Keartamen Open (KO), Quarterfinals

1. The symbolic crowns of what kind of people title the Liber Peristephanōn of Prudentius, who drew on passiōnēs stories to honor the deacon Lawrence, the bishop Cyprian, victims of the emperor Valerian, and the apostles Peter and Paul?

MARTYRS / SAINTS [PROMPT ON “CHRISTIAN(S)”]

B1: What author wrote Ad Martyrās and a defense of Christianity in the Apologēticus, which is often apocryphally cited as declaring that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church”?

TERTULLIAN // (QUINTUS SEPTIMIUS FLORENS) TERTULLIAN(US)

B2: Prudentius drew on martyr inscriptions composed by what pope, who led the church from 366 to 384 A.D.?

(POPE) DAMASUS (I)

2. The possible locations of what things are restricted by the “law of limitation,” which allows options like “perispomenon” and “proparoxytone,” though only recessive words or forms have antepenultimate syllables that get an “acute”?

(GREEK / PITCH) ACCENTS

B1: Words in what class, including personal pronouns like μοι and σοι, lack an accent?

(EN)CLITIC(S)

B2: Under the “σωτῆρα law,” an accent on a word’s penultimate syllable is circumflex if what conditions are met?

LAST TWO VOWELS ARE LONG-SHORT // PENULT(IMATE VOWEL) IS LONG, ULTIMA(TE VOWEL) IS SHORT

3. What hero’s death at Troy was the topic of Aeschylus’s play Psychostasia, caused birds to annually dip their wings in the Aesepus to water his grave after forming from his funeral pyre’s smoke, and drew dewy tears by his mother, Eos?

MEMNON

B1: Achilles killed Memnon to avenge what youth, who died after he stopped Memnon from killing his father, Nestor?

ANTILOCHUS

B2: Which Epic Cycle poem, often attributed to Arctinus of Miletus, narrated the deaths of Memnon and Penthesileia?

AETHIOPIS

4. What city allegedly helped Rome pay off Brennus and financed an early voyage to Britain by Pytheas after its foundation by Phocaeans, drawing wealth from ruling trade in the western Mediterranean and Rhône valley of southern France?

MASSALIA / MASSILIA / MARSEILLE(S)

B1: Massalia controlled trade with Tartessus, whose chief export was what material later sought by Carthaginians?

SILVER

B2: Phocaea’s western Mediterranean dominance ended after a ca. 540 B.C. battle against an Etruscan and Carthaginian fleet near what Corsican colony, where the Phocaeans fought evenly but were forced to abandon the city?

ALALIA

5. What is the favorite pastime of a gāneō or a gulō—insults that could be offered as “dapis percupidus” or “nimis amātor epulārum”—as well as someone who is polyphagus, someone who is edāx, and someone who is avidus cibī?

EATING / DEVOURING

B1: What is the meaning of the verb rōdō in the context of food?

(I / TO) GNAW / NIBBLE (AT)

B2: What is a popīna, which is sometimes referred to more generally as a thermopolium?

COOKSHOP / TAVERN / EATING-HOUSE // {FAST-FOOD / HOT-FOOD} JOINT // BISTRO [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

6. What type of animal’s song was said by Pliny the Elder to herald spring, claimed to be evoked by the Cean poet Bacchylides, broken by capture by a stronger bird in Hesiod’s fable about a hawk, and thought by Greeks to be Procne’s?

NIGHTINGALE(S) [PROMPT ON “BIRD(S)”]

B1: The ancients thought the verses of what Greek lyric poet best evoked a nightingale, as in his epic Geryoneis?

STESICHORUS (OF HIMERA)

B2: What collection includes a panegyric where the author declares that, unlike the solitary nightingale, he sings his subject’s praises publicly, plus a poem praising a parrot and a thank-you to locals who built a statue in his honor?

(APULEIUS’) FLŌRIDA

7. What city’s temple of Hera Bunaea was built by its early ruler Bunus and may have been where locals stoned Mermerus and Pheres after they carried a poisoned robe to Glauce, clearing the way for the rise of Sisyphus’ dynasty?

CORINTH

B1: Corinth’s links to the Argonauts began when Aeëtes gave the city to Bunus and continued with Jason’s failed bid for power. Mythographers thus grouped rulers from Aeëtes to Jason into one dynasty named for what god, Aeëtes’ father?

HELIOS

B2: In the lost poem Naupactia, Jason settled not in Corinth but in its colony Corcyra, where his son Mermerus was killed by what kind of animal while hunting on the mainland opposite the island?

LION(ESS)

8. Two examples of what kind of phrases are those based on Algernon Sidney’s note “manus haec inimīca tyrannīs” and the inscription in St. Paul’s Cathedral that acts as Christopher Wren’s epitaph, “sī monumentum requīris, circumspice”?

