The Twelve Olympians
Which Olympian goddess grieved for her daughter after she was abducted by Hades and taken to the Underworld?
Demeter
How many labors is Heracles said to have completed?
twelve
What group of snake-headed sisters does Medusa belong to?
Gorgons
What beautiful young man fell in love with his own reflection?
Narcissus
What is the Classics Board’s primary mode of communication?
Slack
The peacock was sacred to which Olympian?
Hera
What classic Classical heroic task—typically referred to as katabasis—was undertaken by heroes like Odysseus, Psyche, Heracles, and Orpheus?
journey to the Underworld
To safely listen to the sirens’ song, what does Odysseus order his men to do?
tie him to the ship’s mast
Which famous musician traveled to the underworld to try to bring his wife Eurydice back to life, on the condition that he must never look back at her as they ascend?
Orpheus
Name all five Discentes teams.
Articles, Copy, Research, Translations, and Web
Which three Olympians did Paris have to choose between after Eris, goddess of discord, caused a squabble by throwing a golden apple inscribed “to the fairest” at a divine wedding?
Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera
What false name did Odysseus give the Cyclops Polyphemus?
Outis/No-man
In Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, the main love interest is named Annabeth Chase. Who was the love interest of the mythical Perseus, whom he saved from a sea monster?
Andromeda
Roman author Publius Ovidius Naso, or Ovid, wrote a fifteen-book work on mythological transformations—including those of the lovers Baucis and Philemon, as well as Pyramus and Thisbe—known as what?
Metamorphoses
Certamen is the Latin for what word?
contest
What sacred site—home to Apollo’s namesake oracle—was believed by the Greeks to mark the exact center of the world?
Delphi
A falling rotten beam caused the death of what hero, whose life was led to a tragic conclusion when his children and wife Glauce were killed by Medea?
Jason
Who are the horse-like followers of Dionysus?
satyrs/Sileni
What man provoked the Erinyes by committing the crime of matricide—an act of vengeance after his mother Clytemnestra killed her husband with her lover Aegisthus?
Orestes
What does Discentes literally mean in Latin?
learners/people who learn
Enosichthon and Taraxippus are two epithets of what deity, respectively for his abilities to generate earthquakes and for his act in a contest for the patronage of Athens of creating horses?
Poseidon
What animal, sacred to Ares, did Cadmus slay in the founding myth of the city of Thebes?
dragon/serpent
According to Homer’s Odyssey, how are the Cyclopes depicted as a society, distinct from “civilized” humans?
a lawless people with no assemblies, agriculture, or shared customs
What mechanism does Hephaestus use to catch his wife Aphrodite and Ares having an affair?
an invisible, unbreakable net of fine chains rigged above the marriage bed
Name three things the Classics Board does.
serves as a liaison between students and faculty; attends department meetings/advises on curriculum and related matters; collaborates with the undergraduate chair; organizes Faculteas, Roundtables, museum tours, etc.