Keartamen Open (KO), Round 3

1. What man won a wrestling match on Lesbos against Philomeleides, beat Ajax Oïleüs when he slipped in the footrace at Patroclus’ funeral, gained Amphinomus’ respect by outboxing Arnaeüs, and won a contest to string his own bow?

ODYSSEÜS

B1: Odysseüs’ athletic feats included winning a race held by what Spartan to find a husband for his daughter Penelope?

ICARIUS

B2: On Scheria, Odysseüs also out-threw the winner of the discus competition, since what man goaded him on?

EURYALUS

2. A work calling what Roman’s rise a “Revolution” was written by Ronald Syme to probe his claim that “at 19, I raised an army to restore liberty,” which the Monumentum Ancȳrānum used to frame his rēs gestae as starting a Pāx Rōmāna?

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

B1: What structure, erected in 13 B.C., served a similar propaganda purpose by showing Augustus as a bringer of plenty?

ĀRA PĀCIS (AUGUSTAE) // ALTAR OF (AUGUSTAN) PEACE

B2: Augustus even forced history to be rewritten, as when Livy claimed Augustus had seen what man’s breastplate inscribed with a dedication naming him consul, not tribune—a revision that let Augustus deny a rival’s claim to an honor?

(AULUS CORNELIUS) COSSUS

3. Derivatives of what Latin adjective now refer to a foreign childcare worker rather than her arrangement with a host family, a referee in baseball, experts who evaluate fellow scientists’ work, and the expected strokes on a golf hole?

PĀR (MEANING “EQUAL”)

B1: “Umpire” used to be “numpire,” but “a numpire” was mistaken for “an umpire” in the Middle Ages. The same occurred with “apron,” which was “a napron” before it was “an apron.” What Latin noun is the root of “apron” and “napkin”?

MAPPA (MEANING “NAPKIN” or “HANDKERCHIEF”)

B2: Over time, “lumble pie” became “numble pie” became “umble pie” became “humble pie.” This means that “humble pie” is unrelated to humilis’ “humble” but is instead from lumbus, indicating the pie originally contained what?

(MEAT OF) LOIN(S) / HIP(S) // (ANIMAL) ENTRAIL(S) // INNARD(S)

4. Examples of what kind of passage include one that needed more than “ten tongues” to express, one that formed all of the five-book Hesiodic work Ehoiai, and two in Aeneid 7 listing Greek and Italian forces, like the Iliad with ships?

CATALOGUE(S)

B1: What Greek epic opens with a catalogue on “men of old” who “sped through the mouth of Pontus at Pelias’ behest”?

ARGONAUTICA BY APOLLONIUS (OF RHODES // RHODIUS) [PROMPT ON “ARGONAUTICA”]

B2: What Latin work’s ninth book contains a catalogue of desert-snakes just after a description of a huge sandstorm?

(LUCAN’S) {PHARSĀLIA // BELLUM CĪVĪLE // DĒ BELLŌ CĪVĪLĪ}

5. Translate this sentence into the best Attic Greek using a participle: “They are waiting for the messengers to bring the gifts.” Keep in mind that the participle expressing purpose should be future, which here could be a form of οἴσω.

μένουσι τοὺς ἀγγέλους τὰ δῶρα {οἴσοντας / ἄξοντας} [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: Now say in the best Attic Greek: “She will want to save the city.”

{βουλήσεται / ἐθελήσει} τὴν πόλιν σῴζειν

B2: Make the verb form γελάω future using its most proper Attic form.

γελάσομαι

6. A new convert in what region eased his bishop’s doctrinal angst by writing Adversus Nātiōnēs, following a path like his pupil Lactantius, the author Tertullian, and a former Manichaean whose search for God filled the Confessions?

(NORTH) AFRICA // AFRICA (PROCONSULARIS / NOVA) // NUMIDIA // (ARCHDIOCESE OF) CARTHAGE

B1: Augustine was born some distance from Hippo in what city, where his father Patricius converted to Christianity?

THAGASTE

B2: Cyprian engaged in a dispute about African lāpsī with what convert who wrote Dē Trīnitāte?

NOVATIAN(US)

7. Legends say what man died from drinking the Arcadian Styx’s waters and was born the day Artemis’ temple at Ephesus burned, though his best-known myth was that he freed an ox-cart tied to a post by Midas’ father by cutting its knot?

ALEXANDER {III // THE GREAT} (OF MACEDON)

B1: In medieval legend, Alexander was carried in the air by what creatures, whose leonine instincts made them chase the meat he held aloft, even though they were fated to war eternally with the Arimaspians?

