Q 01/05

In most ancient biographies, Homer is depicted as having what condition?

A) A limp

B) Deafness

C) Blindness

D) Leprosy

Answer · why

C) Blindness

The Byzantine Suda even traced his ancestry to a Muse, Apollo or Orpheus.

Q 02/05

The most widespread ancient tradition made Homer a bard from which region of the Anatolian coast and nearby islands?

A) Thrace

B) Ionia

C) Arcadia

D) Boeotia

Answer · why

B) Ionia

Modern scholars regard all such accounts as legendary.

Q 03/05

Pindar is credited with saying Homer came from Smyrna and which island?

A) Lesbos

B) Crete

C) Rhodes

D) Chios

Answer · why

D) Chios

Other writers claimed Cyme, Argos, Pylos and Athens as his birthplace.

Q 04/05

Most ancient accounts place Homer's death on which small Cycladic island?

A) Naxos

B) Ios

C) Paros

D) Delos

Answer · why

B) Ios

Two epigrams in the Greek Anthology by Alcaeus of Messene commemorate his burial there.

Q 05/05

Legend says Homer died after failing to solve a riddle posed by whom?

A) A shepherd on a hillside

B) A rival poet

C) Boys fishing on the shore

D) A priestess of Apollo

Answer · why

C) Boys fishing on the shore

The riddle was about lice: what they caught they left, and what they did not catch they carried.