ThebanCycle

Fate & Free Will

100

What oracular fate did Oedipus try to avoid by leaving Corinth?

That he would kill his father and marry his mother

200

• Who received the prophecy not to beget a son, but did so anyway?

Who is Laius?

300

• Oedipus makes choices to avoid fate, but still fulfills it. What theme does this illustrate?

What is "the inevitability of fate"?

400

• What literary term describes a character's fatal flaw?

What is "hamartia"?

500

Which philosophical theory about myth tried to explain the tension between birth and belief in autochthony?

What is "Structuralism (by Levi-Strauss)"?

Gods & Hubris

100

• Who punished Niobe for boasting she had more children than Leto?

Who are Apollo and Artemis?

200

• What common theme is present in Niobe’s story?

 What is "punishment of hubris by the gods"?

300

• What action caused Athena to reject Tydeus for immortality?

What is "eating the brains of his enemy"?

400

• Who boasted that not even Zeus could stop him, and was struck by a thunderbolt?

Who is Capaneus?

500

• What was the crime that brought a plague upon Thebes during Oedipus's reign?

What is "the unpunished murder of Laius"?

Women in Myth

100

• Who defied Creon by burying her brother Polynices?

Who is Antigone?

200

• Which mother unknowingly married her son, Oedipus?

Who is Jocasta?

300

• Which woman was punished by being turned to stone after losing her children?

Who is Niobe?

400

• What theme does Antigone’s burial of her brother best illustrate?

What is "divine/family law versus state law"?

500

• Who accepted a cursed necklace to persuade her husband to go to war, causing her eventual death by her son?

Who is Eriphyle?

Heroic Traits

100

• What feature is NOT part of Aristotle’s tragic hero model?

What is "slaying a monster"?

200

• What heroic feature describes a sudden reversal of fortune?

What is "peripeteia"?

300

• Which hero solved the riddle of the Sphinx?

Who is Oedipus?

400

• According to Aristotle, what emotional release should a tragedy cause in the audience?

What is "catharsis"?

500

• What event fulfills both Laius’s and Oedipus’s oracles?

What is "Oedipus killing Laius"?

Cadmus & Thebes

100

• What creature was Cadmus instructed to follow to Thebes?

What is "a cow"?

200

• What kind of monster did Cadmus slay?

What is "a serpent"?

300

• What sprang from the serpent’s teeth sown by Cadmus?

What are "the Spartoi"?

400

• What was special about Cadmus and Harmonia’s wedding?

What is "it was the last time the gods dined with mortals"?

500

• Which Panhellenic games have their foundation story in the myth of the Seven Against Thebes?

What are "the Nemean Games"?