Deck 2: Ancient Greece

Question 1

Rituals involving bull-leaping and female snake deities or priestesses are associated with what ancient civilization?

A) classical Greek
B) Minoan
C) Hellenistic Greek
D) Mycenaean

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which qualities best characterize the Minoan civilization of ancient Crete?

A) aggressive and warlike
B) fascinated with death and the afterlife
C) dominated by a god-like ruler
D) pleasure-loving and skilled in craft

Answer 2

D

Question 3

What might one expect to find in an archeological excavation at the ancient palace complex at Knossos, on the island of Crete?

A) fragments of a bronze wine vessel
B) a Snake Goddess figure
C) the "Mask of Agamemnon"
D) a life-size statue modeled after Egyptian sculpture

Answer 3

B

Question 4

What culture or period could you best illustrate with the beaten gold funeral mask of a ruler mistaken for Agamemnon, remembered as a hero of the Trojan War?

A) Archaic Greek
B) Hellenistic Greek
C) Mycenaean
D) Minoan

Question 5

What civilization attacked and plundered the city of Troy and provided the dim cultural memory on which the Homeric poems were based?

A) Old Babylonian
B) Mycenaean
C) Indus Valley
D) Egyptian

Question 6

What term or topic would be most useful in discussing the form and technique of the Homeric poems, the Iliad and Odyssey?

A) red-figure
B) contrapposto
C) epic
D) entasis

Question 7

In what work would one expect to learn of the exploits of Achilles, Hector, and Odysseus?

A) Sophocles' Oedipus the King
B) Hesiod's Theogony
C) Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics
D) Homer's Iliad

Question 8

What phrase best describes the achievement of Sappho?

A) became lover and advisor to Pericles
B) eloped with Paris to prompt Trojan War
C) killed her husband, the king Agamemnon
D) famed as lyric poet and lover of women

Question 9

Where would one expect to find a description of Chaos and the birth of the gods from mother earth?

A) Aeschylus' Oresteian tragedies
B) Homer's Odyssey
C) Plato's dialogues
D) Hesiod's Theogony

Question 10

What Greek thinker or philosophical group first asserted that a mathematical harmony could be found in the universe's underlying structures?

A) the Pythagoreans
B) Aristotle
C) the Epicureans
D) Socrates

Question 11

The Dipylon Amphora, painted with primitive human figures, is typical of what technique in vase painting?

A) classical
B) red-figure
C) post-and-lintel
D) geometric

Question 12

Which statement best describes the Delian League, an alliance of Greek city-states in the classical era?

A) resisted the conquests of Alexander
B) transformed into Athenian empire
C) spread Greek culture across the Eastern world
D) attacked Troy and the cities of Asia Minor

Question 13

What features is distinctive of an Ionic column on a classical building?

A) lack of a base
B) scrolled capitals
C) thick cigar shape
D) wide grooves

Question 14

The geometric technique is important in what activity?

A) sculpting free-standing stone statues
B) the painting of ceramic vases
C) casting a bronze figure
D) erecting a classical Greek temple

Question 15

The Kritios Boy, with its subtly tilted shoulders and hips, can be seen as the beginning of what period of ancient Greek art?

A) Classical
B) Mycenaean
C) Archaic
D) Hellenistic

Question 16

What work best illustrates the moment in Greek art when the stiff symmetry of the Archaic style was being softened by a new human interest and naturalism?

A) the Calf-bearer
B) Laocoön and his Sons
C) the Riace Warrior
D) Dying Gaul

Question 17

Who was Athens' most important political leader during its Golden Age, the period of the Parthenon's construction?

A) Sophocles
B) Alexander
C) Pericles
D) Pergamon

Question 18

A caryatid column was employed in what work of art?

A) the theater of Epidaurus
B) the Propylaea
C) the Erechtheum
D) the Parthenon

Question 19

On the Parthenon in Athens, what scene is depicted on the temple's inner or cella (Ionic) frieze?

A) the funeral of Pericles
B) the competition of Athena and Poseidon
C) Apollo quieting the centaurs
D) a procession of Athenian citizens

Question 20

Flutes and a capital are involved in what part of a classical temple?

A) frieze
B) column
C) ceiling
D) cella

Question 21

In which work would you find one of the classical orders employed?

A) Homer's Iliad
B) the Kritios Boy
C) Sappho's lyric poems
D) the Parthenon

Question 22

Which can be seen as a high point of the Archaic style of early Greek sculpture, with its conventionalized style and stiff posture?

A) the Riace Warrior
B) Praxiteles' Aphrodite of Cnidos
C) Three Goddesses of the Parthenon
D) Kouros from Attica

Question 23

How would the technique of contrapposto most likely be used?

A) estimate the height of a temple's columns
B) calculate the distance between columns
C) represent a human figure in sculpture
D) defend the acropolis from attack

Question 24

Who was the first great Greek tragedian, in whose dramas the suffering of humans eventually led to the recognition of divine wisdom?

