Ninth Graders' Ancient Greece: 3 Quiz

Answer: Hestia

Hestia was the sister of Zeus, Hera, Demeter, Hades, and Poseidon.

Answer: Cronos

Uranus (the sky) banished some of his children to the Underworld, a dark, gloomy place under the Earth. Gaea (Mother Earth) was furious, and encouraged the Titans to rise up against him. Led by Cronos, they attacked and overthrew their father. Cronos then became King of the Titans. He married his sister Rhea and they had six children.

Answer: Charon

The river Styx marked the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead. People were buried with a coin to pay the ferryman, whose name was Charon, to take them across the river.

Answer: Hera

Zeus led his brothers and sisters in revolt against Cronos and the other Titans. After a bitter struggle, the younger gods defeated the older ones and divided the world among themselves. Zeus became the ruler of the sky and King of all the gods, with Hera as his queen.

Answer: Hermes

The ancient Greeks believed that when they died their souls were taken to Hades, or the Underworld. It was supposed to lie deep under the Earth's surface. People thought caves and cracks in the ground were doors leading into this secret world. The god Hermes guided the dead person's soul through one of these entrances, down to the banks of a river called the Styx.

Answer: Titans

According to legend, before anything existed, there was a nothingness called Chaos. Out of this dark and empty state, Gaea, Mother Earth, slowly emerged to form the world. She gave birth to Uranus, the sky. Gaea and Uranus married and had many children. The most important were the Titans, who looked like humans but were vast in size. They were the first gods and goddesses.

Answer: Hades

Hades was the brother of Zeus, Hera, Hestia, Demeter, and Poseidon. He was the king of the underworld, and a.k.a. Pluto.

Answer: Rhea

Cronos married his sister Rhea and they had five children. Before the children were born, Cronos was warned that one of them would kill him. So he snatched and swallowed each baby at birth. Then, when Rhea was giving birth to her sixth baby, Zeus, she tricked Cronos by giving him a stone wrapped in clothes instead of the baby. So, Zeus survived.When he was fully grown, Zeus visited his parents in disguise, and slipped a potion into Crono's drink. This made him cough up all the babies he had swallowed: his two sons, Poseidon and Pluto, and his daughters: Hera, Hestia, and Demeter.

Answer: Demeter

Demeter was the sister of Hera, Hestia, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus.

Answer: Poseidon

Poseidon was the brother of Zeus and Hades.

Answer: Battle of Marathon

In 490BC, King Darius led an invasion against Eretria and crushed it. Then his army landed at Marathon, just northeast of Athens. The Athenians and their allies marched an army of 10,000 men to meet them. Although the Greeks were heavily outnumbered, they won a tremendous victory, by means of superior tactics and the strength of the hoplite phalanx. A runner was sent to Athens, 26 miles away, with the news. Right after announcing it, he dropped dead from exhaustion. Modern marathon races are named after this.

Answer: Battle of Thermopylae

King Darius II died soon after the Battle of Marathon, but memories of the Persian defeat festered in the mind of his son, King Xerxes. In 480BC, Xerxes led another invasion into Greek territory - this time overland. To cross the Hellespont, a thin stretch of water separating Europe and Asia, Xerxes had his engineers construct two huge bridges, entirely from ships.

The first confrontation took place in a narrow mountain pass called Thermopylae. At first, a small army of Greeks was able to hold back the Persian advance.

But a Greek traitor showed the Persians a secret route around the pass. A small force stayed to fight and be slaughtered, allowing the rest of the Greek army to flee to safety. It was one of the greatest, and most famous, gestures of self-sacrifice in ancient history. The Persians them marched on an undefended Athens. Excited by their victory, they ran riot in the city, and looted and set fire to the Acropolis.

Answer: Cleisthenes

At the end of the Archaic Period, some Greek cities overthrew their tyrants and replaced them with a radical new form of government - democracy. The Athenian system was introduced in 508BC, by an aristocrat named Cleisthenes. He set up an Assembly, where every citizen could speak and vote. It met every 10 days, on a hill called the Pnyx, and debated proposals made by the Council.

