Q 01/05

Which US politician quoted Aeschylus's Agamemnon when telling a crowd that Martin Luther King Jr. was dead?

A) Robert F. Kennedy

B) George McGovern

C) Hubert Humphrey

D) Nelson Rockefeller

Answer · why

A) Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy called Aeschylus his favourite poet in that 1968 speech, and the passage he recited was later inscribed at his own grave.

Q 02/05

Which showbusiness custom is traced to a scene in Agamemnon where a returning king fears offending the gods?

A) The standing ovation

B) The curtain call

C) The red carpet

D) The opening-night toast

Answer · why

C) The red carpet

The red carpet has its earliest known literary mention here: the queen lays a red path to the palace door, and her husband worries that only gods shou...

Q 03/05

According to an ancient legend, the playwright Aeschylus was killed when an eagle dropped which animal on his head?

A) A hedgehog

B) A tortoise

C) A lamb

D) A large fish

Answer · why

B) A tortoise

A tortoise, the story goes, was dropped by a bird that mistook his head for a rock to crack the shell on. The tale may come from a misreading of the c...

Q 04/05

Which Harry Potter novel opens with two epigraphs, one of them taken from Aeschylus's The Libation Bearers?

A) Goblet of Fire

B) Deathly Hallows

C) Half-Blood Prince

D) Order of the Phoenix

Answer · why

B) Deathly Hallows

Deathly Hallows pairs the pagan passage with a Christian one by the Quaker William Penn, and J. K. Rowling said she had picked the two out years ahead...

Q 05/05

Aeschylus, author of the Oresteia, fought the invading Persians in which famous battle of 490 BC?

A) Thermopylae

B) Plataea

C) Mycale

D) Marathon

Answer · why

D) Marathon

Marathon cost Aeschylus his brother Cynegeirus, who was killed trying to stop a Persian ship from leaving the shore.