(U.S.) STATE MOTTO(ES) [PROMPT ON “MOTTO(ES)”]

B1: Another taken from a post-classical source is that of Idaho, whose phrase “estō perpetua” supposedly comes from Paolo Sarpi’s dying wish that what Italian city would be eternal?

VENICE / VENEZIA

B2: Adapting was wise, as two neighboring U.S. territories adopted faulty Latin mottoes before they became states. Name either: one misspelled “quae sūrsum volō vidēre” as “quō sūrsum vēlō vidēre” and one spelled the second word of “cīvīlitās successit barbarum” with two “t”s.

MINNESOTA (TERRITORY) or WISCONSIN (TERRITORY)

9. What sort of works are often classified based on August Mau’s system that draws on examples from Boscotrecase and Boscoreale to define four chronological “styles,” all of which were preserved by the ash that coated houses at Pompeii?

WALL PAINTING(S) // FRESCO(ES) // MURAL(S) [PROMPT ON “PAINTING(S)”]

B1: An important “Second Style” mural using “atmospheric perspective” appears in what woman’s villa at Prima Porta, outside of which there was once a marble statue of her husband raising his right hand as if to deliver a speech?

LIVIA (DRUSILLA)

B2: Major “Second Style” murals were found in the villa of what Pompeian, as in a bedroom now shown in the Met?

(PUBLIUS) FANNIUS SYNISTOR

10. At Athens, what industry’s takeover by τραπεζίται like Phormio and Pasion marked a shift to metic-run ventures, which broke the control once held by Athena’s temple and Apollo’s sanctuary on Delos due to access to Laurium’s reserves?

BANK(ING) // FINANCE // (MONEY-)LEND(ING) / LOAN(S) // CREDIT // MONEY // USURY

B1: Athenians who lent out small sums at high interest rates were nicknamed for lending what low-denomination coin?

OBOL(S)

B2: In the Delian League, what was the title of the ten public treasurers who oversaw the League’s funds?

HELLENOTAMIAS / HELLENOTAMIAI

11. What use of the genitive case—which includes the “chorographic” genitive, as in “στρατὸς … ἀφίκετο τῆς Ἀττικῆς ἐς Οἰνόην”—appears in the phrases “μέρος τι τῶν βαρβάρων,” “πλεῖστον ἀνθρώπων,” and “magnus numerus hostium”?

PARTITIVE (GENITIVE) // (GENITIVE OF THE DIVIDED) WHOLE

B1: What use of the genitive case is found in this Greek sentence: “ἀνὴρ χαλκοῦ δόρυ φέρει”?

(GENITIVE OF) MATERIAL

B2: Translate this Plautine sentence, which uses a rare genitive construction and a Greek loan-word: “sī hoc adcūrāssis lepidē … dabuntur dōtis tibi … sescentī logī.”

IF YOU WILL HAVE {CHARMINGLY / GRACEFULLY} {TAKEN CARE OF // CARED FOR} THIS, {SIX HUNDRED (MERE / WITTY) WORDS WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU {AS / FOR} A DOWRY // SIX HUNDRED (MERE / WITTY) WORDS OF A DOWRY WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU} [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

12. Who laments that even showing the omen of an eagle dropping a swan when attacked by other swans, rallying troops as Camers, leading a rescue as Metiscus, and retrieving her dueling brother’s sword could not let her “help Turnus”?

JUTURNA / DIUTURNA

B1: The ancients said Juturna’s name came from iuvō and Turnus, explaining her poetic role. They also said the name of what Aeneid character meant “arriver” since he returns just in time to report the failure of his embassy to Diomedes?

VENULUS

B2: They also thought what character’s name reflected how he “opened” the gates of the Trojan camp with his brother Bitias to bait in the Latins—only to shut them too late, allowing in Turnus, who then literally split his skull in half?

PANDARUS

13. Studies of what things at Cnidus inspired a lost treatise by Eudoxus, who directly influenced Aratus’ Phaenomena and poems by Callimachus and Catullus that celebrated the Lock of Berenice’s supposed celestial transformation?

CONSTELLATION(S) / STAR(S)

B1: What Greek polymath, best known for being the first to calculate the earth’s circumference, wrote a lost work called Catasterismi that explained all the myths underlying the constellations?

ERATOSTHENES (OF CYRENE)

B2: Both Eratosthenes and Conon, who identified the Lock of Berenice constellation, were part of what ruler’s court?

PTOLEMY {III (EUERGETES) // (III) EUERGETES}

14. What modern country’s “protochronism” has led citizens to carve a giant rock face of an ancient king above a river, found a cult of the unifier Burebista, honor a win at the Iron Gates near Tapae, and revere Decebalus and the Dacians?

ROMANIA

B1: The win at Tapae was the defeat of what praetorian prefect of Domitian by Decebalus, who later fought Tettius Iulianus?

(CORNELIUS) FUSCUS

B2: More contested is the Tropaeum Traiani near what modern Romanian town, as it honors Trajan’s victory there over the Dacians in 101 or 102 A.D. but may also refer to heavy Roman losses under Oppius Sabinus near there in 85 A.D.?

