K-Agon 2 - Preliminary Round 3

Moderator Instructions for Starting the Round:

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. What author — who hoped his work would not “win momentary applause, but serve as a possession for all time” — said that “the strong do what they can, while the weak suffer what they must” in the “Melian Dialogue,” part of his history of the Peloponnesian War?

THUCYDIDES

B1: What historical work by Xenophon picks up the history of Greece in 411 B.C., where Thucydides left off?

(XENOPHON’S) HELLENICA

B2: What author, flourishing during the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus, penned the essay “On the Character of Thucydides” and the 20-book history Roman Antiquities, both written in Greek?

DIONYSIUS (OF HALICARNASSUS)

2. Sometimes found with ὄφρα in poetry but more commonly following ὅπως, ὡς, or ἵνα, what type of clause can be approximated with a future participle or even an infinitive?

PURPOSE (CLAUSE) // FINAL (CLAUSE)

B1: Now translate this Platonic sentence from Greek to English: “τῶν παίδων ἕνεκα βούλει ζῆν, ἵνα αὐτοὺς ἐκθρέψῃς καὶ παιδεύσῃς;”

DO YOU WISH TO LIVE FOR THE SAKE OF {THE / YOUR} CHILDREN, SO THAT YOU MAY {NOURISH / RAISE} THEM AND EDUCATE THEM? [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: In epic poetry, purpose clauses can occasionally be introduced by what conjunction that typically means “until”?

ἕως

3. After replacing Aegina’s monetary standard with Euboea’s in his city, what man formalized the medimnos as its property standard — creating the pentakosiomedimnoi — and canceled the debts of its impoverished under-classes with the seisachtheia?

SOLON (OF ATHENS // THE WISE)

B1: What Solonian class had members with an income between 200 and 299 medimnoi, or enough to own and yoke a team of oxen?

ZEUGITAI

B2: What Greek word is used to refer to the four-sided wooden tablets, likely rotating, on which Solon’s laws were inscribed?

AXON(ES)

4. Originally defended by the monster Campe and ringed by a bronze fence with the earth’s roots above, what place was so deep that it would take nine days for an anvil to fall to its bottom?

TARTARUS

B1: The Olympian gods once led a revolt against Zeus that would have succeeded had not what monster come from Tartarus to save him, earning Cymopola as a bride?

BRIAREÜS

B2: What prideful Titan, a son of Iapetus, was struck by Zeus’ lightning bolt and banished to Tartarus in the Titanomachy, according to Hesiod’s Theogony?

MENOETIUS

5. What Greek verb fills in the blank in the Gospel quotation “αἰτεῖτε, καὶ δοθήσεται ὑμῖν· ζητεῖτε, καὶ [blank],” commemorated a discovery near Sutter’s Mill in 1848, and was supposedly shouted when the displacement of water in a bathtub was observed by Archimedes?

εὕρηκα / εὑρίσκω / εὑρήσετε / εὑρίσκειν

B1: What single Greek word fills in all three blanks in this quotation, which begins the Gospel of John: “ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ [blank], καὶ ὁ [blank] ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ [blank].”

λόγος

B2: Give the chapter and verse number from the Gospel of John that begins “Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν” and is often thought to summarize Christianity’s core beliefs.

(JOHN) 3:16 // (JOHN) CHAPTER 3, VERSE 16

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6. What island’s cities of Gortyn and Dreros produced important early law codes, with its enigmatic Phaistos disk and labrys axe motif also providing likely evidence of a Linear A-speaking civilization centered at Knossos?

CRETE

B1: The primary evidence for the Gortyn law code is an inscription in what style of writing, where alternate lines are reversed and mirrored? It is so named because of its resemblance to the way an ox turns while plowing.

BOUSTROPHEDON

B2: What style of pottery, usually called a “ware,” was a light-on-black Minoan technique named for the cave on Mt. Ida where several examples were discovered?

KAMARES (WARE)

7. What school of philosophy was followed by Timon of Phlius, whom its adherent Sextus Empiricus called the “prophet” of the Eleian philosopher Pyrrho, a man known for questioning whether certainty in knowledge was possible?

(PYRRHONIAN) SKEPTICISM [PROMPT ON “PYRRHONISM”]

B1: Skeptic arguments are prominent in the philosophy of Plotinus, a 3^rd-century A.D. philosopher who founded what philosophical school?

NEOPLATONISM

B2: The Skeptic philosopher Carneades hailed from what city, which was home to a namesake school of philosophy that believed pleasure to be life’s highest good?

CYRENE

8. Note to players: You may answer in either Greek or with an English translation of the Greek word. What type of physical feature is being described here: it is often connected to the word ἔπεα in a formulaic Homeric phrase for speech; it begins the name of an extinct creature with an elongated fourth finger; it ends the name of a modern machine with a spiral rotor, or ἕλιξ?

