Premier Certamen League 2021 (PCL 2) - Semifinal Round


Moderator says: “I will read one test question for no points. This question is definitely not reflective of the difficulty or style of the round. Topics in test questions may appear later in the tournament.”


0. Cary and Scullard compare the plague brought back by Roman forces under Marcus Aurelius to the proverbial “shirt of” what mythological figure — more precisely, a robe stained with his blood, which Lichas presented to Hercules?

NESSUS

B1: The events at Allia River could be compared to the charge of the Highlanders at what battle of 1745 A.D., where Jacobite forces defeated a government army under Sir John Cope?

(BATTLE OF) PRESTONPANS / GLADSMUIR

B2: The energetic commander Dillius Vocula’s campaigns against Julius Civilis were as inconclusive as the first relief of what city in 1857?

LUCKNOW


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


1. The πρόθεσις and the ἐκφορά were components of what kind of ritual, known in Greek as a κηδεία, which might end at the Kerameikos district of Athens and contain an ἐπιτάφιος λόγος?

FUNERAL (PROCESSION)

B1: The most famous instance of a large “beehive tomb” from Mycenean times is the so-called “Treasury of” what man at Mycenae?

ATREUS [DO NOT ACCEPT “AGAMEMNON”]

B2: What Greek term refers to the long uncovered passageway in the Treasury of Atreus leading up to the θόλος?

δρόμος


2. What poet, who asserted his free birth in his Indignātiō, was compared to Zenodotus and Crates put together in an affectionate epigram by Furius Bibaculus, and was elsewhere called a “grammaticus” and “Latīna Sīren”?

(P.) VALERIUS CATO

B1: Following in the footsteps of Laelius Archelaus and Vettius Philocomus, Valerius Cato prepared an edition of what early Latin poet?

(C.) LUCILIUS

B2: According to Suetonius, what circumstance caused Crates of Mallus to be detained in Rome and introduce the Romans to critical literary scholarship?

(WHEN ATTALUS SENT HIM TO ROME) HE BROKE HIS LEG
(BY TRIPPING INTO THE SEWER NEAR THE PALATINE HILL)


3. The only reference to writing in the Iliad is found in the story of what man, who wandered alone over the Aleian plain after being discontent with both the finest Lycian farmland and a victory over the Solymi?

BELLEROPHON(TES) / HIPPONOUS

B1: While Glaucus tells this story, he informs Diomedes that what son of Bellerophon died while fighting the Solymi?

ISANDER

B2: The interaction between Diomedes and Glaucus contrasts with Menelaus’s encounter earlier in Book 6 with what Trojan, who had just persuaded Menelaus to spare him when Agamemnon insisted that all Trojans be killed?

ADRASTUS / ADRESTUS


4. The nouns Tartarus, balteus, collum, and clipeus all belong to what classification, along with words meaning “bridle,” “sail,” “rake,” and “jest”?

HETEROGENES / HETEROGENEOUS

B1: What Latin word is both a pure i-stem, as evidenced by its accusative singular ending -im, and a monoptote?

AMUSSIS / AMUSSIM

B2: Of the words ambāgēs, būris, cīvitās, cohors, and nūbēs, which never has an attested genitive plural in -ium?

AMBĀGĒS


5. What office was unprecedentedly held by three people at once during Commodus’s reign, until Papirius Dionysius’s famine-causing mismanagement led the people to murder of one of them, a Phrygian freedman named Cleander?

PRAETORIAN PREFECT // PRAEFECTUS PRAETŌRIŌ

B1: Papirius Dionysius may have been conspiring with what man, whose career had actually been revived by that freedman, Cleander, when he was chosen to succeed Ulpius Marcellus as governor of Britain?

(P. HELVIUS) PERTINAX

B2: Pertinax was a protégé of what man, who chose to stay out of his wife Lucilla’s conspiracy?