ADAMCLISI / ADAMKLISSI

15. In some etymological theories, what kind of animal had bent hind legs like a heraldic “chevron,” was the prize or chorus for early “tragedies,” and made playful leaps echoing the bouncy nature of early “taxis” or a youthful “caper”?

GOAT

B1: What word, likely from another Greek noun for “goat,” means “protection” in English, as in an idiom using “under”?

AEGIS

B2: The name of the island of Capri might come from capra, but others trace it to Greek’s word for what type of animal?

(κάπρος = WILD) BOAR

16. What language was used for a 33,333-verse “modern sequel” and a poem starting “as you set out . . . hope your road is a long one,” the latter of which was written by C. P. Cavafy to praise Ithaca and his language’s ancient heritage?

MODERN GREEK [PROMPT ON “GREEK”]

B1: Another Cavafy poem describes fruitlessly “waiting for” what people, inspiring the title of a novel by J. M. Coetzee?

(THE) BARBARIANS

B2: Fill in the blank from this quote from Georgios Seferis’ Mythistorema that was read at the 2004 Olympics opening ceremony: “I woke with this marble [blank] in my hands; it exhausts my elbows and I don’t know where to put it down.”

HEAD

17. Priests in what city seated a Greek criminal on a throne and killed him as a “substitute-king” to protect the restorer of the Esagila temple of Marduk, though this did not stop Alexander’s death there in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace?

BABYLON

B1: In Babylon, Alexander ordered a ziggurat built for what friend, whom the Siwa oracle approved for deification?

HEPHAESTION

B2: When he took Babylon, Alexander asked what Persian satrap, a former rebel in his favor, to restore the Esagila?

MAZAEÜS

18. Translate any of these Greek proverbs or give their shared idiomatic meaning: “δικτύῳ ἄνεμον θηρᾷς,” “σίδηρον πλεῖν διδάσκεις,” “ὄρνιθος γάλα ζητεῖς,” “ἄστρα τοξεύεις,” “λίθῳ διαλέγου,” and “εἰς ὕδωρ γράφεις”?

(YOU ARE) DOING SOMETHING {IMPOSSIBLE / FUTILE // YOU CANNOT DO // YOU SHOULD NOT DO}
(δικτύῳ ἄνεμον θηρᾷς = YOU ARE) HUNTING THE WIND WITH A NET;
(σίδηρον πλεῖν διδάσκεις = YOU ARE) TEACHING IRON TO {FLOAT / SAIL};
(ὄρνιθος γάλα ζητεῖς = YOU ARE) SEEKING THE MILK OF A BIRD;
(ἄστρα τοξεύεις = YOU ARE) SHOOTING (A BOW // ARROWS) AT THE STARS;
(λίθῳ διαλέγου = YOU ARE) SPEAKING TO A {STONE / ROCK};
(εἰς ὕδωρ γράφεις = YOU ARE) WRITING {ON / IN / ONTO / INTO} WATER
[ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: These phrases come from the Collection of Impossibilities, a short work by an anonymous Greek author. Probably the best is “ἀνδριάντα γαργαλίζεις”—“you are tickling a statue”—but that’s too hard. So, translate “Ἡλίῳ φῶς δανείζεις.”

(YOU ARE) {LENDING / GIVING} LIGHT TO THE SUN [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B2: Now translate the phrase “ἐλαίῳ πῦρ σβεννύεις” from the collection.

(YOU ARE) {EXTINGUISHING / QUENCHING} A FIRE WITH {OIL / FUEL} [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

19. Who is the likely dedicatee of a 261-verse poem credited to Calpurnius Siculus called Laus, which predated his plan that led an author to open his veins at a banquet after Seneca committed suicide when Nero discovered his conspiracy?

(GAIUS CALPURNIUS) PISO

B1: What 476-line Latin poem was also called Epistula ad Pīsōnēs and was a leading piece of literary criticism?

(HORACE’S) ARS POĒTICA

B2: Piso Caesoninus set himself up as a philosophical patron who mainly competed with a school founded at a villa in Herculaneum by what man, whose circle may also have overlapped with that of the philosopher Siro?

PHILODEMUS (OF GADARA)

20. The first sanctioned use of what kind of object at Delphi by Sacadas ended a feud that began at Celaenae with Olympus’ son, who was flayed alive after losing a contest where he could not use it upside-down as Apollo could his lyre?

(DOUBLE) FLUTE // AULOS [PROMPT ON “(MUSICAL) INSTRUMENT”]

B1: Some sources say Athena invented the flute after hearing what creatures’ ghoulish dirge for one of their own?

GORGON(S)

B2: Who was falsely accused of rape by his stepmother Philonome through fraudulent testimony of the flute-player Eumolpus, leading him to be set adrift in a chest with his sister Hemithea by their father?

TENES