K-Agon 2 - Preliminary Round 2

Moderator says: “There will be no test questions in this year's tournament. Subsequent questions will count for points. Good luck and have fun!”

1. Note to players: A description is acceptable. What conflict began when the Phoenicians abducted Io from Argos, at least according to the proem of a book dubbed “Clio,” which begins the ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις by a native of Halicarnassus named Herodotus?

(GRECO-)PERSIAN WARS // WAR(S) BETWEEN (ACHAEMENID) PERSIA AND GREECE [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: Some manuscripts do not begin with “this is the display of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus,” but with “Herodotus of [what city],” an important colony founded by Athens in Southern Italy in 443 B.C.?

THURII

B2: At the end of the proem, Herodotus says he will not take sides as to the war’s cause, but proceed with his history, speaking both of small and large cities. What reason does Herodotus give for addressing both small and large cities? A description is fine.

CITIES THAT WERE ONCE LARGE HAVE BECOME SMALL, WHILE THOSE THAT WERE GREAT IN HIS TIME HAD ONCE BEEN SMALL (SINCE HUMAN PROSPERITY NEVER CONTINUES IN THE SAME PLACE) [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

2. What use of the dative is found in the sentences “φιλίᾳ μὲν καὶ εὐνοίᾳ ἑπομένους οὐδέποτε εἶχεν,” “ὕβρει καὶ οὐκ οἴνῳ τοῦτο ποίει,” and “Δημοσθένες τῇ τύχῃ χαίρει”?

(DATIVE OF) CAUSE

B1: Name any Greek preposition that can mean “because of” and indicate the case that it takes.

διά = ACCUSATIVE; ἕνεκα / χάριν / ὑπό / ἕκατι = GENITIVE

B2: What use of the dative, of which the particle τοι is a petrified form, can be found in the sentence “τοιοῦτο μὲν ὑμῖν ἐστὶ ἡ τυραννίς, ὦ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, καὶ τοιούτων ἔργων”?

ETHICAL (DATIVE) // (DATIVE OF) FEELING

3. What skill, which in the Odyssey prompts Polites to approach the house of Circe, was possessed by the inhabitants of the “flowery island” of Anthemoëssa and used by Demodocus to describe Troy’s fall?

SINGING

B1: What Ithacan bard performs for the suitors while Odysseus is absent from the island?

PHEMIUS

B2: What is the subject of Phemius’ song for the suitors in Odyssey 1, though Penelope objects to his performance?

NOSTOI // THE GREEKS’ (TROUBLED) RETURN(S) FROM TROY [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

4. What kingdom, expanded territorially after a battle between two septuagenarian dynasts on the plain of Corupedium, faced a 2^nd-century B.C. revolt by the priestly Maccabean family when Antiochus IV tried to Hellenize the Jews?

SELEUCID(S) // SELEUCID (EMPIRE)

B1: Seleucus defeated Lysimachus at Corupedium, but he had earlier fought alongside him at what battle of 301 B.C., where they had defeated Antigonus I and Demetrius I?

(BATTLE OF) IPSUS

B2: Near the end of the 4th-century B.C., Seleucus I engaged in a war with the first ruler of what empire, which had occupied the territories in India that Alexander the Great had conquered two decades before?

MAURYA(N EMPIRE)

5. Differentiate in meaning between the verbs κόπτω and θάπτω, the former of which is synonymous with τέμνω and the latter of which is synonymous with τυμβεύω, a rare English cognate.

(TO / I) CUT and (TO / I) BURY / ENTOMB [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: Differentiate in meaning between φάσκω and πάσχω.

(TO / I) SAY / AFFIRM / ASSERT / DECLARE and (TO / I) UNDERGO / EXPERIENCE / SUFFER / ENDURE [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Differentiate in meaning between λαγχάνω and λανθάνω.

(TO / I) {OBTAIN (BY LOT) // RECEIVE // DRAW LOTS} and (TO / I) {ESCAPE (THE) NOTICE (OF) // DO (SOMETHING) WITHOUT BEING NOTICED // TO CAUSE (SOMEONE) TO FORGET (SOMETHING)} [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

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6. Plato’s Philebus addressed what subject, which was also the focus of a sequel to Aristotle’s Politics that advocated finding eudaimonia — or a state of supreme fulfillment — and was edited by Aristotle’s son, Nicomachus?

ETHICS / MORALS / MORALITY / PLEASURE / VIRTUE

B1: Aristotle wrote another work on ethics that was edited by what student of his?