(T. CLAUDIUS) POMPEIANUS


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6. The scorekeeper shall now stream a series of images. You will have 3 seconds to examine each image before we move on to the next slide. The answer will be the person distinguished by a red dot on their chest, and there will be no question after the visual.
[Scorekeeper should share their screen to show the visual: Semifinals Visual]
Buzz tracking: Image 1 — Image 2 — Image 3 — Image 4 — Image 5 — Image 6 — Image 7

ANCAEUS

B1: After Ancaeus replaced Tiphys, the Argonauts approached what port by the Halys River, named after a woman who tricked this very river deity?

SINOPE

B2: The Argonauts soon afterwards passed what tribe, famous for their custom of having women treat a husband with child-birth baths when their wife was in labor?

TIBARENI


7. Translate idiomatically the following sentence from the Pharsālia: “Adeōne timēs quem tū facis ipse timendum?”

DO YOU FEAR SO MUCH {HIM / THE MAN} WHOM YOU YOURSELF MAKE WORTHY OF FEAR? [ACCEPT IDIOMATIC EQUIVS.]

B1: Now translate idiomatically the following sentence, also from the Pharsālia: “Caesar crēditur, ut captae, raptūrus moenia Rōmae.”

IT IS BELIEVED THAT CAESAR WILL SEIZE THE WALLS OF ROME {LIKE A CAPTURED CITY // AS IF IT HAS BEEN CAPTURED // AS IF HE CAPTURED IT} [ACCEPT IDIOMATIC EQUIVS.]

B2: Now translate idiomatically the following sentence, also from the Pharsālia: “Caelum suō servīre Tonantī nōn nisi saevōrum potuit post bella gigantum.”

HEAVEN COULD NOT SERVE ITS {THUNDERER / JUPITER / ZEUS} EXCEPT AFTER THE WARS OF THE SAVAGE GIANTS // HEAVEN COULD ONLY ... AFTER ...


8. Who used the cities of Smyrna and Lampsacus as pawns to heighten tensions between Rome and a ruler he deemed a threat to his kingdom, then led forces at Cape Corycus and Magnesia to help Rome defeat that monarch?

EUMENES II

B1: After the appeals from those cities, what Roman ordered Antiochus to keep his hands off Greek cities in Asia Minor, though Antiochus dismantled his arguments in a conference at Lysimachia?

(T. QUINCTIUS) FLAMININUS

B2: Antiochus had provoked Pergamum’s alarm with a victory over the Egyptians in 200 B.C. at what city, also the birthplace of a 5th-century historian who recorded a firsthand account of an embassy to Attila?

PANIUM / PANION


9. Using the most common spelling, give the Latin adjective and its meaning at the root of “narrative” — according to those who say narrō is a denominative with a reduplicated “r” — and of “ignorant.”

GNĀRUS – {KNOWING / PRACTICED / EXPERIENCED}

B1: From what Latin word with what meaning do we derive “cascara” and “cask”?

QUATIŌ – SHAKE

B2: From what Latin word with what meaning do we derive “retail” and “detail”?

TĀLEA – ROD


10. Fragments of what author’s lost magnum opus are preserved by Arusianus Messius alongside quotes from Vergil, Cicero, and Terence, by a Seneca letter noting his “verba ante expectātum cadentia,” and by a collection including a speech of Marcius Philippus and a letter of Mithridates?

(C.) SALLUST(IUS CRISPUS)

B1: It is easy to forget how many important works, like Sallust’s Historiae, are lost. Of the following works, identify any that are lost or only known from quotations: Naevius’s Tarentilla, Laevius’s Erōtopaegnia, Cicero’s Hortēnsius, Varro’s Dē Rē Rūsticā, Plautus’s Mercātor. Note that for these boni, you will not be prompted on incomplete answers.

TARENTILLA; ERŌTOPAEGNIA; HORTĒNSIUS

B2: Late literature tends to fare better, though. Of the following works, identify any that are lost or known only from quotations: Firmicus Maternus’s Mathēsis, Prudentius’s Hamartigenīa, Claudian’s Dē Raptū Proserpinae, Cassiodorus’s Dē Orīgine Āctibusque Getārum, Gaius’s Īnstitūtiōnēs.

