B Is For Bellerophon Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bellerophon

Bellerophon was a prince of Corinth. When he was accused of manslaughter, he went into exile. He went first to Tiryns, where the queen falsely accused him of rape. In reality, Bellerophon had rejected her advances. The King of Tiryns didn't want to have a guest killed - this was one of the most serious crimes in ancient Greece. Bellerophon was exiled once again from Tiryns to Lycia. The Lycian king dreaded hurting his guest, so he sent him on a highly perilous quest: to kill the Chimera, a cross-over between a lion, a goat and a venomous snake. The goddess Athena provided Bellerophon with the winged horse Pegasus, and, riding on Pegasus, Bellerophon killed the Chimera using a lance.

After surviving several other adventures, Bellerophon boasted he had earned his place on Olympus. Trying to take Olympus by force proved his downfall: Zeus was angered by Bellerophon's bragging and made him tumble down for several miles into a thorn bush. Ouch.

Answer: Britomartis

The name Britomartis might not sound familiar to most quizzers, and yet there is much information on her. Britomartis is sometimes portrayed as the goddess who took care of the two-year-old Zeus when he was on Crete. But other sources insist she was Zeus' daughter, just as her Ionian counterpart Artemis. Britomartis was quite happy on top of the mountain Dikte. But then king Minos discovered this beauty, and he would chase her all over Crete - according to some sources, only because she loved running for Minos. After a while of this playing "hard to get", Britomartis leapt into sea, where fishermen caught her in their nets.

Incidentally it was (according to another story) Britomartis who invented the nets, and she was very fond of using them to catch fish and small game. Both stories involve nets of some kind, explaining Britomartis' alternative name Diktynna: the Greek name for a net is diktyon.

Temples dedicated to Britomartis were found in Crete and on the island of Aegina, whence she was brought by a fisherman. As soon as the fisher desired to lay his hands upon her, she disappeared into a cave. This last myth explains Britomartis' third name, Aphaea - "the invisible one" or "she who disappeared".

Answer: Briseis

Did you think the "soft cheeks" are a euphemism for another body part? You naughty boy (or girl)! I suppose Achilles liked better kissing a woman with soft cheeks than a fierce warrior with a bristly beard.

Here is the official story. During one of the various pillaging expeditions in the countryside surrounding Troy, the Greek hero Achilles caught and enslaved the beautiful maiden Briseis, "with the soft cheeks". Indeed: all through the Iliad Homer mentions this quality of Briseis. In the same expedition the Greek leader Agamemnon ended up with Chryseis, the daughter of one of Apollo's high priests. As Agamemnon refused ransom for Chryseis, her father invoked Apollo's vengeance - a highly contagious lethal disease. Finally, Agamemnon handed over Chryseis to her father, but in compensation demanded to have Briseis for concubine.

This led to the main theme of the Iliad. As I've translated from the first verse : "WRATH be thy SONG, o godDESS, the WRATH of aCHILles." (I've capitalized the stressed syllables). The events that followed were the death of Achilles' best friend and the death of the most valiant warrior of either side: Achilles killed Hector, and Hector's brother shot Achilles with a poisoned arrow.

And what fate befell Briseis after Achilles' death? Well, this isn't quite clear, but sources indicate she was handed over to another Greek hero (whose name is not mentioned), together with Achilles' armour.

Answer: Blemmyes

Herodotus mentions, in his description of Africa, some strange tribes who would have lived in the western part of Libya: the Cynocephaloi (Dog-Headed Ones) and the Acephaloi (the Headless Ones). Later sources distinguished within the Acephaloi two groups, the Blemmyes and the Sternophtalmoi (the Chest-Eyed Ones).

Latin and, especially, medieval sources found this part of Herodotus' works quite interesting, and they depicted men of the Blemmyes tribe. I did not find any reference to female Blemmyes, though.

The name Blemmyes can be derived from the name of their founder (king Blemys), from the Hebrew expression bly moach (without brain), from the Greek blemma muo (translated to blinking an eye), or from the word balami meaning desert in the Beja language (a language spoken in Egypt, Sudan and Ethipoia). This latter theory would point to a tribe living in the sandy deserts of North-East Africa, but photographs of Beja people don't bear any resemblance to the fancy sketches of mythical Blemmyes.

Herodotus is considered by some "the father of history", and by others "the father of lies" - as many of his descriptions are at least too fantastic to be true. The Blemmyes description points more to the second title.

