Keartamen 5 (K5) - Preliminary Round 1

Moderator says: “I will read one test question for no points. This question is not reflective of the content of the round or tournament. This year, test questions will be book-themed.”

0. What boy, who once hit his school bus with a shot from a Revolutionary War cannon, is saved by Mr. Brunner’s bronze pen-sword before learning that he is a half-blood and must find Zeus’ stolen lightning bolt?

PERCY JACKSON

B1: When Percy arrives to Camp Half-Blood, he meets what Head Counselor at Hermes’ Cabin?

LUKE (CASTELLAN)

B2: What name is assumed by the Fury sent to attack Percy at the MoMA at the start of The Lightning Thief?

(MRS.) DODDS

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

1. As described in Latin, what group in popular culture includes these members: coniugēs quī fīunt vespa formīcaque; dīvī fīlius cum fulminātō malleō; doctor quī īrāscēns multō ingentior fit; homō ferrātus, nōmine Antōnius?

(THE) AVENGERS

B1: What Latin word would be most appropriate to refer to the round shield that Captain America carries?

CLIPEUS

B2: Translate this quote into Latin, assuming it features an adverb of the same type as semel: “I love you 3000.”

{TĒ / VŌS} AMŌ TER MĪLIĒNS

2. What man used his father’s repute with the Celtiberians to save Hostilius Mancinus’ trapped army, though the unpopular treaty made him propose a land-reform bill in 133 B.C. to save his and his brother Gaius’ political careers?

TIBERIUS (SEMPRONIUS) GRACCHUS

B1: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the father of the Gracchi, briefly held a consulship with what man, whose son of the same name later murdered Tiberius over his land-reform efforts?

(PUBLIUS CORNELIUS) SCIPIO NASICA (CORCULUM)

B2: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus also held a consulship where he subdued several tribes of what people, enslaving so many of them that they became the basis of an expression roughly meaning “two a penny”?

SARDI(NIANS)

3. After he saw “a cloud of unusual size and appearance,” what man quickly took a boat to reach Stabiae, displaying both concern for stranded eruption victims and the scientific curiosity that made him write Nātūrālis Historia?

PLINY THE ELDER // GAIUS PLINIUS SECUNDUS

B1: A detailed account of Pliny the Elder’s death survives in a letter, written three decades later, from Pliny the Younger to what friend?

({PUBLIUS / GAIUS} CORNELIUS) TACITUS

B2: Pliny also wrote a lost history covering the years between 50 A.D. and 71 A.D. and continuing what historian’s work?

AUFIDIUS BASSUS

4. What characteristic heroic task was accomplished with spike-covered armor by Menestratus, caused an eight-year servitude to Ares when Cadmus formed the Spartoi with the left-over teeth, and represented Heracles’ second labor?

KILLING A {DRAGON / (WATER)SERPENT / HYDRA} [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: Medieval Christians reused this motif with what saint, who supposedly slayed a dragon in Cappadocia to rescue a princess and stop a village’s annual human sacrifice?

(SAINT) GEORGE (OF LYDDA)

B2: A huge dragon terrorized what island until it was slain by the island’s first king, Cychreus?

SALAMIS

5. What specific form fills in the blanks in the phrases “[blank] Hebraicō,” “[blank] Hegirae,” “[blank] aetātis suae,” and “[blank] dominī,” as shown in the chronological abbreviation A.D.?

ANNŌ

B1: The word annō began an alternative to what common three-word Latin phrase that the Romans used to count the years that had passed since their state was supposedly established?

AB URBE CONDITĀ

B2: What specific noun form fills in the blank in the chronological phrase “annō [blank]” as shown in the abbreviation A.M.?

MUNDĪ

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6. In a war, what Roman king burnt a river-bridge with flaming logs, fought the augur Attus Navius, and vowed to start building Jupiter Optimus Maximus’ temple, after which his wife Tanaquil predicted Servius Tullius’ accession?

TARQUINIUS PRISCUS

B1: As a result of this war, Tarquinius Priscus had the original idea to build what sort of structure, though Servius Tullius actually built it, according to the common tradition?

(DEFENSIVE) WALL (AROUND ROME)

B2: Tarquinius’ war was fought against the Sabines for control of what river, which later supplied the water for Rome’s second-oldest aqueduct?

ANIO (RIVER)

7. What author — whose influence made a heavenly judge say Jerome followed him rather than Christ — transformed Augustine with his dialogue Hortensius, his treatise Dē Officiīs, and his Catilinarian speeches?