GRIFFIN(S)

B2: In later legend, Alexander was often depicted with what physical feature, symbolizing syncretism with Ammon?

(RAM’S) HORNS

8. What kind of event featured an address to the rural gods Picumnus and Pilumnus, a ritual cry invoking the god Talasius, the joyful singing of “iō Hymen Hymenaee,” and the recitation of the archaic formula “ubi tū Gāius, ego Gāia”?

(ROMAN) WEDDING(S) / MARRIAGE(S)

B1: Among other ritual recitations at Roman weddings was what kind of jesting early Italian verse, named for an Etruscan town or a word for the “evil eye,” that prefigured Roman satire and somewhat resembled the Atellan farces?

FESCENNINE (VERSES) // FESCENNINE(S) // FESCENNĪNĪ // FESCENNĪNA CARMINA

B2: Another wedding invocation honored Mutunus Tutunus, or Mutinus Titinus, who shared a cult with what Roman fertility god honored at a spring festival where a phallus was paraded into town amid crude songs?

LIBER (PATER)

9. What adverbial meaning is shared by the supposed dative of oppidum, the adapted neuter accusative plural of σφοδρός, and the adverbialized form of eximius, as well as common words like Greek’s μάλα and Latin’s magnopere and valdē?

VERY (MUCH) // EXCEEDINGLY // ESPECIALLY // REMARKABLY [ACCEPT EQUIVALENTS]

B1: The sense of “very” can also be in prepositions, as with what two Latin ones with territus and clārus, respectively?

PER and PRAE

B2: What Latin noun, sometimes called a monoptote, appears in a phrase for “done very well” or “precisely”?

AMUSSIM / AMUSSIS

10. Examples of what kind of place include one at Paestum containing an enigmatic fresco of a man diving from a platform and many found at Tarquinia that rejected the tholos for the rougher tumulus, which often contained a sarcophagus?

TOMB(S) / GRAVE(S) / NECROPOL(E)IS / CEMETERY / CEMETERIES

B1: The tomb frescoes perhaps inspired what Greek kingdom’s royal tombs at Vergina, which was also called Aegae?

(KINGDOM OF) MACEDON(IA)

B2: An Etruscan tomb at Tarquinia shows small human figures engaged in what two activities in a naturalistic landscape?

HUNTING and FISHING // (TOMB OF) HUNTING AND FISHING

11. Of the nouns Rōma, ōra, rāmus, mora, and amor—that’s Rōma, ōra, rāmus, mora, and amor—which might Ennius have said “restituit rem,” cause someone to “praestōlor” or “opperior,” and be a synonym of “dīlātiō” or “cūnctātiō”?

MORA

B1: The anagrammatic forms Rōma, ōram, rāmō, mora, and amor all appear in a 1620s British “anagram epigram.” What rare dative and what proper noun also appear in the poem, as they use the same four letters?

ARMŌ and MARŌ

B2: Also active in 1620s Britain was what gang of criminals, whose name is the first two words of Vergil’s Eclogues?

TITYRE-TU(S)

12. What author’s personal invitation from Hermias let him live at Assos, where he began zoological research that he continued on Lesbos for Historia Animālium while working with Theophrastus, his successor as head of the Lyceum?

ARISTOTLE

B1: Theophrastus’ research led him to write a Historia on what topic, adopting much of the style of Aristotle?

PLANTS / BOTANY

B2: What pupil of Aristotle, an early scientific historian, was passed over to lead the Lyceum and returned to Rhodes, where he edited Aristotle’s works in ethics?

EUDEMUS (OF RHODES)

13. The so-called “king” of what type of place at Nemi was the topic of a study by James Frazer, who drew on native myths like the Arician worship of Diana and Virbius, the transformation of Picus, and the cult of the god Silvanus?

(SACRED) GROVE(S) / WOOD(S) / FOREST(S)

B1: What grove goddess, worshipped at Nemi and Rome, supposedly inspired Rome’s original laws and rites?

EGERIA

B2: Numa Pompilius supposedly captured Picus and Faunus to gain a charm to prevent the occurrence of what things, receiving it from them or from the god who controlled them after a riddle contest where Numa invoked garlic and sprats?

(THUNDER)STORM(S) / LIGHTNING (STRIKES) / THUNDER(CLAPS) //
LIGHTNING (STRIKES) and {THUNDER (CLAPS / STORMS) // (THUNDER)STORM(S)}

14. What city’s leaders walled in a traitor rather than violate the temple of the “Brazen House,” paused campaigns for the Carneia, preserved the divinely-approved “Great Rhetra” of Lycurgus, and wove religion into training in the agōgē?

