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Mythology & Folklore
Gods, Heroes & Monsters
The pantheons and legends still hiding in everyday language.
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In Greek mythology, who is the king of the gods?
Greek Myths and the People in Them
Greek myth is usually taught as a family tree of gods, which is the least interesting part of it. These ten questions are about the mortals and the choices that got them into trouble.
About this topic
The Greeks did not have a single fixed version of any of these stories. They came down through poets, playwrights and later Roman writers who each adapted what they inherited, so the details shift: a hero has different parents depending on who is telling it, and a punishment lasts a season in one account and half a year in another. Where that matters below, the question says so. What holds the stories together is not theology but consequence. Someone opens a container they were told to leave shut, looks back when told not to, or hands a prize to whichever goddess offers the best bribe. The gods are mostly there to make sure the consequence arrives.
Questions & answers
Greek Myths and the People in Them: all 10 questions and answers
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
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1In the most common version, who opened the jar that let troubles loose in the world?
- A Persephone
- B Cassandra
- C Europa
- D Pandora Correct
Answer: D. Pandora
Why: Pandora was made by the gods and given a sealed jar she was told not to open, and everything escaped except hope. The container became a box only in the sixteenth century, when Erasmus translated the Greek pithos, a storage jar, as pyxis.
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2Which musician walked into the underworld to bring back his wife and lost her by looking back?
- A Bellerophon
- B Meleager
- C Orpheus Correct
- D Perseus
Answer: C. Orpheus
Why: Orpheus played so well that Hades agreed to release Eurydice, on the condition that he not look at her until both were back in daylight. His name was later attached to Orphism, a set of Greek mystery rites concerned with the fate of the soul.
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3Who gave Theseus the thread that let him find his way back out of the Labyrinth?
- A Antigone
- B Ariadne Correct
- C Phaedra
- D Medea
Answer: B. Ariadne
Why: Ariadne was a daughter of King Minos of Crete and fell in love with Theseus before he went in after the Minotaur. In the most common version he sailed away and left her on the island of Naxos, where Dionysus found her.
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4Which hero killed Medusa by watching her reflection rather than looking at her directly?
- A Perseus Correct
- B Theseus
- C Cadmus
- D Jason
Answer: A. Perseus
Why: Perseus used a polished shield to approach without meeting her gaze, since her look turned people to stone. Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgon sisters who could be killed, and the winged horse Pegasus sprang from her blood.
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5The seasons are explained in Greek myth by which goddess searching for her abducted daughter?
- A Hera
- B Hestia
- C Artemis
- D Demeter Correct
Answer: D. Demeter
Why: Demeter was goddess of grain, and the earth went barren while she looked for Persephone. Persephone had eaten pomegranate seeds in the underworld and so had to return there each year, though the number of seeds and the length of her stay differ between versions.
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6Jason and his crew sailed to Colchis to fetch what?
- A The Golden Bough
- B The Golden Girdle
- C The Golden Fleece Correct
- D The Golden Apples
Answer: C. The Golden Fleece
Why: The fleece came from a flying ram that had earlier carried a boy named Phrixus to safety, and it hung guarded in a grove at Colchis, on the eastern shore of the Black Sea in what is now Georgia. Jason only got it with the help of Medea, the local king's daughter.
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7What was the punishment of Sisyphus?
- A Holding up the sky on his shoulders
- B Rolling a boulder uphill that always rolls back down Correct
- C Standing in water that drains away whenever he stoops to drink
- D Having his liver eaten each day by an eagle
Answer: B. Rolling a boulder uphill that always rolls back down
Why: Sisyphus was condemned for cheating death twice, having once chained up Thanatos and later talked his way back out of the underworld. The other three punishments in that list belong to Tantalus, Prometheus and Atlas.
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8Which young man wasted away staring at his own reflection in a pool?
- A Narcissus Correct
- B Adonis
- C Hyacinthus
- D Endymion
Answer: A. Narcissus
Why: In Ovid's telling Narcissus could not tear himself away from the water and a flower grew where he had been. The nymph Echo, who had been cursed to repeat only the last words she heard, faded away loving him without being able to say so.
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9In the judgement of Paris, which goddess was given the golden apple?
- A Hera
- B Athena
- C Artemis
- D Aphrodite Correct
Answer: D. Aphrodite
Why: Aphrodite promised Paris the most beautiful woman in the world, who turned out to be Helen, already married to the king of Sparta. The apple had been thrown among the guests at a wedding by Eris, goddess of strife, inscribed for the fairest.
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10Greeks travelled to consult a priestess who spoke for Apollo at which sanctuary?
- A Eleusis
- B Olympia
- C Delphi Correct
- D Dodona
Answer: C. Delphi
Why: The priestess at Delphi was called the Pythia, and her answers were famously ambiguous enough to be read either way after the event. Delphi was also held to be the navel of the world, marked by a carved stone called the omphalos.
Read alongside this quiz
Why the same stories keep appearing
Floods, tricksters and dying gods turn up across unconnected cultures. Three explanations, and how to tell which applies.
6 min readFrequently Asked Questions
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