Answer: Leonidas

Realizing there was no way out of the battle, Leonidas, the Spartan commander, stayed on with a small force to fight and be slaughtered, allowing the rest of the Greek army to flee to safety.

Answer: Aristarchus

An astronomer named Aristarchus reckoned that the Earth revolved on its axis and that it moved around the Sun. At this time, most people believed that the Sun moved around the Earth, and so his ideas were rejected as he had no evidence to prove them.

Answer: perioikoi

The descendants of the people who had surrendered to Spartan rule were known as perioikoi. Although they were not Spartan citizens, they were free and were allowed to trade and join the army.

Answer: Draco

As trading activities in Athens increased, a middle class of merchants and craftsmen began to prosper. They resented the aristocracy and demanded a role in politics. This often led to riots between different social groups.
To bring peace, the people were sometimes prepared to let one very powerful man rule alone. This sort of leader was known as a tyrant.
In 621BC, the people of Athens appointed a man called Draco to lead them. He drew up a set of very severe laws. Even minor crimes, such as stealing food, were punished by death.

Answer: Antigonids

Antigonas founded a new Greek dynasty, the Antigonids, who ruled from Macedonia. They kept the rest of Greece under their control by maintaining garrisons of soldiers in the main cities. In the 3rd century BC, however, the Greek colonies in southern Italy were threatened by the Romans, who were pursuing a policy of aggressive expansion. The Antigonids were soon dragged into a fatal series of wars with Rome.

Answer: Minos

The first ever European civilization developed on Crete, the largest of the Greek islands. It began to flourish around the year 2000BC, but mysteriously died out less than a thousand years later. Its remains were first discovered in the 1920s, by a British archaeologist, Sir Arthur Evans. He named it the Minoan civilization, after a legendary king of Crete named Minos.
According to Greek legend, the god Zeus fell in love with a beautiful princess called Europa. Zeus turned himself into the shape of a bull and swam to Crete with her on his back. One of their three sons, Minos, became the King of Crete. Although Minos was the name of the king in the legend, scholars think Minos may have been a Cretan title for all kings, like the Egyptian word pharaoh.

Answer: Herodotus

When the Greeks were involved in the Persian Wars, they realized the importance of knowing more about their enemies. They began to keep records of their history, and that of other peoples.
The first real historian was probably Herodotus, often described as the "Father of History." Herodotus wrote an account of the Persian Wars after interviewing survivors to find out what had actually happened. Most earlier histories were far less accurate.

Answer: Colosseum of Rome

Great feats of engineering and architecture captured the imaginations of people in ancient times - just as they do today. The greatest of these were the famous monuments which the Greeks called "the Seven Wonders of the World." Only one of the seven survives, so we have to rely to some extent on written accounts to give an impression of what they looked like. The Seven Wonders are:
1. Statue of Zeus at Olympia
2. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
3. Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
4. Pharos of Alexandria
5. Hanging Gardens of Babylon
6. Great Pyramid at Giza
7. Colossus of Rhodes

Answer: boxing

One of the most challenging events in the Games was designed to find the best all-round athlete. This was the pentathlon, from the Greek words pente (five) and athlon (contest). There were five events: discus and javelin-throwing, running, jumping, and wrestling.

Answer: Doric

The Doric style was the most popular on the Greek mainland. The design was simple, with thick, powerful columns. The tops of the columns, or capitals, were undecorated.

Answer: Ionic

The Ionic style was a more elegant, decorated style than the Doric, using slender columns with bases and decorated capitals with spiral curls known as volutes. It was particularly popular in the eastern colonies of Asia Minor and on the Aegean islands.

Answer: Corinthian

The Corinthian capital was a later, more ornate style, decorated with a leafy pattern. Although the Greeks rarely used it, it became very popular later with the Romans.