A) Sophocles
B) Aeschylus
C) Aristophanes
D) Euripides

Question 25

Which of these might best be cited as an example of hubris, that arrogant and self-destructive pride which often led to the violation of the Greek ideal of balance and self-restraint?

A) Pericles
B) Aristotle
C) Alexander
D) Oedipus

Question 26

Which Athenian tragedian-the last of classical Athens' three great tragic playwrights-"sought to show people as they are, not as they ought to be?"

A) Thespis
B) Aeschylus
C) Euripides
D) Sophocles

Question 27

Which set of terms would be most useful in discussing ancient Greek ideas and practice in music?

A) entasis and architrave
B) catharsis and skene
C) Homeric and lyric
D) aulos and ethos

Question 28

How is the Athenian Aristophanes best described?

A) the philosophical "gadfly" of Athens
B) chief proponent of rebuilding the acropolis
C) the city's greatest comic playwright
D) founder of the Academy in Athens

Question 29

For what purpose was an orchestra in classical Athens most likely used?

A) a podium for speech-making in the marketplace
B) storing props and costumes
C) educating young boys in musical theory
D) a dancing area for a tragic chorus

Question 30

During what period of Greek civilization would one most likely see an idealized and rationally proportioned statue of a god or athlete, poised in a harmonious balance?

A) Mycenaean
B) classical
C) Archaic
D) Hellenistic

Question 31

What philosopher or group of philosophers reasoned that happiness could be found in a mean between two extremes of behavior?

A) Confucius
B) materialists
C) Aristotle
D) idealists

Question 32

What does the philosopher Aristotle describe with the term catharsis?

A) the cleansing of the theater audience's fear and pity
B) the fatal error committed by a tragic hero
C) the circular area where the chorus danced and sang
D) the poetic structure of Greek tragic drama

Question 33

How is the Confucian concept of jen best described?

A) belief in an unchanging and underlying order of the universe
B) the validity of debate and discussion as a means to discovering truth
C) the cultivation of individual benevolence and humanity, leading to right action
D) detachment from all desire and ambition, except obedience to the gods

Question 34

What historical event inaugurated the Hellenistic era of Greek civilization?

A) Alexander the Great's conquests in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Asia
B) the Athenians' defeat of the Persians in 480 B.C.
C) an invasion that devastated Mycenaean cities
D) Pericles' reconstruction of the Athenian acropolis

Question 35

Which would one have most likely have observed during the Hellenistic era?

A) sculptors at work on statues wearing an "archaic smile"
B) stoic philosophers debating a question of ethical conduct
C) workers constructing the Parthenon in Athens
D) the unveiling of a new sculptural work by Polyclitus

Question 36

Which work best illustrates the emotional intensity and drama of the Hellenistic style in sculpture?

A) the Parthenon Three Goddesses
B) the Riace Warrior
C) Koré of Chios
D) Laocoön and his Sons

Question 37

In which of these urban centers might one have found displayed the sculpture Dying Gaul, a realistic and individualized statue of a dying warrior?

A) Mycenae
B) Sparta
C) Pergamon
D) Athens

Question 38

What best characterized Hellenistic-era architecture, as distinct from classical Greek architecture

A) use of the somber and simple Doric order
B) lavish decoration of buildings with exterior sculpture
C) integration of different buildings into a unified complex
D) use of the arch to build multi-story structures

Question 39

Which statement best describes the view of the Epicurean philosophers of the Hellenistic world?

A) the good life consists of moderate pleasure and the avoidance of pain
B) the heavenly bodies are arrayed in a musical-mathematical harmony
C) all truth is relative to the individual person's knowledge and perception
D) the perfect state would be ruled by reluctant "philosopher-kings"

Question 40

Briefly contrast the character of Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations.

Question 41

Describe the significance of the Homeric epics.

Question 42

Recount the story of Athens' Golden Age, with reference to its achievements and failures.

Question 43

Analyze the Parthenon of Athens as a work of civic pride and political propaganda.

Question 44

Characterize the Archaic, classical, and Hellenistic styles of Greek sculpture.

Question 45

Recount the "tragedy" of Oedipus, with reference to his tragic character and tragic error.

Question 46

Summarize the different aims of philosophy, as pursued first by early Greek philosophers and then by the sophists and Socrates.

Question 47

Explain Greek belief about music's effect on the human character.

Question 48

Briefly describe the legacy of Hellenistic civilization in the arts, science, and philosophy.

Question 49

Trace the evolution of Greek sculpture from the archaic through the classical, late classical, and Hellenistic periods. Discuss in detail one example of each stage and explain clearly the stylistic changes that gave rise to each new stage.

Question 50

The ancient Greeks strove to live according to the motto, "Nothing in excess." Evaluate the achievements of ancient Greece, from the Archaic period to Alexander, in light of this classical ideal of balance, harmony, and proportion. Support your answer with specific references to historical events and figures, works of art, and philosophical ideas.

Question 51

Compare the classical era in Greece with the Hellenistic era that followed it in terms of their philosophical idea, sculptural styles, and approach to architecture and city planning. Conclude your comparison by explaining which era appeals more to you and why.