Keartamen 2 (K2) - 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. What author said, “following the meters and spirit of Archilochus, I first showed Parian iambs to Latium,” referring to his collection of 17 brief poems, the Epodes?

HORACE // (QUINTUS) HORATIUS (FLACCUS)

B1: What man, whom Horace says he will follow into any danger, is addressed in the Epodes?

(GAIUS CILNIUS) MAECENAS

B2: Horace’s tenth Epode is a so-called “reverse propempticon (""pro-PEMP-tih-con""),” meaning it wishes what sort of event upon Maevius? A description is fine.

SHIPWRECK // BAD VOYAGE [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS; PROMPT ON “DEATH” WITH “HOW?”]


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


1. The line “Dī magnī, horribilem et sacrum libellum!”—just like the doleful phrases “heu miserum,” “mē miserum” and “Ō mē īnfēlīcem”—contains what accusative use?

(ACCUSATIVE OF) EXCLAMATION

B1: Translate Catullus’ line “Dī magnī, horribilem et sacrum libellum!” into English.

GREAT GODS, (WHAT) A HORRIBLE AND ACCURSED / SACRED LITTLE BOOK! [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Now translate these Catullan lines, which also feature an accusative of exclamation, into English: “Ō rem rīdiculam, Catō, et iocōsam dignamque auribus et tuō cachinnō!”

OH, (WHAT) A RIDICULOUS THING, CATO, AND FUNNY AND WORTHY OF
(OUR / YOUR) EARS AND YOUR LAUGH(TER) [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]


2. According to Hyginus,Polyeidus(“"pah-lee-EYE-dus"”)used what type of fruit to explain Minos’ color-changing calf, since it changes to red while ripening due to the double suicide of Pyramus and Thisbe?

MULBERRY (FRUIT)

B1: According to Ovid, Pyramus and Thisbe inhabited what Mesopotamian city?

BABYLON

B2: After interpreting the prodigy of Minos’ color-changing cow, Polyeidus saw what sort of animal being pestered by bees, giving him the knowledge required to find Minos’ lost son?

OWL / GLAUX


3. What kind of artwork adorned an area outside the House of the Faun—depicting Alexander’s battle at Issus—and often instructed “CAVĒ CANEM” with its many colored pieces?

MOSAIC(S)

B1: What Latin word describes each small square piece in a mosaic, as well as a Roman die?

TESSERA(E)

B2: Before tesserae, mosaics such as the Stag Hunt from Pella were composed of what material? The specific term as found in the style’s common name is required.

PEBBLE(S) // PEBBLE (MOSAICS)


4. What poet detailed a necromantic visit to the witchErictho (“"air-ICK-thoh"”)by Sextus Pompey, who seeks omens for his father in the civil war against Caesar and the coming battle at Pharsalus?

(MARCUS ANNAEUS) LUCAN(US)

B1: Lucan’s Pharsālia comprises how many books, with the poem breaking off in the last?

10 / TEN

B2: Lucan’s Erictho is often contrasted with what other literary witch, who plays a major role in Horace’s Epode 5, Epode 17, and Satire 1.8?

CANIDIA


5. From what Latin verb, with what meaning, do we ultimately derive “liaison,” “rally,” “alloy,” and “ligament”?

LIGŌ / LIGĀRE = (I / TO) TIE / BIND

B1: From what Latin verb, with what meaning, is “poison” derived?

PŌTŌ / PŌTĀRE = (I / TO) DRINK

B2: From what Latin verb, with what meaning, are “tornado” and “stun” derived?

TONŌ / TONĀRE = (I / TO) THUNDER / RESOUND


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6. Who spoke his last words—“But what evil have I done? Whom have I killed?”—only 66 days after taking the throne, which he obtained over Sulpicianus by promising 25,000 sesterces to each Praetorian guardsman in an auction?

DIDIUS JULIANUS

B1: In what year A.D. did five men—including Didius and his predecessor Pertinax—claim the throne?