EUDEMUS (OF RHODES)

B2: What philosopher from Apamea regarded logic as philosophy’s bones, physics its flesh, and ethics its soul?

POSIDONIUS (OF APAMEA)

7. Translate into English: εκείνος ὁ στρατιώτης πλέον οίνου τῶν ἄλλων πίνει.

{THAT / THE} SOLDIER DRINKS MORE WINE THAN {(THE) OTHERS // (THE) OTHER SOLDIERS} (DRINK) [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: Now say in Attic Greek: The Athenians trust the people more than tyrants.

οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι τῷ δήμῳ (πιστεύωσιν) μαλλὸν ἢ (τοῖς) τυράννοις πιστεύουσιν [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Now translate into English this sentence from Xenophon’s Cyropaedia: “ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ Κῦρος, οὕστινας ἂν ὁρᾷ ἀγαθοὺς, φιλεῖν οὐδὲν ἧττον ἑαυτοῦ.”

CYRUS SEEMS TO ME TO LOVE {WHOM(SO)EVER // THOSE WHOM} HE {SEES / JUDGES} {TO BE // AS} GOOD NO LESS THAN (HE LOVES) HIMSELF [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

8. What group’s courage is symbolized by the monumental lion statue under which they are likely buried at Chaeronea, reflecting their dedication to both Thebes and the lovers alongside whom they fought?

SACRED BAND (OF THEBES)

B1: How many total men made up the Sacred Band, according to Plutarch?

300

B2: What man surprisingly escaped censure after his disastrous command of the Athenian forces at Chaeronea, though his co-commander, Lysicles, was condemned to death?

CHARES

9. What man rejected an offer to defeat his perennial enemies, the Sauromatians, fearing a prophesied betrayal from his own family — a prediction which he interpreted to indicate Chalciope’s sons but actually indicated his daughter Medea?

AEËTES

B1: In Aeëtes’ mind, the leading candidate for betrayal was what man, the eldest son of Chalciope and the older brother of Phrontis, Melas, and Cytissorus?

ARGUS

B2: In the Argonautica, Aeëtes wears what giant’s breastplate, given by Ares after the god slew him at Phlegra? However, in Apollodorus’ account, Hephaestus killed him.

MIMAS

10. What Greek letter, which as a glide caused many morphological shifts, was the final letter in the present system of athematic verbs, such as one meaning “make to stand,” and was added by Byzantine philologists as a subscript to vowels?

IOTA

B1: Give the present active infinitive for the athematic Greek verb that means “to show” or “to point out.”

δεικνύναι

B2: To what two letter group did “κι” shift in Attic, as in a verb for “disturb”?

ττ [see also “φυλακ-ιω” > “φυλάττω,” comparing “φυλακή” = “guard”]

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11. Analogized to the Russian Olympic dopers in an Oscar-winning documentary, what mythological character inspired a poem beginning “about suffering they were never wrong, the old masters” that reflects on a Brueghel painting depicting his “fall”?

ICARUS

B1: What English poet penned that poem, “Musée des Beaux Arts,” as well as the poem “September 1, 1939,” which includes the lines “exiled Thucydides knew / all that a speech can say / about democracy”?

(W. H.) AUDEN

B2: Brueghel’s painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus and Draper’s painting The Lament for Icarus both feature prominently in the music video for the lead single on what group’s album Wings?

BTS // BANGTAN BOYS

12. What author’s father was perhaps named Battus, the name of the founder of his hometown of Cyrene, from which he moved to a city where he wrote Pinakes and Aetia while at the Library of Alexandria?

CALLIMACHUS

B1: Callimachus also composed an epyllion about what old woman with whom Theseus stayed while traveling to fight the Marathonian Bull?

HECALE

B2: What other native of Cyrene and immigrant to Alexandria around the time of Callimachus was jokingly called “Beta” because he was second-best in all academic subjects?

ERATOSTHENES (OF CYRENE)

13. Like political candidates, what type of people would insert πινάκια into a machine called a κληρωτήριον, which would randomly decide if they were among the 201 or 501 men who would staff the Delphinion or Areopagus that day?

(POTENTIAL ATHENIAN) JUROR(S) // (POTENTIAL ATHENIAN) JURY MEMBER(S) // (POTENTIAL) DIKASTES / DIKASTAI [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS; PROMPT ON “ATHENIAN(S)” OR “ATHENIAN CITIZEN(S)”]

B1: How many Athenian men — the same number that were required to vote against a man undergoing ostracism — were eligible for jury service each year?