(MARCUS TULLIUS) CICERO

B1: Cicero’s philosophy had a profound influence on Christian writers. What bishop of Milan in the fourth century A.D. explicitly drew on Cicero for his ethical commentary Dē Officiīs Ministrōrum?

(SAINT) AMBROSE (OF MILAN)

B2: What other Christian author, living after Ambrose, wrote a commentary on Cicero’s Topica and used Cicero’s philosophy for a dialogue focused on free will and reconciling good and evil?

(ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS) BOETHIUS

8. What sort of object, which could be “scraped again” and reused as a palimpsest, was often found in the scriptorium of medieval monasteries, where scribes illuminated and copied texts?

MANUSCRIPT(S) / CODEX / CODICES / BOOK(S) / SCROLL(S) / PAGE(S) // (WAX) TABLET(S)
[PROMPT ON “PARCHMENT,” “PAPER,” “PAPYRUS,” OR “VELLUM” BY ASKING “WHAT SORT OF OBJECT WAS PRODUCED USING THAT?”]

B1: The study of manuscripts, including their historicity and decipherment, is known as “paleography.” Etymologically, what do the two roots of “paleography” mean?

OLD WRITING [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Different manuscripts are represented with different letters in what set of notations, found at the bottom of pages of a modern text and including footnotes, variant readings, and appendices?

APPARATUS CRITICUS // CRITICAL APPARATUS

9. In what case do nouns like prōditiō and fūrtum usually appear with verbs like absolvere, damnāre, and accūsāre, since they represent the crime for which the defendant is charged?

GENITIVE

B1: What crime, sometimes appearing in a genitive of charge, was known as latrōcinium?

ROBBERY / BANDITRY / THEFT / PIRACY

B2: In court, defending against a charge of murder was dēfendere inter sīcāriōs. What is the sīca that these sīcāriī carry?

(CURVED / STRAIGHT) DAGGER(S)

10. Participants in various types of what events propitiated Taraxippus with sacrifices, hoping to receive stephanoi of celery or parsley in honor of Melicertes or Opheltes when visiting Corinth’s Isthmus or Nemea?

(PANHELLENIC / FUNERAL) GAMES // (CHARIOT-)RACES

B1: What man, the brother-in-law of Amphiaraüs, founded the Nemean Games to honor Opheltes?

ADRASTUS

B2: The most famous Taraxippus, a spirit that supposedly scared horses, was at Olympia. However, it was also said that the Isthmian Games had their own Taraxippus, who represented what man from Potniae?

GLAUCUS

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11. What linguistic items — which can be marked as separate from each other with a diaresis, a symbol with two superscript dots — are pronounced together in diphthongs and marked with macrons as “short” or “long”?

VOWEL(S)

B1: What English term refers to the process in Latin poetry where the pronunciation of a word’s last vowel is skipped if the following word starts with a vowel?

ELISION / ELIDING

B2: In what metrical process do two vowels run together to form one sound? For example, in the second line of the Aeneid, Lāvīnia in “Ītaliam fātō profugus Lāvīniaque vēnit” is pronounced with only three syllables.

SYNIZESIS

12. What author, using the analogist style he backed in a two-book grammatical treatise, wrote his major work either piecewise across seven winters or all in 52 B.C. in self-aggrandizing third-person narration of the Gallic Wars?

(GAIUS JULIUS) CAESAR

B1: Fill in the three Latin words that finish this line, which opens Caesar’s Gallic Wars: “Gallia est omnis dīvīsa [blank]”?

IN PARTĒS TRĒS

B2: In general, analogists restricted themselves to “everyday” verba, which were described by what Latin adjective? Cicero mocked Sisenna as an ēmendātor of speech described by this adjective.

ŪSITĀTA / ŪSITĀTĪ / ŪSITĀTUS

13. Who kills the Indian youth Athis and his own ally Aconteus in a battle with his wife’s uncle in the Ethiopian palace of Cepheus, where he petrifies two hundred men with Medusa’s head?

PERSEUS

B1: According to Ovid, Perseus traveled from Ethiopia to Argos and petrified what man, the twin brother of Acrisius?

PROËTUS

B2: Among those killed in the mêlée was Polydegmon, a descendant of what queen, who Ovid says enclosed Babylon with brick walls?

SEMIRAMIS

14. Translate the following sentence from Latin to English: “Nātūra rērum discenda est ad mundum intellegendum.”

THE NATURE OF THINGS {MUST BE // IS TO BE} LEARNED TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: Now translate this line from Vergil’s Georgics: “Fēlīx, quī potuit rērum cognōscere causās.”