193 (A.D.)

B2: Name both Commodus’ Praetorian prefect and Commodus’ mistress who—together with Eclectus—conspired to murder him on December 31, 192 A.D. Both were executed on Didius’ orders.

(QUINTUS AEMILIUS) LAETUS and MARCIA (AURELIA CEIONIA DEMETRIAS)


7. Who assumes the “voice and body and weapons” of Metiscus in Book 12 of Vergil’s Aeneid, when she wishes to drive her Rutulian brother, Turnus, away from the fight?

JUTURNA

B1: What goddess, called “Saturnian” by Vergil, tells Juturna at the start of Aeneid 12 that she must now defend Turnus alone, without help from the gods?

JUNO

B2: In the last lines of the Aeneid, Turnus begs Aeneas to return him alive to his people, pitying the old age of his and Juturna’s father. Name this king of the Rutulians.

DAUNUS


8. What capital city has a university with the motto “hīc et ubīque terrārum” and declares itself to be “unsinkable” with its motto, “fluctuat nec mergitur”?

PARIS

B1: What capital city has the motto “Domine, dīrige nōs”?

LONDON

B2: The motto of Idaho, “estō perpetua,” derives from the supposed dying words of Paolo Sarpi, who hoped that what city would be eternal?

VENICE / VENEZIA


9. A bull trampling and goring a wolf appears on a rebel coin minted during what war, representing the desire of the Corfinium-based “Italian confederacy” to crush Rome after being refused citizenship and the right to vote?

SOCIAL / MARSIC / ITALIAN WAR

B1: What law offered citizenship to loyal Italians and was supplemented by the Lēx Plautia Papīria one year later?

LĒX IŪLIA (DĒ CĪVITĀTE LATĪNĪS ET SOCIĪS DANDA)

B2: During the Social War, what general took Asculum and improbably had both Cicero and Catiline on his staff?

(GNAEUS) POMPEIUS / POMPEY STRABO


10. What city, the setting of Phormiō and the other five comedies by Terence, provides the end of the sixth book of Dē Rērum Nātūrā, which discusses a plague there in 430 B.C.?

ATHENS

B1: Terence’s comedies were set in Athens because he adapted five of them from what Athenian New Comic?

MENANDER / MENANDROS

B2: The plague of Athens was maybe not Lucretius’ intended ending. What author, translating a work by Eusebius, supports this by saying that Cicero edited the Dē Rērum Nātūrā?

(SAINT) JEROME (OF STRIDON) // (EUSEBIUS SOPHRONIUS) HIERONYMUS


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11. Using the gerundive, say in Latin: Plautus is a poet to be praised.

PLAUTUS POĒTA LAUDANDUS EST [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: Now translate using the gerundive: You all must hear the words of the poet Plautus.

VERBA PLAUTĪ POĒTAE VŌBĪS AUDIENDA (SUNT) [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Now, using the gerundive and the verb cōnsulō, say in Latin: The citizens must have regard for the poet Plautus.

PLAUTŌ POĒTAE Ā CĪVIBUS CŌNSULENDUM (EST) [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]


12. Compared by Homer to “a cauldron on a mighty fire as she seethed and boiled in utter turmoil,” whom does Odysseus escape after he clings to an overhanging fig-tree and navigates away from the Straits of Messina?

CHARYBDIS

B1: Charybdis nearly killed Odysseus after he escaped whose island, which was guarded by Lampetië and Phaethusa?

HELIOS / HELIUS (HYPERION)

B2: What nymph of Thrinacia was the mother of Lampetië and Phaethusa?

NEAERA


13. What adverb appears in impatient questions to mean “pray tell me” or “I beg”—as it does immediately after “quō usque” in Cicero’s First Catilinarian—due to its meaning of “at last”?

TANDEM

B1: What adverb meaning “at some time” is joined with tandem to stress something that has occurred after much delay, as it does in the first line of Cicero’s Second Catilinarian?