WING(S) / WINGED / FEATHER(S) / FEATHERED / FLIGHT / πτερόν / πτερά / πτερόεντα [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: What color wings do “iopterous” creatures have, according to the word’s etymology?

PURPLE / VIOLET // DARK BLUE

B2: The coiner of the word “pterodactyl” accidentally first called the creature a “petrodactyl,” which would mean “rock-finger.” What is the only type of plant to have its name derived from the word πέτρος, meaning “rock”?

PARSLEY

9. To what general class of objects do the following belong: the βάρβῐτος; the χέλυς, whose name derives from the χελώνη, a type of animal; the κιθάρα; and the λύρα.

(STRINGED MUSICAL) INSTRUMENTS // LYRE(S)

B1: What type of double-reeded, double-piped musical instrument was often used to accompany tragic choruses?

AULOS

B2: What modern family of instruments, comprising a flat soundbox across which many strings are stretched, is directly descended from the κιθάρα in both form and name?

ZITHER

10. What goddess thrice caused a maiden to miss her wedding through illness, since the maiden ignored a vow to her on a marriage apple that Acontius had planted during her festival on Delos, the site of her birth?

ARTEMIS

B1: Who was that would-be lover of Acontius?

CYDIPPE

B2: Acontius was from what island, where Aristaeüs was worshipped as a god of the cooling Etesian winds?

CEOS

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11. What meaning is shared by the verb πορθέω, the verb ἀπόλλυμι, and the verb διαφθείρω?

(TO / I) DESTROY / KILL / SLAY

B1: What is the meaning of the verb ὄμνυμι?

(TO / I) {SWEAR / AFFIRM // CONFIRM BY OATH}

B2: What is the meaning of the verb ψηφίζω?

(TO / I) {VOTE (FOR) // DECIDE BY VOTE // COUNT / RECKON}

12. The chorus declares “numberless are the world’s wonders, but none more wonderful than man” in what play, in which a grieving fiancé stabs himself in a cave after finding the corpse of a woman who sprinkled dust on her brother’s corpse?

(SOPHOCLES’) ANTIGONE

B1: What title, focusing on a woman who plays a prominent role in Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy, is the only extant title to be shared between Sophocles and Euripides?

ELECTRA

B2: What play by Euripides on a Homeric subject is the only fully surviving satyr play?

(EURIPIDES’) CYCLOPS

13. Please read the following passage, purportedly an inscription on the “Stele of Isis,” from Diodorus Siculus’ Library of History, then answer in English the question that follows. You will have 60 seconds to read the passage after it is pasted into the chat:

“ἐγὼ Ἶσίς εἰμι ἡ βασίλισσα πάσης χώρας, ἡ παιδευθεῖσα ὑπὸ Ἑρμοῦ, καὶ ὅσα ἐγὼ ἐνομοθέτησα, οὐδεὶς αὐτὰ δύναται λῦσαι. ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ τοῦ νεωτάτου Κρόνου θεοῦ θυγάτηρ πρεσβυτάτη: ἐγώ εἰμι γυνὴ καὶ ἀδελφὴ Ὀσίριδος βασιλέως: ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ πρώτη καρπὸν ἀνθρώποις εὑροῦσα: ἐγώ εἰμι μήτηρ Ὥρου τοῦ βασιλέως: ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἐν τῷ ἄστρῳ τῷ ἐν τῷ κυνὶ ἐπιτέλλουσα: ἐμοὶ Βούβαστος ἡ πόλις ᾠκοδομήθη. χαῖρε χαῖρε Αἴγυπτε ἡ θρέψασά με.”

The question: Isis says that “no one can destroy [what things],” which she “ἐνομοθέτησε” — a compound verb coming from τίθημι and νόμος?

(HER) LAWS [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: Translate the sentence “ἐγὼ Ἶσίς εἰμι ἡ βασίλισσα πάσης χώρας” and the sentence “ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ τοῦ νεωτάτου Κρόνου θεοῦ θυγάτηρ πρεσβυτάτη.”

“I AM ISIS, QUEEN OF EVERY LAND” and “I AM THE ELDEST DAUGHTER OF CRONUS, THE YOUNGEST GOD” [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: What is Isis the first to do, according to the passage?

FIND {FRUIT(S) / GRAIN(S) / CROP(S)} FOR {MEN / MANKIND} [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

14. A ruler was stopped from participating in what conflict when he was told “father, if you do not go away, that stranger will corrupt you” by his daughter Gorgo, who scorned the Milesian leader Aristagoras and the uprising in western Turkey?

IONIAN REVOLT

B1: What Spartan king, the predecessor to Leonidas, received that advice from Gorgo and stayed out of the war?

CLEOMENES (I)

B2: According to Herodotus, Aristagoras brought to Sparta what type of object, probably the work of another native of Miletus, to try to convince Cleomenes to participate in the revolt?

