Cyrus the Great
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50 free Cyrus the Great trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Cyrus the Great began as the ruler of a small Persian kingdom and ended as master of the largest empire the world had yet seen. Along the way he toppled the great powers of his day, and ancient writers left stories about him that are still surprising: a baby hidden from a jealous king, a river punished for an insult, a battle won by a smell. This quiz covers the fun facts people look for: the legends of his childhood, the fall of the Medes, Lydia and Babylon, the famous clay cylinder that carries his name, his place in the Bible, his family and his tomb, and the later rulers who looked up to him. It suits students working on an ancient history report, teachers and parents who want a quick quiz for kids, and anyone curious about the first Persian empire. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Plutarch wrote that Persians admired which facial feature because Cyrus the Great had it?
A hooked nose
A hooked nose marked Cyrus, so Persians went on calling such noses the most handsome. Plutarch recorded the taste some six centuries after the king died.
Q 02Which animals did Cyrus the Great place before his army so their smell would panic the Lydian cavalry?
Camels
Camels from the baggage train went to the front at Thymbra, and the Lydian mounts bolted from the unfamiliar smell. With the charge scattered, Cyrus went on to take the Lydian capital.
Q 03Which American Founding Father owned two copies of the Cyropaedia, an ancient Greek book about Cyrus the Great?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson kept one copy with Greek and Latin on facing pages, and it survives in the Library of Congress. Enlightenment thinkers read the book as a portrait of a tolerant ruler.
Q 04Which European collection holds the Cyrus Cylinder, the clay record of the Persian conquest of Babylon found in 1879?
British Museum
The British Museum paid for the dig that unearthed it in the ruins of Babylon. The barrel-shaped cylinder had lain buried as a foundation deposit for about 2,400 years.
Q 05Which Lydian king, whose name became a byword for fabulous wealth, lost his kingdom to Cyrus the Great?
Croesus
Croesus gave English the phrase 'rich as Croesus', yet Herodotus says Cyrus spared him after the defeat and kept him on as an adviser.
Q 06Cyrus the Great is the only non-Jew given which title in the Hebrew Bible, for freeing the Jewish exiles?
Messiah
Messiah, meaning 'anointed one', is the title the Book of Isaiah gives Cyrus, even though the same passage says he did not know Israel's God.
Q 07Herodotus says Cyrus the Great left what in a camp to trap the Massagetae, nomads who were unused to it?
Wine
Wine was the bait: the nomads feasted at the banquet he had laid out, got drunk and were overrun. Their captured commander was the son of the queen, who swore revenge.
Q 08Which later conqueror visited the tomb of the Persian king Cyrus II, found it looted, and ordered it restored?
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great had admired Cyrus since his boyhood reading and was appalled to find the tomb robbed. He set his officer Aristobulus to repair it.
Q 09In which modern country does the tomb of Cyrus the Great stand, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site?
Iran
Iran is home to the tomb, a limestone chamber on a stepped base that has stayed largely intact for some 2,500 years while the city around it fell into ruin.
Q 10Which English word comes from an ancient Avestan term for a walled park, like the royal gardens of Cyrus the Great?
Paradise
Paradise began as a word for a wall around a garden, and Greeks borrowed it for the huge parks that Persian nobles loved to build. Bible translators later used it for Eden.
Q 11What name do historians give the first Persian empire, founded by Cyrus the Great around 550 BC?
Achaemenid
Achaemenid comes from Achaemenes, the ancestor the royal house traced itself to. By the death of Cyrus the realm was the largest the world had yet seen.
Q 12The Cyrus Cylinder is often described, though historians dispute it, as the first charter of what?
Human rights
Human rights are a modern reading of the text: historians note that Mesopotamian kings had long opened their reigns with similar lists of reforms.
Q 13Herodotus says the army of Cyrus the Great entered Babylon by diverting which river and wading along its bed?
Euphrates
Euphrates water was drained off until it stood thigh-deep, letting soldiers slip under the walls at night. Babylonian records, though, describe the city falling without a fight.
Q 21Which later Persian king, not Cyrus the Great, founded the grand ceremonial capital of Persepolis?