ALIQUANDŌ

B2: Translate into English this sentence, which has been taken from the opening line of Cicero’s Second Catilinarian: “Tandem aliquandō Lūcium Catilīnam, furentem audāciā, ex urbe ēiēcimus!”

FINALLY / AT (LONG) LAST WE HAVE EJECTED LUCIUS CATILINE, RAGING / MAD
WITH BOLDNESS / AUDACITY, FROM THE CITY [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]


14. What author was praised for his “milky richness,” or “lactea ūbertās,” but was criticized for the “Patavīnitās,” or “Paduan provincialism,” that defined his Ab Urbe Conditā?

(TITUS) LIVIUS / LIVY

B1: According to Tacitus, what emperor called Livy a “Pompeian” because of the republican idealism in his history?

AUGUSTUS / OCTAVIAN(US) // (GAIUS) OCTAVIUS

B2: What author, best known for a lost history that perhaps covered the period from 60 B.C. to the Battle of Philippi, criticized Livy for his supposed “Patavīnitās”?

(GAIUS) ASINIUS POLLIO


15. What material gave the proverbial name to the loot taken from Tolosa, caused the gruesome death of Manius Aquilius, was used to pay off Brennus, and was the metal of Tarpeia’s hoped-for bracelets?

GOLD

B1: What Eastern king, who committed suicide at Panticapaeum in 63 B.C., executed Manius Aquilius by pouring molten gold down his throat?

MITHRIDATES (VI) // MITHRIDATES (THE GREAT) // MITHRIDATES (EUPATOR)

B2: Cassius Dio similarly says that the Parthians killed Crassus Triumvir by pouring molten gold down his throat. Other sources, however, record that a Parthian killed then beheaded Crassus, with his disembodied head becoming a prop in a performance of what Greek play?

(EURIPIDES’) BACCHAE


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16. What verb form fits these clues: for the verb for, it is the 1st-person singular, present subjunctive, and for the verb ferō, it is the 2nd-person singular, present active imperative?

FER

B1: Now give the 1st-person singular, present active subjunctive of ferō.

FERAM

B2: Now give the 2nd-person singular, present imperative of for.

FĀRE


17. What youth appears dressed as an Egyptian in a statue from a villa near Tivoli, reflecting the account that he drowned in the Nile and caused his lover, Hadrian, much agony?

ANTINOÜS

B1: Antinoüs was a Bithynian Greek, so Hadrian’s love for him matched the Philhellenism that earned him what Latin diminutive nickname, according to the Historia Augusta?

GRAECULUS

B2: As part of his Philhellenism, Hadrian completed at Athens a temple that Peisistratus had begun seven centuries earlier and a new temple in his suburb of Hadrianopolis. Name either.

OLYMP(I)EION / TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS or PANHELLENION [DO NOT ACCEPT “PANHELLEION”]


18. Henryk Sienkiewicz’s(“"shen-KYAY-vitch’s"”) historical novel Quō Vādis depicts the wrist-slitting undertaken by what author, the so-called “arbiter of elegance,” after he authored his work Satyricōn?

(TITUS) PETRONIUS (NIGER) // (GAIUS) PETRONIUS (ARBITER)

B1: A draft title of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby referred to what Petronian character, an extremely wealthy and ostentatious freedman, “in West Egg”?

(GAIUS POMPEIUS) TRIMALCHIO (MAECENATIANUS)

B2: The epigraph to T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land quotes a scene in the Satyricōn where Trimalchio sees what mythological figure “hanging in a bottle,” crying “ἀποθανεῖν θέλω (""ah-poh-tah-NAYN TELL-aw""),” or “I want to die”?

(CUMAEAN) SIBYL


19. What man, whose father was sometimes changed from Eleius to the god Helios to exaggerate his glory, refused to pay one-tenth of his herd of cattle after Heracles diverted the Alpheus and Peneus rivers to clean his stables?