6,000

B2: Which Athenian court tried unidentified murderers or inanimate objects that had killed someone?

(COURT OF THE) PRYTANEION

14. Give the Greek word that fills in the blanks in the following three phrases: ἀεὶ ὁ [blank] γεωμετρεῖ; ἀνάγκᾳ δ’ οὐδὲ [blank] μάχονται; ἀπὸ μηχανῆς [blank].

θεός / θεοὶ

B1: The form “Θεοῦ” appears in an acronym for Jesus’ name that spells the name of what type of animal in Greek?

FISH / ἰχθύς

B2: Now translate these lines from Book 1 of the Odyssey: “ὢ πόποι, οἷον δή νυ θεοὺς βροτοὶ αἰτιόωνται: ἐξ ἡμέων γάρ φασι κάκ' ἔμμεναι.”

OH (SEE), HOW MORTALS BLAME THE GODS: (FOR) THEY SAY THAT EVILS COME FROM US [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

15. The leader of a combined Athenian and Thespian colonization expedition to Sardinia, what son of Automedusa and Iphicles is sometimes said to have married Megara after cauterizing the stumps of the Hydra’s heads for Heracles?

IOLAÜS

B1: What animal was Heracles said to have killed at Thespius’ request while staying at his city of Thespiae?

CITHAERONIAN LION

B2: In Greek mythology, Daedalus was said to have created what circular stone towers on the island of Sardinia, since the Greeks could not explain their construction by an unknown prehistoric people?

NURAGHI / NURAGHE

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16. What Greek word, with what meaning, lies at the root of “dropsy” and the second half of “clepsydra,” as the latter’s function implies, as well as “carbohydrate” and “hydrant”?

ὕδωρ = WATER

B1: What chemical element has a Greek name that derives from the word ὕδωρ combined with the Greek word for “silver,” as can be seen in its chemical abbreviation on the periodic table?

MERCURY [HG]

B2: What type of bird has its name derive from the Greek word κάδος, meaning “water-pitcher,” via Arabic?

ALBATROSS

17. Ten of what city’s citizens failed to kill a newborn when he smiled at them and was afterwards hidden in a κυψέλη — or “chest” — allowing him to overthrow the aristocratic rule of the Bacchiads in 657 B.C.?

CORINTH

B1: Herodotus says that Cypselus’ son Periander re-conquered what Corinthian colony, against whom Corinth supposedly fought Greece’s first naval battle in 664 B.C.?

CORCYRA

B2: At what battle in 433 B.C., one of the effective causes of the Peloponnesian War, did the Corinthian and Corcyraean navies fight to a tactical stalemate?

(BATTLE OF) SYBOTA

18. The formula “now I will remember you and another song also” ends several poems in what 33-piece work, written entirely in dactylic hexameter and offering praises of Demeter and the other Greek gods?

HOMERIC HYMNS

B1: Which god is honored in the longest Homeric hymn, which was probably originally two hymns dedicated to his aspects at separate cult centers?

APOLLO

B2: Which deity is honored in the first Homeric hymn in the traditional ordering?

DIONYSUS

19. What man gave his son a name meaning “broad-shield” to recall the bronze shield of seven cowhides that he used at Troy to both protect his half-brother, Teucer, and serve as the Greeks’ second-best warrior?

AJAX TELAMON // AJAX THE GREATER // BIG AJAX // AJAX OF SALAMIS

B1: After the Trojan War, Teucer brought that son of Ajax to Salamis but was driven out by Telamon. Exiled, Teucer then founded the city of Salamis on what island, one of whose rulers sent Agamemnon a beautiful breastplate in a bid to avoid fighting at Troy?

CYPRUS

B2: Name that son of Ajax who became king of Salamis after the death of Telamon.

EURYSACES

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20. What is the meaning of the Homeric adverb ἄστυδε, which follows the pattern of the Attic adverbs Ἀθήναζε or οἴκαδε to essentially mean “εἰς τὴν πόλιν”?

{(IN)TO // TOWARDS} THE CITY // CITYWARD [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: What is the meaning of the adverb ἐνθάδε?

THITHER / HITHER // TO THERE // TO THAT PLACE [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: What is the meaning of the common Homeric adverb χαμᾶζε?

TO THE GROUND // ON THE GROUND [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

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