Answer: Busiris

First of all, Busiris was an Egyptian place name. One city called Busiris was in the midst of the Nile Delta, another was just south of the delta, and a third one was a few miles further south. As it happened frequently in those days, a king of one of the cities Busiris was also called Busiris.

And now comes the contested story: the city of Busiris suffered from drought and bad harvests, and a Cypriot prophet announced to king Busiris that he had to sacrifice one foreigner per year in order to restore the abundant harvests. King Busiris started with the Cypriot prophet offered to the local gods. After eight years and eight sacrifices, Heracles (unfamiliar with the story) walked in. So king Busiris tried to sacrifice Heracles, but that was a vain attempt: the Greek hero broke free and killed Busiris and most of his helpers.

Herodotus contested this story, invoking the character of the Egyptians. The Greek author Isocrates also contested the story, stating that Heracles came much later than Busiris.

Answer: Benthesikyme

The name Benthesikyme translates to "waves of the deep" (benthos referring to the deep sea, and kyme to the waves). She was affectionately nicknamed Lady of the Deep Swells. There are not many sources that mention Benthesikyme. I've found only a few mentions of her family members.

As Benthesikyme deals with the deep and the waves, it is not surprising that Poseidon was her father. Only the Bibliotheca by an anonymous author writing in the style of Apollodorus of Athens mentions Amphitrite as Benthesikyme's mother. Benthesikyme was married to the Ethiopian king Enalos and had two daughters with him. She would also have raised Eumolpus, one of Poseidon's sons, who would become a king of Thracia.

Answer: Balanis

The wood spirit Oxylus and his wife Hamadryas had eight daughters: nymphs who each cared for a specific family of trees. Aigeiros protected the poplars, while Ampelos took care of the grapevines and bryonies. Balanis dedicated her life to the oaks, and Karya made the nuts grow (hazel, walnut, chestnut). Furthermore there were Kraneia for the cherry and Morea for the mulberry and the wild olive. Ptelea protected the elm, and Syke took care of the fig trees. Another story links Daphne to the laurel tree: when the nymph Daphne tried to evade Apollo's lovemaking, she was turned into a laurel tree.

And what about pines and beeches, I hear you say? Supposedly Oxylus took care of the beech, because the Greek name for beech is oxua. Alas, I found no reference to which deity was dedicated to pines, firs or other common trees in Greece.

Answer: Beroe

Having these two parents, Beroe was undoubtedly a very pretty nymph. But she didn't use any make-up nor blinking ornaments to create a stunning effect on men. Beroe's beauty was not her only quality, she was breastfed with justice. The story of Beroe's birth and childhood is certainly worth looking up, if you can cope with the extremely lyric descriptions. Beroe ended up as the nymph who protected the Phoenician city of Beirut (nowadays the capital of Lebanon).

Answer: Boreas

Homer tells about Boreas and his three brethren, Eurus, Notus and Zephyrus. Each one of these siblings was linked to a cardinal direction and indicated the wind blowing from that part of the world. Boreas was linked to the north, the cold wind coming over the Thracian mountains and frequently bringer of snow and cold. Zephyrus represented the west wind, Eurus the east wind and Notus the south wind.

Usually Boreas was unfavourable to the Greeks. But once he would have shattered the Persian invasion fleet. Boreas is traditionally depicted as a rough bearded man, sometimes with icicles intermingled in his beard. Literary sources also state that his hair and beard were purplish in colour, so he would be immediately recognised on paintings.

Another story tells of Boreas falling in love with the mares bred by the Trojan king Erichthonius. When Boreas mated with several of these mares, a race of incredibly swift horses arouse.

I specified that Boreas was god of the north wind *ACCORDING TO HOMER*, for later authors had their winds mixed up. For example Pliny and Timosthenes placed Boreas in the North-North-East.

Answer: Briareus

According to Hesiod the deities Gaia and Uranus had three gigantic sons, who had of fifty heads and a hundred hands each. Fortunately I rejected the idea of drawing these creatures for a photo quiz.

When Zeus and the other Olympic Gods battled against the Titans (led by Cronus), the Olympians called upon the Hecatonchires ("The Hundred-Handed Ones") for assistance. Briareus (translated to "The Bold' or "The Stout") and his siblings threw large boulders to the Titans, one rock in each hand.

Briareus is also known as Aigaion, protector of the Aegean Sea. According to Homer, Briareus is the name given to him by the Gods, while Aigaion is the name bestowed upon him by mere mortals.