SPARTA

B1: The Spartan assembly met on the day of a monthly festival of Apollo, prompting the mistaken modern view that it was known by what name, rather than the actual name of ἐκκλησία?

APELLA(I)

B2: In the agōgē, Spartan youths tried to steal cheese from what goddess’ altar, while older boys defended it with whips?

ARTEMIS ORTHIA [PROMPT ON “ARTEMIS” BY ASKING “UNDER WHAT EPITHET?”]

15. Name the notable grammatical construction in any of these next four sentences: “et benedīcēns nōs epīscopus, profectī sumus,” “δέον μαχέσασθαι, ἔφυγεν,” “ἀνδρὸς λέγοντος, ταῦτα ἐγένετο,” and “hoste superātō, mīlitēs rediērunt.”

NOMINATIVE ABSOLUTE // ACCUSATIVE ABSOLUTE // GENITIVE ABSOLUTE // ABLATIVE ABSOLUTE [PROMPT ON “ABSOLUTE”]

B1: Sanskrit has an absolute in which case that resembles Latin’s ablative absolute, as the cases are syntactically similar?

LOCATIVE

B2: There are even Greek examples of dative absolutes, such as one featuring the noun ἐνιαυτός, which has what meaning?

(A) YEAR

16. Classics-inspired works in what genre include a series centered on the Ekumen, the duology Ilium and Olympos, the Foundation series, and a novel featuring a group whose name may mean “she will have borne it well” and house Atreides?

(SPACE) SCIENCE-FICTION // (SPACE) SCI-FI // SPACE OPERA

B1: Foundation drew on what work, as Asimov said he did “a tiny bit of cribbin’ / from the works of Edward Gibbon”?

(THE HISTORY OF THE) DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

B2: In Star Trek, who captures the Enterprise crew with a giant green hand in the episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?”?

APOLLO

17. Who was identified with the staurogram or with a fish via the Greek acronym ἸΧΘΥΣ, declared himself “the Beginning and the End” or “the Alpha and the Omega,” and was represented by the Chi-Rho monogram of Constantine?

JESUS (CHRIST / OF NAZARETH) // CHRIST // GOD

B1: Orthodox crucifixes sometimes bear what four-letter initialism for “Jesus Christ of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” which differs from the common Latin version only in its third letter when translated into Greek?

INBI

B2: Christian scribes often abbreviated divine words in manuscripts. What divine Greek word, with what meaning, was abbreviated as ΠΝΑ by these scribes?

Πνεῦμα = SPIRIT / WIND / BREATH

18. What battle left a man “grounded, with wings clipped” after he emulated Archilochus in “throwing away his shield,” as he lost his father’s Venusian farm in the confiscations that Octavian imposed on allies of Brutus and Cassius?

(BATTLE OF) PHILIPPI

B1: To make ends meet after Philippi, Horace took what position in the quaestor’s office of the treasury?

SCRĪBA (QUAESTŌRIUS) // (TREASURY) SCRIBE // (TREASURY) SECRETARY

B2: The confiscations after Philippi also affected Vergil’s Cremona. He laments this in Eclogue 9 by casting himself as what character, who also duels Mopsus in Eclogue 5?

MENALCAS

19. Finds at what city include the “Combat Agate” seal in the “Griffin Warrior Tomb,” a Linear B tablet cache revealed by Carl Blegen, and a Mycenaean structure on the Peloponnese’s sandy coast that has been dubbed the “Palace of Nestor”?

PYLOS

B1: What word for “chief” or “leader” appears in the tablets as a title for a Mycenaean king, like the later basileus?

(W)ANAX

B2: The Pylos tablets confirmed that Linear B was Greek—a theory advanced by what man, who died in a car crash shortly before the major publication of his work with John Chadwick?

(MICHAEL) VENTRIS

20. What kind of object—whose sides were to be built from the pliant fig shoots that Lycaon was cutting as Achilles seized him—was handled by Cebriones in opposition to Automedon before their boss was dragged by one around Troy?

CHARIOT [REJECT “CHARIOT-RAIL(S)”]

B1: In the Iliad, Idaeüs may have been the charioteer of what man, since he drives a mule-cart for him later in the poem?

PRIAM / PODARCES

B2: Diomedes killed what original charioteer of Hector in the Iliad, causing Hector to recruit Archeptolemus?

ENIOPEÜS