ONLY THE DĒ ORĪGINE ĀCTIBUSQUE GETĀRUM


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11. What law, requiring that one censor be plebeian and that proposals in the Comitia Centuriāta have the auctōritās patrum, was passed in 339 B.C. by a plebeian dictator who would later conduct the siege of Naples?

LĒX PŪBLILIA // LĒGĒS PŪBLILIAE

B1: What law of 342 B.C. may have stipulated that one consul must be plebeian, though its rule banning lending with interest was quickly ignored?

LĒX GENUCIA // LĒGĒS GENUCIAE

B2: What two-word Latin phrase refers to the prolongation of his power that Publilius Philo received to continue the siege of Naples as proconsul, the first instance of such a position in Roman history?

PRŌROGĀTIŌ IMPERIĪ


12. While her kidnappers rested at Thoricus, what old Cretan woman fled from the ships — according to a story told to four princesses by a goddess, who used the name when welcomed by Iambe’s jokes and a cup of kykeon to Eleusis?

DOSO [PROMPT ON “DEMETER” BEFORE “NAME”]

B1: What man’s daughter was supposedly carried by Hermes to Mount Ida to meet her future husband, though she too turned out to be a goddess in disguise?

OTREUS

B2: In the Aeneid, what Trojan wife of Doryclus likewise turns out to be a deity in disguise?

BEROE


13. Respondē Latīnē: Quae pars corporis hīc dēscrībitur? Saepius arrigī dīcitur. Quī hūius partis ūsum perdidit, “surdus” vocātur. Secundum prōverbium hāc parte “teneō lupum.”

AURIS / AURĒS

B1: Secundum dictum Iuvenālis quod in prōverbium vēnit, cui partī corporis nūllō modō crēdendum est?

FRONTĪ

B2: Dē quā parte corporis loquitur Horātius, cum alium hominem hanc partem “ēmūnctam” habēre dīcit, alium hāc parte omnia suspendere?

NĀSŌ / NĀRE / NĀRIBUS


14. What people, whose history was covered by one of their court physicians, Ctesias, formed the backdrop to the first proper Western love story in a work about the upbringing of their first king, written by Xenophon?

PERSIANS

B1: What work, which may have taken ten years to write and was always recognized as its author’s masterpiece, urged all of Greece to unite against the Persians?

(ISOCRATES’) PANĒGYRICUS

B2: What author’s True History includes a scene where Ctesias is punished for including false information in his work — as well as scenes of a band of travelers being teleported to the moon and escaping from the insides of a whale?

LUCIAN (OF SAMOSATA)


15. This question will ask you to convert a sentence into indirect statement after dīxit, using the most standard Latin. For instance, if the sentence were “Vīvō,” you would say “Dīxit sē vīvere.” Your sentence: “Hic vir, quī mē spectat, mātrem meam interfēcit.”

DĪXIT {ILLUM / EUM / HUNC} VIRUM, QUĪ SĒ SPECTĀRET, MĀTREM SUAM INTERFĒCISSE

B1: Now do the same for this sentence: “Nisi Caesar subvēnisset, copiae prōstrātae essent.”

DĪXIT, NISI CAESAR SUBVĒNISSET, FUTŪRUM FUISSE UT COPIAE PRŌSTERNERENTUR

B2: Now do the opposite and convert this sentence to a direct quote, turning “mīlitibus” into a vocative: “Mīlitibus dīxit sē locum opportūnum cōnspicātum hostī occursūrum esse: sēcum igitur īrent!”

MĪLITĒS, (EGŌ) LOCUM OPPORTŪNUM CONSPICĀTUS HOSTĪ {OCCURRAM // OCCURSŪRUS SUM}: MĒCUM IGITUR ĪTE!


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16. What verb can introduce an ablative of either price or material — the latter of which appears in the sentence “Ex animō [blank] et corpore” — and can be used impersonally to mean “it is clear” or “it is agreed”?

