPT EQUIVS.]

B2: Now translate the following sentence: “Lēgātōs ad hostēs mīsimus, nōn quīn rēsponsum Rōmae reddī posset, sed ut illōrum castra circumspicerēmus.”

WE SENT AMBASSADORS TO THE ENEMIES, NOT BECAUSE A RESPONSE COULD NOT BE GIVEN AT ROME, BUT IN ORDER TO EXAMINE THEIR CAMP [ACCEPT EQUIVS.]

5. What usurper was defeated at Pontirolo, then besieged in an Italian city by an emperor known for his relationship with Pipa, but was killed even after that emperor was assassinated by a cabal of Illyrians and succeeded by Claudius Gothicus?

AUREOLUS

B1: What Marcomannic king was the father of Pipa?

ATTALUS

B2: Whom did Aureolus defeat and kill, along with his son, at Illyricum or Thrace?

MACRIANUS

[SOURCES]

N.B.: “Hadas” refers to either the Latin Lit. or the Greek Lit. sourcebook, but “Greek Hadas” or “Latin Hadas” will be explicitly stated if it is not clear in context. The same applies to “Adkins” for Roman/Greek Life. “Chronicle” refers either to Matyszak’s Chronicle of the Roman Republic or Scarre’s Chronicle of the Roman Emperors, depending on whether the question is about the Republic or the Empire.

1 TU: Rose p. 262; Conte pp. 152, 432, 262 / B1: Conte p. 265; Servius on Ecl. 6.13 / B2: Hadas p. 146  

2 TU: Chronicle pp. 159, 153 (cf. C&S p. 218) / B1: C&S p. 237 / B2: Chronicle p. 153  

3 TU: Amo Amas Amat p. 125; Veni Vidi Vici p. 66 / B1: Amo Amas Amat p. 164; L&S s.v. Minerva (Petr. Sat. 43.8) / B2: Veni Vidi Vici p. 175  

4 TU: Ov. Met. 13.764-869 / B1: March p. 5 (Soph. Antigone 810-815) / B2: Tripp p. 347  

5 TU: A&G §479 / B1: A&G §437 a. / B2: A&G §218 a.; L&S s.v. secus  

6 TU & B1 & B2: Pomeroy pp. 405, 410, 417  

7 TU: Conte pp. 616, 327; OCD p. 629 / B1: Hadas p. 275; see Rose p. 381 for the last name Argentaria / B2: Conte p. 505 & Martial 10.24.1  

8 TU & B1: March p. 280 (quoting Hesiod); Aen. 4.478ff.; Tripp p. 286 / B2: Tripp p. 294  

9 TU: cf. Cic. Dē Or. 3.55 / B1: cf. Cic. Dē Or. 52 / B2: no ancient source for the sentence; cf. A&G §217 a. for nēcunde  

10 TU: The “one editor” is J.B. Bury, and the quote is from the introduction to his edition of Gibbon (1906), p. lx.  

11 Passage: cf. Polyaenus, Strategemata 2.1.23 / B2: Lodge p. 57 (cf. L&S s.v. dirimō for many examples of this phrasing)  

12 TU: Tripp pp. 436, 464; March p. 134 / B1: March p. 313 / B2: Tripp p. 436  

13 TU & B1 & B2: all words in Schaeffer; “provender” is from praebenda, from praebeō = praehibeō  

14 TU: Liv. 2.14; C&S p. 55; the “separate Greek tradition” is preserved by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (7.3-11) in a digression about Aristodemus, the so-called “Cumaean chronicle” / B1: Varro, Dē Linguā Latīnā 5.46; C&S pp. 42, 581 / B2: C&S p. 590 (cf. Plutarch, Camillus 22; Liv. 5.40  

15 TU: Hadas p. 310 & OCD p. 375 / B1: Conte p. 526 / B2: Hadas p. 79 & Conte p. 149 & OCD p. 268 & Catullus 35  

16 TU: Tripp pp. 578, 267 / B1: Tripp p. 3 / B2: Tripp pp. 491-492, 101  

17 TU: cf. Hor. A.P. 419 for the phrase “turbam ad mercēs emendās cōgit” / B2: Sen. Ep. 90.42  

18 TU & B1: Hadas p. 406 / B2: Conte p. 578  

19 TU: quasi follows the sequence of tenses rather than the rules for conditionals (A&G §524 Note 2) / B2: cf. Liv. 21.21  

20 TU: C&S pp. 333, 257 / B1: Chronicle p. 27; C&S p. 333 / B2: C&S pp. 316, 389 & Heich. pp. 287-288  

TB1 TU: Ov. Met. 4.43-48 / B1: Ov. Met. 4.276-278; March p. 151 / B2: March p. 320  

TB2 TU: Conte p. 720 / B1: Conte pp. 721, 716-717 / B2: Conte p. 720  

TB3 TU: Sil. 1.237; there is in fact double litotes (nec indocilis nec inhospita) and double metonymy (Cererī and Bacchō) / B1: Tac. Hist. 4.84 / B2: Tac. Hist. 1.19; the synchysis is in the general structure of the second half (metus impels them to want to remanēre and spēs to want to īre)  

TB4 TU: A&G §540 Note 3; §540 a. / B1: cf. Caes. DBG 4.2 / B2: cf. Liv. 2.15  

TB5 TU & B1: Chronicle pp. 182 (Pontirolo = Pōns Aureolī, Aur. Victor, Caes. 33.18), 174 & C&S pp. 512-513 / B2: C&S p. 511