Roman Mythology Trivia
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This Roman mythology trivia quiz has 119 free questions with answers and covers the gods, goddesses, festivals and founding legends of Rome. It starts with the stories everyone half-knows, Romulus and Remus, the she-wolf, the Sabine women, Aeneas and Dido, and works through the Vestal Virgins, Janus's doors, Saturnalia, Lupercalia and the Sibylline Books. A full round is given over to Roman goddess trivia: Juno and her peafowl, Minerva bursting from Jupiter's head, Venus as Caesar's ancestress, Diana's triple cult at Lake Nemi, Vesta's flame, Ceres and Proserpina on the Aventine, Bellona, Flora, Pomona, Bona Dea's women-only rites and the scandal that ended Caesar's marriage, Victoria, Libertas and her cap, and the black stone that was Cybele. It suits a classics student, a pub quiz history round or anyone who wants to know why the months are named as they are. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
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Q 01Which three deities made up the Capitoline Triad, the centre of official Roman religion?
Jupiter, Juno and Minerva
Jupiter, Juno and Minerva shared one temple on the Capitoline Hill, a grouping adopted under Etruscan influence; the older Archaic Triad had paired Jupiter and Mars with a third god.
Q 02Which god completed the Archaic Triad alongside Jupiter and Mars?
Quirinus
Quirinus, the Sabine-origin god later identified with the deified Romulus, completed the Archaic Triad; the Quirinal Hill and Quirites, the word for citizens, share his name.
Q 03Which second king of Rome, a Sabine, is credited with founding Roman religion and its priesthoods?
Numa Pompilius
Numa Pompilius, the Sabine second king, is credited with the calendar, the Vestals, the flamens and the pontiffs; legend says the nymph Egeria advised him.
Q 04Who was the mother of Romulus and Remus?
Rhea Silvia, a Vestal
Rhea Silvia, a Vestal, was forced into the priesthood by her usurping uncle Amulius so that she would have no heirs; Mars fathered the twins on her anyway.
Q 05What was the name of the shepherd who found the twins with the she-wolf and raised them?
Faustulus
Faustulus, the royal herdsman, found the twins being suckled in the Lupercal cave below the Palatine and raised them with his wife Acca Larentia.
Q 06In the augury contest to decide who would found the city, how many birds did Romulus claim to see?
Twelve
Twelve vultures for Romulus on the Palatine, double his brother's count on the Aventine, though Remus saw his first; the quarrel over which sign counted ended with Remus dead.
Q 07What did modern dating suggest about the Capitoline Wolf, long thought to be Etruscan?
It was cast in medieval times
It was cast in medieval times — radiocarbon and thermoluminescence tests dated the bronze to around the eleventh to twelfth century; the suckling twins were added around 1471, probably by Antonio del Pollaiuolo.
Q 08At which religious gathering did Romulus's men abduct the Sabine women?
Games for Neptune
Games for Neptune, the Consualia, drew neighbouring peoples to Rome; at a signal Romulus's men seized the visiting young women, and the later war ended when the women threw themselves between the armies.
Q 09Which Roman noblewoman's rape and suicide sparked the revolt that founded the Republic?
Lucretia
Lucretia, wife of Collatinus, killed herself after being raped by Sextus Tarquinius; Lucius Junius Brutus paraded her body and drove out the Tarquins, and Shakespeare retold it in The Rape of Lucrece.
Q 10What did the doors of the Temple of Janus in Rome signify when they were closed?
Peace
Peace: the doors stood open in wartime and were shut only when Rome was at peace everywhere — once in 235 BC, three times under Augustus and once by Nero.
Q 11Which Roman god had no Greek equivalent at all?
Janus
Janus, the two-faced god of doorways and beginnings, had no Greek counterpart and was invoked first in every ceremony, whatever deity was being honoured.
Q 12How many Vestal Virgins served at any one time?
Six
Six Vestals served at a time, chosen between the ages of six and ten for at least three decades; a condemned man who chanced to meet one on his way to execution was pardoned.
Q 13What was the punishment for a Vestal Virgin who broke her vow of chastity?
Burial alive
Burial alive in an underground chamber with a little food and a lamp was the penalty for incestum; the site near the Colline Gate was the Campus Sceleratus, the 'field of wickedness'.