CŌNSTŌ / CŌNSTĀRE

B1: What verb with multiple meanings, in two different forms, fills in the blanks in this couplet spoken by Laodamia: “scīlicet ipsa [blank] saturātās mūrice lānās, bella sub Īliacīs moenibus ille [blank]?”

GERŌ / GERERE

B2: What 3rd-declension noun with multiple meanings — or more accurately, two identical-looking nouns — fills in the blank of the punning sentence “nōn est mīrandum [blank] tam nequam esse verrīnum,” where “verrīnum” means both “of pork” and “of Gaius Verres”?

IŪS


17. After he was recognized by Merope’s old servant, who raised a sacrificial axe and brought it down upon Polyphontes to reclaim the Messenian throne of his murdered father Cresphontes?

AEPYTUS / CRESPHONTES / TELEPHON

B1: After winning Messenia through trickery, where did Aepytus’s father Cresphontes establish his capital?

STENYCLERUS

B2: Another Aepytus in mythology raised what woman, whose pregnancy angered him until the Delphic Oracle declared that her child would become a great prophet?

EVADNE


18. Note to players: there will be another clue after a second reading. Excluding hyperbaton, what two distinct literary devices appear in the line “Nāscere, praeque diem veniēns age, Lūcifer, almum” — that’s “Nāscere, praeque diem veniēns age, Lūcifer, almum” — in which the compound verb praeveniō is split apart and a deity is addressed?

TMESIS and APOSTROPHE

B1/2: Excluding hyperbaton, anaphora, and all sound effects, identify three literary devices in the lines I will paste.
[Moderator pastes the lines: Hunc tū, sīve legēs umbrōsae flūmina silvae, sīve Aniēna tuōs tīnxerit unda pedēs, Nymphārum semper cupidās dēfende rapīnās.]
You will receive 5 points for the first two, and another 5 for the third. Any incorrect information will disqualify you. You have 40 seconds.

SYNCHYSIS; ANACOLUTHON; {TRANSFERRED EPITHET / HYPALLAGE}


19. In what year did the army at Rome reject Maximianus and make a wealthy senator emperor, whose decision to marry Eudocia to his son Palladius so angered Gaiseric that he led an attack and sacked the city?

455 A.D.

B1: In the same year, what Gothic king, whose father of the same name had played a key role at Catalaunian Plains, proclaimed Avitus emperor at Toulouse?

{THEODERIC / THEODORIC} II

B2: Gaiseric’s anger sprung from the fact that Eudocia had already been betrothed to what son of his?

HUNERIC


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Moderator says: At this point, all challenges on the first 19 questions must be resolved. If anyone has any protests regarding the questions thus far, now is your last chance.


20. What type of work, featuring grim stories of kidnappings or tyrannicides, is exemplified in extracts from Calpurnius Flaccus and in collections, subtitled māiōrēs and minōrēs, by Quintilian?

DECLAMATIONS / DĒCLĀMĀTIŌNĒS [PROMPT ON “RHETORICAL EXERCISES” OR THE LIKE]

B1: What author from the age of Tiberius, epitomized by Januarius Nepotianus, wrote a 9-book collection of exempla for the use of rhetorical schools?

VALERIUS MAXIMUS

B2: Whose experience with the rhetorical schools and declamation is shown in several poems from his Rōmulea, which includes his Orestis Tragoedia?

(BLOSSIUS AEMILIUS) DRACONTIUS


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[SOURCES]

N.B.: “Hadas” refers to either the Latin Lit. or the Greek Lit. sourcebook, but “Greek Hadas” or “Latin Hadas” will be explicitly stated if it is not clear in context. The same applies to “Adkins” for Roman/Greek Life. “Chronicle” refers either to Matyszak’s Chronicle of the Roman Republic or Scarre’s Chronicle of the Roman Emperors, depending on whether the question is about the Republic or the Empire.


