Q 01/05

The discus was part of which ancient Greek multi-event competition, dated to at least 708 BC?

A) The tetrathlon

B) The decathlon

C) The heptathlon

D) The pentathlon

Answer · why

D) The pentathlon

It remains part of the modern decathlon, though it is not in the modern pentathlon.

Q 02/05

Which sculptor made the famous fifth-century-BC statue of a discus thrower, the Discobolus?

A) Phidias

B) Praxiteles

C) Myron

D) Polykleitos

Answer · why

C) Myron

Myron's original bronze is lost, so his thrower is known only through copies the Romans made centuries later, such as the marble one dug up in Rome in...

Q 03/05

Which dictator bought the Palombara Discobolus, a prized Roman copy of the ancient discus thrower, in 1938?

A) Benito Mussolini

B) Adolf Hitler

C) Francisco Franco

D) Joseph Stalin

Answer · why

B) Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler paid five million lire after Italy's foreign minister overrode objections to the sale, and the statue did not go back to Rome until 1948.

Q 04/05

The Townley Discobolus, excavated at Hadrian's Villa in 1790, is now held where?

A) The Louvre

B) The British Museum

C) The Vatican Museums

D) The Glyptothek

Answer · why

B) The British Museum

The British Museum bought it with the rest of Charles Townley's marbles in 1805; its head had been restored the wrong way, yet Townley insisted his wa...

Q 05/05

Christian Georg Kohlrausch, who revived discus throwing as a sport in Germany around 1880, did which job?

A) Museum archaeologist

B) Gymnastics teacher

C) Army drill sergeant

D) Marble sculptor

Answer · why

B) Gymnastics teacher

Gymnastics teacher: he revived the ancient event with his own pupils at a school in Magdeburg, working out with them by experiment how a discus could ...