{FORTUNATE / LUCKY / HAPPY} (IS HE // THE ONE) WHO HAS BEEN ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE CAUSES OF THINGS [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Now translate these lines, adapted from Lucretius’ Dē Rērum Nātūrā: “Saecla hominum in brevī spatiō mūtantur et quasi cursōrēs vītae lampada trādunt.” Keep in mind that saecla is the subject in both clauses.

AND IN A BRIEF SPACE (OF TIME) THE {GENERATIONS / AGES} OF {HUMANS / MEN} ARE CHANGED AND, LIKE RUNNERS, (THEY) {PASS ON // HAND OVER} THE {LAMP / TORCH} OF LIFE [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

15. Measured in bulk with modiī and primarily procured from Sardinia, Sicily, and Egypt, what good was distributed in a dole called cūra annōnae so that the urban poor could make pānis?

GRAIN / CORN / (DURUM) WHEAT

B1: What man, tribune in 58 B.C. after being adopted by a plebeian and changing his name’s patrician spelling, established a grain dole to curry political favor with the urban poor?

(PUBLIUS) CLODIUS PULCHER

B2: The grain for the dole was primarily stored in what public warehouses, including one in Rome named for Servius Sulpicius Galba that covered more than 225,000 square feet?

HORREA / HORREUM

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16. In the Iliad, which Greek is left holding only an empty helmet after his opponent’s chin-strap breaks, then is shot by Pandarus to end the truce, meaning he cannot make his agreed return to Sparta with his faithless wife, Helen?

MENELAÜS

B1: Name Menelaüs’ father, whose name is used in a patronymic referring to Menelaüs throughout the duel with Paris.

ATREÜS

B2: At the beginning of the duel, Paris buckles on the breastplate of what brother of his, whom Achilles captured in the war as he was cutting fig-shoots for a chariot in Priam’s orchard?

LYCAON

17. A ruler of what power, hoping that Isaurians could counterbalance Aspar, welcomed their chieftain Zeno, who ruled when his counterpart Romulus Augustulus fell and transferred full primacy to Constantinople?

EASTERN (ROMAN) EMPIRE // BYZANTINE EMPIRE

B1: Aspar took up the role of kingmaker after the death of Theodosius II, who promulgated a codex on what subject that became the basis for a similar corpus of Justinian?

(CIVIL) LAW(S) // (CIVIL) LAW (CODE) [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Name either of the two rulers that Aspar placed on the throne, one in 450 A.D. and one in 457 A.D.

MARCIAN or LEO I

18. What meaning is shared by the adjective mendīcus and the adjective egēnus — the latter equivalent to the present participle of egeō, egēre — as well as the adjective pauper?

POOR / DESTITUTE / NEEDY / INDIGENT / BEGGING // IN NEED

B1: What Latin adjective, used to mean “poor” in reference to soil, literally means “lean” or “meager”?

MACER

B2: What Latin adjective, an antonym of pauper, most properly indicates a person “rich in lands,” or else “place-filled,” as the two Latin words at its base suggest?

LOCUPLĒS

19. What genre, including a work seeking to “venerate [a model]’s footsteps” and one drawing on Apollonius of Rhodes, flourished under the Flavian emperors when Statius and Valerius Flaccus wrote Thebaid and Argonautica?

(MYTHOLOGICAL) EPIC (POETRY)

B1: Statius’ Thebaid and Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica are typically considered part of a trio of Flavian epics with what work, a historical epic that is almost crazed in its emulation of Vergil’s Aeneid?

(SILIUS ITALICUS’) PUNICA

B2: In the preface to his Thebaid, Statius declares that he addresses this topic because he cannot yet “utter the theme of the triumphs of the north.” However, Statius did turn to this theme in what lost historical epic praising the deeds of the emperor Domitian?

DĒ BELLŌ GERMĀNICŌ

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20. Which two of the words “sullen,” “solace,” “solo,” and “soil” derive from the same Latin root, since they both represent being alone, though one is more because of ill humor than choice?

SULLEN and SOLO

B1: From what Latin verb, with what meaning, are “insolent” and “obsolete” derived?

{SOLEŌ / SOLĒRE} = (I AM // TO BE) ACCUSTOMED TO

B2: What philosophical theory, similar to egoism, argues that the self is the only thing that is known to exist?

SOLIPSISM

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