Q 21Who wrote the Aeneid?
Virgil
Virgil worked on the Aeneid from 29 BC until his death in 19 BC and asked that the unfinished poem be burned; Augustus overruled his executors and had it published.
Q 22How many books does the Aeneid have?
12
12 books: the opening half, Aeneas's wanderings, echoes the Odyssey, and the second half, the war in Italy, echoes the Iliad.
Q 23What are the opening words of the Aeneid?
Arma virumque cano
Arma virumque cano — 'Of arms and the man I sing' — opens the Aeneid, announcing war and a hero in three words.
Q 24Whom does Aeneas carry out of burning Troy on his shoulders?
Q 14Which privilege did Vestal Virgins enjoy that ordinary Roman women did not?
Owning property without a male guardian
Owning property without a male guardian: a Vestal was freed from her father's authority and could make a will, besides reserved seats at the games and travel by carriage in the city.
Q 15The Lares were guardian gods of the household. Where were they honoured?
At a lararium shrine at home
They were shown as two lively dancing youths and their statues came to the table at meals; the Penates guarded the storeroom.
Q 16Which god's stone refused to be moved when the Temple of Jupiter was built on the Capitoline?
Terminus
Terminus, god of boundary stones, refused to yield his place to Jupiter, so his stone was enclosed inside the new temple; his feast, the Terminalia, fell on 23 February.
Q 17On what date was the Saturnalia originally held?
17 December
17 December was the original single day; by the late Republic the Saturnalia stretched to 23 December, with gambling allowed, masters serving slaves and a mock 'King of the Saturnalia'.
Q 18What did Roman citizens, normally bare-headed, wear during the Saturnalia?
A freedman's felt cap
A freedman's felt cap, the pileus, went on every head during the Saturnalia as a sign of the holiday's licence; Catullus called the festival 'the best of days'.
Q 19At the Lupercalia on 15 February, what did the Luperci priests do after sacrificing goats and a dog?
Ran near-naked whipping women with thongs
Ran near-naked whipping women with thongs cut from the sacrificed goats' skins; women put themselves in the way on purpose, believing a blow brought fertility and easy childbirth.
Q 20Which famous refusal happened at the Lupercalia of 44 BC?
Julius Caesar declined a crown offered by Mark Antony
Julius Caesar declined a crown offered by Mark Antony, who was running as one of the Luperci; the crowd cheered each refusal, and a month later Caesar was assassinated.
His father Anchises
His father Anchises, lame and clutching the household gods, rides on Aeneas's shoulders while young Ascanius holds his hand; Creusa, following behind, is lost in the escape.
Q 25How does Dido, queen of Carthage, die in the Aeneid?
Stabs herself on a pyre
Stabs herself on a pyre with Aeneas's own sword, her dying curse of eternal hatred between Carthage and the Trojans' descendants foreshadowing Rome's later wars with Carthage.
Q 26According to legend, how did Dido acquire the land for Carthage?
By cutting an oxhide into strips to encircle a hill
By cutting an oxhide into strips to encircle a hill: offered as much land as a hide would cover, Dido ringed the hill later called Byrsa, 'hide', after fleeing Tyre where her brother had murdered her husband.
Q 27Who guides Aeneas through the underworld in Book 6 of the Aeneid?
The Cumaean Sibyl
The Cumaean Sibyl, Apollo's prophetess at Cumae, leads Aeneas down through the cave by Lake Avernus with the golden bough as his passport to the dead.
Q 28How does the Aeneid end?
Aeneas kills Turnus
Aeneas kills Turnus in the final lines: he hesitates at Turnus's plea for mercy, then sees the belt of his dead friend Pallas and strikes — the poem stops there.
Q 29What did King Tarquinius end up with after an old woman kept burning the prophecy volumes he refused?
Three, at the full price
Three, at the full price she had asked for all nine: the Sibylline Books were then kept in the Capitoline temple of Jupiter and consulted in crises by a college of fifteen priests.
Q 30Which Roman general finally destroyed the Sibylline Books in the early 5th century AD?
Stilicho
Stilicho, the general who ran the western empire for Honorius, had the Sibylline Books burned around 405; they had already been lost once in the Capitoline fire of 83 BC and reassembled from oracles gathered elsewhere.