Darius I
Darius I raised the terrace and first palaces there in the generation after Cyrus, whose own capital lay about 40 kilometres away.
Q 22What title was held by the provincial governors who ran the empire of Cyrus the Great in his name?
Satrap
Satrap comes from Old Persian words meaning 'protector of the province'; the governors Cyrus appointed were viceroys ruling for him, never kings themselves.
Q 23Which city did Cyrus the Great found as his first capital, where his tomb and palace gardens lie?
Pasargadae
Pasargadae rose near the field where Cyrus beat the Medes. It lost its place as capital to a grander city under a later king.
Q 14Cyrus the Great let Jewish exiles leave Babylon and go home to rebuild their temple in which city?
Jerusalem
Jerusalem had lain in ruins since Babylonian armies destroyed its first temple about fifty years earlier. The rebuilt temple was finished under a later Persian king.
Q 15According to Herodotus, which warrior queen of the Massagetae defeated and killed Cyrus the Great in battle?
Tomyris
Tomyris led the attack herself after losing her son, in what Herodotus judged the fiercest battle ever fought between non-Greeks. Other ancient writers tell different stories, including a peaceful death at home.
Q 16In the account of Herodotus, how was the Median king Astyages related to Cyrus the Great, who overthrew him?
His grandfather
His grandfather is the answer Herodotus gives: the mother of Cyrus, Mandane, was the daughter of Astyages, who had dreamed that her child would take his throne.
Q 17Cambyses II, the son and heir of Cyrus the Great, went on to conquer which ancient land?
Egypt
Egypt fell to Cambyses within five years of his father's death, giving Persia the Nile and the one great power of the day that Cyrus had left unconquered.
Q 18Which Greek oracle told the king of Lydia that attacking Cyrus the Great would destroy a great empire?
Delphi
Delphi's answer came true, but not as hoped: the empire destroyed was the Lydian king's own. The reply became one of the best-known oracles of the ancient world.
Q 19After taking Babylon, Cyrus the Great styled himself king of the four what of the world?
Corners
Corners of the world was a boast Mesopotamian kings had made for many centuries, and Cyrus was the last ruler ever to claim it.
Q 20A replica of the Cyrus Cylinder has been kept since 1971 at the headquarters of which organisation?
United Nations
United Nations staff keep the copy on show in New York; a Persian princess had presented it to Secretary-General U Thant.
Q 24In the legend told by Herodotus, which humble worker took in the infant Cyrus after the Median king ordered him killed?
A herdsman
A herdsman called Mitradates and his wife passed off their own stillborn son as the prince. Her name meant 'dog', which Herodotus says started a tale that a dog had reared Cyrus.
Q 25Which Greek city-state sent a herald warning Cyrus the Great to leave Greek cities alone, drawing his scorn?
Sparta
Sparta's herald got a question for an answer: Cyrus turned to the Greeks at his court and asked who these people were and how many they numbered.
Q 26Before a visiting diplomat identified it in 1812, the tomb of Cyrus the Great was credited to whose mother?
Solomon
Solomon's mother was named as its owner in legends that grew up after the Muslim conquest, and the nearby town is called Madar-e-Soleyman, meaning 'Mother of Solomon'.
Q 27Which Athenian soldier and student of Socrates wrote the Cyropaedia, an admiring life of Cyrus the Great?
Xenophon
Xenophon made the book part history and part fiction, a portrait of the ideal ruler that later helped shape Machiavelli's The Prince.
Q 28The Cyrus Cylinder says which god of Babylon chose Cyrus the Great to rule the city?
Marduk
Marduk, the text says, abandoned Babylon and went looking for a more righteous ruler after the last Babylonian king had neglected his worship.
Q 29Which last native king of Babylon, blamed for neglecting its gods, was captured when Cyrus the Great took the city?
Nabonidus
Nabonidus had spent about ten years away at an oasis in Arabia, leaving his son to run Babylon, which did nothing for his standing at home.
Q 30Ancient Greek writers describe the royal standard of Cyrus the Great as which creature raised on a tall shaft?
An eagle
An eagle stayed the official banner of the Persian kings who came after Cyrus, down to the end of his dynasty.