In the name of summer fun and high school Latin flashbacks (yikes, when did those become the same thing?) we’ve put together a little quiz to test your knowledge of the classics. For those of you with any sort of classics background, it shouldn’t be too challenging. For the rest of us, well, there’s always the Loeb Classical Library, which marks its centennial this year. And if five hundred volumes of facing-page translation feels a bit daunting, just dive on in with our Loeb Classical Library Reader. That’s what it’s there for.
Okay, on to the quiz. Multiple choice, even. Answers below.
1) Which epic hero is the son of Peleus?
Aeneas; Achilles; Hector; Odysseus
2) Which work of ancient philosophy ends with the myth of Er?
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics; Lucretius, De rerum natura; Marcus Aurelius, Meditations; Plato, The Republic
3) Which ancient historian calls his work a “possession for ever”?
Herodotus; Polybius; Tacitus; Thucydides
4) Who expresses amatory ambivalence with the words odi et amo?
Catullus; Propertius; Sappho; Tibullus
5) Which ancient lyricist said “Go tell the Spartans”?
Bacchylides; Euripides; Pindar; Simonides
6) Which Virgilian work bears the alternative title Boucolica?
The Aeneid; The Eclogues; The Georgics; The Idylls
7) Which Sophoclean character has killed Laius?
Ajax; Antigone; Clytemnestra; Oedipus
8) Who blamed banishment on a poem and an impropriety?
Lucan; Ovid; Petronius; Seneca
9) Who laid claim to a poetic monument longer lasting than bronze?
Aeschylus; Ennius; Hesiod; Horace
10) Who composed the ancient history commonly called the Ab urbe condita?
Dio Cassius; Livy; Sallust; Xenophon
Answers:
1) Achilles 2) Plato, Republic 3) Thucydides 4) Catullus 5) Simonides 6) The Eclogues 7) Oedipus 8) Ovid 9) Horace 10) Livy
