Greek Gods
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50 free Greek Gods trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The gods of ancient Greece were never distant figures. They quarrelled, fell in love, played tricks and held grudges, and the stories told about them explained everything from the seasons to the stars. Their names still turn up in everyday words, on planets and moons, in brands and in space programs. This quiz covers Zeus and the other Olympians, the Titans who ruled before them, and the lesser gods, goddesses and sister groups who shared their world. Expect questions on who is who, sacred animals and symbols, Roman names, births and rivalries, the underworld, and the marks the gods left on modern language and science. It is written for mythology fans, students, teachers and quiz hosts. The questions run from classroom favourites to a few that will stretch a keen reader of Homer and Hesiod, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The goat-legged Greek god Pan, whose shout terrified travellers in lonely places, gave English which word?
Panic
Panic was the sudden terror that Pan's angry shout was said to cause when his afternoon nap was disturbed. He was also said to have spread it among the Persians at the Battle of Marathon.
Q 02Which Titan was condemned by Zeus to stand at the western edge of the world and hold up the sky forever?
Atlas
Atlas shoulders the heavens, not the Earth as is often imagined. Gerardus Mercator first used his name for a collection of maps in the 16th century.
Q 03The word cereal comes from Ceres, the Roman name for which Greek goddess of grain and the harvest?
Demeter
Demeter was also worshipped in the secret Eleusinian Mysteries, which promised initiates a happy afterlife. Latin cerealis meant 'of Ceres', her Roman counterpart.
Q 04Which Greek god, a scheming uncle voiced by James Woods, is the villain of Disney's animated film Hercules?
Hades
Hades plots against Olympus in the film. In Homer he is the god mortals hate most, and the reason given is that he is unyielding and cannot be swayed.
Q 05Which Greek goddess, twin sister of Apollo, gave her name to NASA's program to return humans to the Moon?
Artemis
Artemis was picked in 2019 because the program follows Apollo, the 1960s Moon landings that NASA named after her twin brother.
Q 06Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars, are named after the twin sons of which Greek god?
Ares
Ares took his sons Phobos (fear) and Deimos (terror) into battle with him. An Eton schoolmaster suggested the names after Asaph Hall found the moons in 1877.
Q 07Which planet, first named after King George III, is the only one called after a Greek god, not a Roman one?
Uranus
Uranus was the Greek personification of the sky and the grandfather of Zeus. William Herschel wanted to call his discovery George's Star, but Johann Bode's suggestion won out.
Q 08Which three-headed dog, a child of the monsters Typhon and Echidna, guarded the gates of the Greek underworld?
Cerberus
Cerberus fawned on the dead as they arrived, Hesiod says, but devoured any who tried to leave. He was usually pictured with a serpent for a tail as well as his three heads.
Q 09Who stole fire from the Greek gods for humanity and was chained to a rock where an eagle ate his liver daily?
Prometheus
Prometheus carried the fire off hidden in a fennel stalk. Mary Shelley later subtitled her novel Frankenstein 'The Modern Prometheus'.
Q 10Which Greek goddess rose from the sea foam, with both Cyprus and Cythera claiming to be her birthplace?
Aphrodite
Aphrodite's name was explained by Hesiod as 'risen from the foam' (aphros), though most modern scholars call that a folk etymology. She was also known as Cypris, the Lady of Cyprus.
Q 11Who in Greek myth must spend part of every year in the underworld because she ate pomegranate seeds there?
Persephone
Persephone's yearly absence was the Greek explanation for the seasons: the earth lies barren while her mother grieves and blooms again when she returns.
Q 12Which Greek god, on the day he was born, invented the lyre from a tortoise shell and stole a herd of cattle?
Hermes
Hermes later traded the lyre to Apollo in exchange for the stolen cattle, which is how it became Apollo's signature instrument.
Q 13Which Olympian god of wine was sewn into the thigh of Zeus to finish growing after his mortal mother died?
Dionysus
Dionysus was called 'twice-born' as a result. His festivals featured sacred dramas that became the starting point of Western theatre.
Q 21Athena won the patronage of Athens over Poseidon by giving the city which gift?