1 TU: Adkins pp. 458-459 / B1 & B2: Adkins p. 460 

2 TU: Hadas p. 77; Conte pp. 140-141, 575; for the fact that it is the epigram of Bibaculus that compares him to Zenodotus and Crates, Suet. Gram. 11 / B1: Conte pp. 124, 140; for Laelius Archelaus, see Rose p. 442 / B2: Conte p. 572 & Hadas p. 67 & Rose p. 441 & Suet. Gram. 2 

3 TU & B1: March pp. 98-99; Il. 6.184-204 (Isander also in Tripp p. 326) / B2: Il. 6.37-65 

4 TU: L&S s.v. Tartarus (it becomes neut. in the pl. metrī grātiā); A&G §106 / B1: A&G §103 b. / B2: A&G §§71, 75, 78  

5 TU: C&S pp. 77, 81 & Heich. p. 71 / B1: Heich. p. 68 / B2: C&S p. 81 

6 TU: Tripp p. 49 / B1: Tripp pp. 83, 532 / B2: Tripp p. 577 

7 TU: Luc. 4.185 / B1: Luc. 3.99 / B2: Luc. 1.35-36 

8 TU & B1: C&S pp. 161-164 (as far as I can find, no primary source explicitly connects the appeals of Smyrna and Lampsacus to Eumenes’ maneuverings, but one of C&S’s secondary sources infers it) / B2: Heich. pp. 118, 472-473  

9 TU: Schaeffer s.v. gnārus & L&S s.v. narrō / B1 & B2: relevant entries in Schaeffer 

10 TU: Messius – Conte p. 629 (the lead-in is not ambiguous, as Sallust is the only one with a lost magnum opus); Seneca – Conte p. 242; speeches – Conte p. 241; the fact that Arus. Messius and Sen. Ep. 114 preserve fragments from the Historiae is unsourced / B1 & B2: Conte and Hadas, pass.; most of these works are explicitly discussed in terms of being lost or surviving (e.g. Mathēsis is “the most complete Latin treatise of astrology that has come down to us,” Conte p. 642) 

11 TU: C&S pp. 650 (cf. Heich. p. 370), 490; Chronicle p. 123 / B1: Heich. p. 370 & C&S p. 489 / B2: Heich. pp. 369-370 

12 TU: Morford p. 311 (quoting Hom. Hymn to Demeter); Tripp p. 196 / B1: March p. 51 & Tripp p. 50 (from HH to Aphrodite) / B2: Aen. 5.620  

13 TU: Amo Amas Amat pp. 55, 277; L&S s.v. surdus / B1: Amo Amas Amat p. 136 / B2: Veni Vidi Vici pp. 98, 243  

14 TU: Hadas p. 129 & Dihle p. 218; Hadas p. 124 / B1: Hadas pp. 170, 172 / B2: Hadas p. 290 (some details unsourced)  

15 TU & B1 & B2: A&G §§580-590, pass.; cf. Lodge s.v. cōnspicor (it is deponent)  

16 TU: Lodge p. 45; A&G §403 b., §208 c. / B1: Ov. Her. 13.37-38; the forms are geram and gerat, respectively / B2: Cic. Verr. 2.1.121 (the sentence means “it is not surprising that such low-quality {broth / administration of justice} is {from pork / Verres’s})  

17 TU: March p. 138 & Tripp p. 25 / B1: Tripp p. 175 / B2: Tripp p. 244  

18 TU: Verg. Ecl. 8.17 / B1 & B2: Prop. 7-11 (lines 9-10 omitted); the synchysis is Aniēna tuōs … unda pedēs, the anacoluthon is hunc being set up as a direct object but never getting resolved, and the transferred epithet is nymphārum cupidās … rapīnās for nymphārum cupidārum rapīnās. Most editions of Propertius find the anacoluthon too harsh and emend either hunc to huic or cupidās rapīnās to cupidīs rapīnīs, but I have followed the text of the Teubner edition (1994, ed. Fedeli).  

19 TU: Heich. p. 479 / B1: Heich. p. 479; Chronicle p. 231 / B2: Heich. p. 479  

20 TTU: Conte pp. 582, 512 / B1: Conte p. 381 / B2: Conte p. 718 & OCD p. 496