Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome
Ancient Literature
Famous Ancients

Roots in Ancient Language
400


The Pythian Games were held every third year of the Olympiad at this Oracle city to honor Apollo 


Delphi

400

Now a term for any tyrannical leader, this title was given to Julius Caesar during a time of crisis

dictator


400

A Euripides play tells the sufferings of Hecuba & the other women of this city who are taken into slavery after its fall

Troy

400

This Greek "Father of Tragedy" fought in the Battle of Marathon, which he included in an epitaph he wrote for himself

Aeschylus

400

Now often meaning a part of a song, in ancient Greece it meant a band of dramatic singers & dancers


Chorus

800

In 421 B.C. a general named Nicias negotiated an end to this war; 6 years later, Athens & Sparta were back at it

The Peloponnesian War

800

Often the finest soldier in a unit, the aquilifer was the bearer of an image of this animal, a symbol of Rome

Eagle

800

Not the way I'd teach science, but Lucretius decided to explain "the nature of things" in a long poem of these 6-foot lines

(Dactyllic) Hexameter

800

An expression in ancient Rome to express danger or scare kids referred to the approach to Rome by this Carthaginian general, "____ ad portas" or him "at the gates"

Hannibal

800

The jury has reached one: It's from the Latin for "true" & "say"  

verdict

1200

Aristotle said that an ancient Athenian law made uprooting one of these trees punishable by death

Olive tree

1200

The legendary founders of Rome, Romulus & Remus had Rhea for a mother & this war god for a dad

Mars

1200

As a Sophocles play opens, this title king of Thebes is trying to save his city from a plague

Oedipus

1200

He named himself princeps, or first citizen, but is known in history as the first emperor

Augustus

1200

A Latin word for "sun" ends this word for a stylish item that protects you from the rain as well as the Sun

parasol

1600

Originally 6 obols equaled one of these coins

drachma

1600

 These leaders of groups of 100 men were divided from senior to junior grades

Centurions
1600

These pastoral poems by Virgil are also known as "The Bucolics"

the Eclogues

1600

Agrippina's machinations led to this heir becoming Rome's first teenage emperor

Nero

1600

"Wolf-man": this fancier 11-letter term for a werewolf comes from two Greek roots

lycanthrope
2000

The palace of this Cretan city had basement rooms that served as kind of the strategic wheat reserve

Knossos

2000

n 390 B.C. an army of this Celtic group had the distinction of being the first group to sack Rome

Gauls

2000

Aristophanes' animal-titled works include "The Birds", "The Frogs" & this one that's actually about litigious Athenians

The Wasps

2000

This Fourth King of Rome is credited with building the first bridge across the Tiber

Ancus Marcus

2000

The name of this historian & orator is Latin for "silent"

Tacitus