An olive tree
An olive tree beat the salt-water spring that Poseidon struck from the ground with his trident in the usual telling, because it gave the Athenians wood, oil and food.
Q 22Which bird was sacred to Hera, queen of the Greek gods, in memory of her slain hundred-eyed watchman Argus?
A peacock
A peacock wears the eyes of Argus in its tail: in Ovid's telling, Hera set them there to honor her faithful watchman after he was killed on the orders of Zeus.
Q 23Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, was born fully armed from which part of her father Zeus?
His forehead
Q 14Which Greek god of fire and metalworking, described as lame, was hurled down from Mount Olympus?
Hephaestus
Hephaestus was cast out by his mother Hera for his lameness in one account and flung down by Zeus in another, falling for a whole day before landing on the island of Lemnos.
Q 15Which Greek goddess, a sister of Zeus, received the first offering at every household sacrifice?
Hestia
Hestia swore to stay unmarried forever after both Poseidon and Apollo sought her hand, and remained tending the hearth of Olympus instead.
Q 16Which Titan, the father of Zeus, swallowed his first five children to stop a prophecy that one would overthrow him?
Cronus
Cronus was tricked when his wife handed him a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes in place of the baby Zeus. He later disgorged the stone, followed by the five children.
Q 17Under which name did the Romans worship Zeus as the chief god of their state on the Capitoline Hill?
Jupiter
Jupiter's name means 'sky father'. His other name, Jove, gave English the word jovial, first used of people born under his planet.
Q 18Which Greek god of love, known to the Romans as Cupid, marries the mortal princess Psyche in a tale by Apuleius?
Eros
Eros was a primordial god in the earliest account, among the first beings to exist. Early Greek art showed him as a young man, and only later poets made him a child.
Q 19Who in Greek myth was shaped from earth on the orders of Zeus and opened a jar that released every evil?
Pandora
Pandora was the first mortal woman in the myth. Her 'box' was a large storage jar until a 16th-century Latin translation, usually blamed on Erasmus, turned the Greek pithos into a box.
Q 20Which bird, the companion of Athena, was stamped on the silver coins of ancient Athens?
An owl
An owl stood for wisdom because of the little bird that accompanied Athena. Her city's four-drachma coins were nicknamed 'owls' throughout the ancient world.
His forehead was split open with a double-headed axe to relieve an enormous headache, and Athena leaped out fully grown.
Q 24Which giant brothers forged the thunderbolt of Zeus, the trident of Poseidon and a helmet of invisibility?
The Cyclopes
The Cyclopes of Hesiod's poem are three brothers whose names mean Bright, Thunder and Lightning, a nod to their work as weapon-makers.
Q 25Zeus carried off the Phoenician princess Europa across the sea after taking the form of which animal?
A white bull
A white bull so tame that Europa climbed onto its back was his disguise. Zeus later set its shape among the stars as the constellation Taurus.
Q 26Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea and earthquakes, was also said to have created which animal?
The horse
The horse sprang from a rock that Poseidon struck with his trident in one myth, and he was believed to have taught people the art of taming the animals.
Q 27Which food or drink of the Greek gods, usually paired with nectar, was said to confer immortality?
Ambrosia
Ambrosia was carried up to Olympus by doves in Homer's telling. It was fragrant enough to serve as perfume, masking the stench of sealskins in the Odyssey.
Q 28At which sanctuary on Mount Parnassus did a priestess called the Pythia deliver the prophecies of Apollo?
Delphi
Delphi was the centre of the world to the Greeks, marked by a stone called the omphalos, or navel. Zeus was said to have found the spot by releasing two eagles from the ends of the earth.
Q 29On which island was the infant Zeus hidden in a cave and raised on goat's milk by his nurse Amalthea?
Crete
Crete's armed dancers, the Kouretes, beat their spears on their shields at the cave so that his father could not hear the baby crying.
Q 30Which nine sister goddesses, the daughters of Zeus and Memory, inspired Greek poets, historians and dancers?
The Muses
The Muses were worshipped at shrines called mouseia, which is where English gets the word museum. Music comes from their name too.