From Alpha to Zeta
Call the Poleis
Wise Guys
At the Theatron
Myths and Legends
Barbarians
200
In software development, this letter is used to denote a program in an early, incomplete stage, before it is available to the public.
What is Alpha?
200
This city dedicated to Zeus served as the site for the quadrennial Panhellenic Games.
What is Olympia?
200
Though he left no personal writings, the teachings of this philosopher survive through the dialogues written by his most famous student, Plato.
Who is Socrates?
200
The name for this dramatic genre comes for the Greek words for "goat" and "song."
What is tragedy?
200
This mythical hero had complete 12 arduous "Labors" to atone for the accidental murder of his family.
Who is Heracles?
200
The Thracians of modern Bulgaria were known for their mastery of this large mammal.
What is the horse?
400
In the book of Revelation, God tells the Apostle John, "I am the Alpha and the" this Greek letter.
What is Omega?
400
A "great" general established several poleis by this name, including the most famous on the Nile Delta in Egypt.
What is Alexandria?
400
Though known primarily as the namesake of a mathematical theorem, he was a renowned mystic and supposedly advocated for a vegan diet.
Who is Pythagoras?
400
Most surviving Greek comedies were composed by this playwright, author of The Acharnians, Lysistrata, and The Frogs.
Who is Aristophanes?
400
According to the Odyssey, this object was "a thing of guile...filled with the men who sacked Ilios."
What is the Trojan Horse?
400
According to the historian Cassiodorus, the word "barbarian" refers to what physical feature that Greek men considered unfashionable?
What is a beard?
600
A popular myth holds that the historian Herodotus first used this Greek letter to describe the geographic feature rivers create as they deposit sediment near their mouth.
What is Delta?
600
Though it later became a center of Christianity, the Temple of Artemis in this city was often considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
What is Ephesus?
600
This natural philosopher theorized that all materials were composed of tiny, indivisible fragments he called "atoms."
Who is Democritus?
600
Oedipus Rex, perhaps the most famous Greek tragedy, was part of a trilogy written by this literary figure.
Who is Sophocles?
600
This love goddess has two competing origin stories, either as the daughter of Zeus and titaness Dione, or as the sea foam created after the titan Ouranos' castration.
Who is Aphrodite?
600
The word barbarophonos is used in the Iliad to refer to troops from this region on the southwestern coast of Anatolia.
What is Caria?
800
A favorite of mathematicians, this Greek letter denotes wave functions in quantum mechanics, the golden ratio, and Euler's totient function.
What is Phi?
800
Pelias, the king of this Thessalian city, sent Jason and his Argonauts on a search for the Golden Fleece.
What is Iolcus?
800
This philosophical system derives its name from the site where its founder, Zeno of Citium, taught his followers: the Stoa Poikile, or "Painted Porch."
What is Stoicism?
800
This term, meaning "god from a machine," refers to a crane that would raise and lower actors onto the theater stage.
What is deus ex machina?
800
Sometimes described as a fruit or a drink, this is the source of the Greek gods' immortality.
What is ambrosia?
800
The distinctive style of this region's headware became a symbol of freedom during the revolutionary era of the 1700s.
What is Phrygia?
1000
Though its Latin descendant is at the end of the alphabet, it was the 6th letter of the Greek alphabet.
What is Zeta?
1000
The largest polis was not Athens or Sparta, but this city on the southern coast of Sicily, famously defended by Archimedes during the Punic Wars.
What is Syracuse?
1000
This Cynical philosopher supposedly lived in a discarded ceramic pithos and even chastised Alexander the Great.
Who is Diogenes?
1000
This legendary performer was the first to play specific characters in the theater, using masks and voice changes to embody each.
Who is Thespis?
1000
This huntress of Artemis earned fame by slaying the monstrous Calydonian Boar and was the only female member of the Argonauts.
Who is Atalanta?
1000
Known to the Romans as Asia Minor, the iron age kingdom of Lydia reached its height in 547 BCE under the leadership of this fabulously wealthy ruler.
Who is Croesus?