AUGE(I)AS

B1: Give either the collective matronymic or the individual names for Augeas’ allies—who are sometimes called Siamese twins—in his subsequent war against Heracles.

MOLIONE(S) / MOLIONIDES / MOLIONIDAE // CTEATUS and EURYTUS

B2: In the Iliad, which Greek tells Patroclus how he would have killed the Moliones when they joined Augeas in attacking his city, had Poseidon not shrouded them in a mist?

NESTOR


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20. What Latin preposition, which was originally the comparative of prope, means “close to” or “on account of”?

PROPTER

B1: What Latin preposition is a petrified past participle of a verb meaning “to turn”?

VERSUS

B2: What Latin preposition was formerly a participle of a verb meaning “to follow”?

SECUNDUM


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[SOURCES]

0 TU: Conte, p. 297; B1: Ibid. p. 293; B2: Ibid. pp. 297-298. 

1 TU: A&G §397d; B1: See Catull. 14.12; B2: See Catull. 56.1-2. For cachinnō see A&G §521c. 

2 TU, B1, and B2: Tripp, p. 241 and Ov. Met. 4.55-166. Cf. Hyg. Fab. 136. Apollod. Bibl. 3.3 gives “βάτου καρπῷ,” or “fruit of a bramble.” 

3 TU: Gardner, pp. 147-148; B1: Gardner, p. 251 and elsewhere; B2: Gardner, p. 148. 

4 TU: Conte, p. 442; B1: Ibid. p. 440; B2: Hadas, p. 166, p. 168.

5 TU: Schaeffer, p. 24; B1: Ibid. 34; B2: Ibid. 44. 

6 TU: Scarre, p. 129 and C&S, p. 490; B1: C&S, pp. 490-491; B2: Ibid. p. 490. 

7 TU: Verg. Aen. 12.472ff.; B1: Ibid. 12.156ff.; B2: Ibid. 12.933-936. 

8 TU: Stone, p. 122 and Ehrlich, p. 134; B1: Ehrlich, p. 110; B2: Ibid., p. 118. 

9 TU: C&S, pp. 224-225; B1: C&S, p. 224; B2: C&S, p. 225 and OCD, “Pompeius (RE 45) Strabo, Gnaeus.”

10 TU: OCCL, p. 327, in addition to the entries for the remaining plays, and Conte, p. 159; B1: Conte, pp. 95-96. B2: Conte, p. 155.  

11 TU and B1: A&G §500ff. B2: A&G §374a. “Consulō” takes the dative with this meaning: Gonzalez Lodge, p. 45. 

12 TU: Hom. Od. 12.237-238 and ff.; B1 and B2: Ibid. 12.127ff.  

13 TU: Gonzalez Lodge, p. 170. Cf. Cic. Cat. 1.1.; B1: Gonzalez Lodge, p. 20. Cf. L&S, “tandem” and Cic. Cat. 2.1.; B2: Cic. Cat. 2.1. 

14 TU: Conte, p. 372, p. 378; B1: Conte, p. 370; B2: Conte, p. 377. 

15 TU: C&S, p. 217, p. 220, p. 73 and Liv. 1.11. B1: C&S, p. 254 and Heichelheim, p. 177; B2: Heichelheim, p. 207. The story of molten gold (unsourced) is recounted in Cass. Dio 40.27. 

17 TU: Scarre, p. 104; B1: Heichelheim, p. 331; B2: Ibid. p. 332. 

18 TU and B1: Conte, pp. 454-457; B2: March, p. 443. Cf. Petron. Sat. 48. Please note that neither the title—Trimalchio in West Egg—nor the connection to The Waste Land is sourced, but this information is not required to answer the bonuses. 

19 TU: Tripp, pp. 127. Cf. Paus. 5.8.3.; B1: Tripp, p. 127, p. 383. B2: Hom. Il. 11.750ff. 

20 TU and B1: A&G §219; B2: A&G §221.