(BRONZE) MAP (OF THE KNOWN WORLD MADE BY HECATAEUS OF MILETUS)

15. The roadside at Erineüs contained the house of what man, whose real name was Damastes but who had a nickname indicating that he used a hammer to perfectly fit shorter travelers to a bed?

PROCRUSTES [PROMPT ON “DAMASTES” OR “POLYPEMON” BY ASKING “BY WHAT NICKNAME IS HE MOST COMMONLY KNOWN?”]

B1: The town of Erineüs lay along the Sacred Way from Athens to what city, the home of Theseus’ opponent Cercyon and Attica’s most important cult center?

ELEUSIS

B2: What man, a founder of the Eleusisinian mysteries who later initiated Heracles into them, later returned to Eleusis from Thrace to unsuccessfully aid the city in a war with Athens?

EUMOLPUS

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16. What author composed a poem depicting Danaë afloat on the sea and perhaps apostrophized the “passer-by” to “go tell the Spartans” about their fallen soldiers’ honor at Thermopylae in a famous epigram?

SIMONIDES (OF CEOS)

B1: Simonides was the uncle of what other Greek poet, Greece’s second most famous composer of epinikia for athletes?

BACCHYLIDES (OF CEOS)

B2: What author of the first-century A.D. treatise On the Sublime criticized Bacchylides’ odes relative to those of Pindar?

(PSEUDO-)LONGINUS

17. Of the words “iconoclast,” “becalm,” “ink,” and “cauterize,” which does not derive from the same Greek root as the others, since it derives not from a verb meaning “burn” or its participle, ἔγκαυστος, but from a verb meaning “break”?

ICONOCLAST

B1: What English word from the same root as the other three is a noun that literally means “heated from below”?

HYPOCAUST

B2: Related to the verb κλᾶν, what Greek noun, with what meaning, lies at the root of “clergy”?

κλῆρος = LOT / ALLOTMENT / INHERITANCE

18. What man’s larnax coffin is located at Vergina, the modern name for his capital city of Aegae, where the bodyguard Pausanias assassinated him in 336 B.C. and prompted Alexander the Great’s accession in Macedon?

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

B1: What wife of Philip II was the mother of Alexander the Great?

OLYMPIAS

B2: According to Plutarch, what omen did Olympias dream on her wedding-night, prophesying Alexander’s eventual birth? A description is fine.

(THUNDER STRUCK AND) {LIGHTNING // A THUNDERBOLT} STRUCK HER WOMB (CAUSING A FIRE) [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

19. Note to players: There will be additional clues after the sentence is read twice. Please translate to English this sentence from Xenophon’s Anabasis: “καὶ μεταπεμπομένου αὐτοῦ, οὐκ ἐθέλω ἐλθεῖν.” That’s “καὶ μεταπεμπομένου αὐτοῦ, οὐκ ἐθέλω ἐλθεῖν.” Keep in mind that καὶ here is equivalent to καίπερ and μεταπέμπω means “to summon” in the middle.

ALTHOUGH {HE // THAT ONE} {SUMMONS // IS SUMMONING} ME, I {DO NOT WANT // AM UNWILLING} TO GO [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: Now translate this sentence from Xenophon’s Hellenica about two opposing armies, keeping in mind that “τέως” here means “for a time”: “συνιόντων δὲ τέως μὲν σιγὴ πολλὴ ἀπ᾽ ἀμφοτέρων ἦν.”

{AS THEY MET // AS THE ARMIES MET // WITH THEM COMING TOGETHER // WITH THE ARMIES COMING TOGETHER} THERE WAS {MUCH SILENCE // A GREAT SILENCE} FOR A TIME {FROM / BY} BOTH (SIDES) [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Translate this sentence from Herodotus about Darius, who plots while the Athenians and Aeginetans battle: “ὁ δὲ Πέρσης τὸ ἑωυτοῦ ἐποίεε, ὥστε ἀναμιμνήσκοντός τε αἰεὶ τοῦ θεράποντος μεμνῆσθαί μιν τῶν Ἀθηναίων.”

(AND) {DARIUS // THE PERSIAN} {WAS DOING THAT OF HIMSELF // WAS GOING ABOUT HIS OWN BUSINESS}, {SINCE HIS SERVANT WAS ALWAYS REMINDING // WITH HIS SERVANT ALWAYS REMINDING} HIM TO REMEMBER THE ATHENIANS [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

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20. After a forged letter saying Priam would provide him gold was found in the Greek camp, what man was stoned by the enraged army, giving Odysseus revenge for placing Telemachus in front of his plow to expose his sanity?

PALAMEDES

B1: Palamedes was the son of Nauplius and what woman, whom Catreus gave Nauplius to sell abroad, but Nauplius married her?

CLYMENE

B2: Palamedes’ brother Oeax inscribed several examples of what type of object with the story of Palamedes’ death, then threw them in the sea in the hopes that one would find its way to Nauplius?

OAR(S) // OAR-BLADE(S)

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