Q 01/05

What were the Ottomans storing in the Parthenon when a besieging army's shell wrecked it in 1687?

A) Lamp oil

B) Gunpowder

C) Grain

D) Firewood

Answer · why

B) Gunpowder

Gunpowder turned one mortar hit into an explosion that blew out the building's centre; until then it had stood essentially intact for more than two th...

Q 02/05

The Parthenon was finished on the eve of which war?

A) Persian Wars

B) Lamian War

C) Peloponnesian War

D) Corinthian War

Answer · why

C) Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War broke out in 431 BC, with the temple's last sculptures barely finished, and after 27 years of it Athens surrendered to Sparta.

Q 03/05

Which Athenian statesman initiated the building programme that produced the Parthenon?

A) Solon

B) Themistocles

C) Pericles

D) Cleisthenes

Answer · why

C) Pericles

Pericles faced complaints about the cost; Plutarch says he offered to pay himself and put his own name on the buildings, and the assembly told him to ...

Q 04/05

The Parthenon's architects were Callicrates and which other man?

A) Hippodamus

B) Ictinus

C) Polykleitos

D) Mnesicles

Answer · why

B) Ictinus

Ictinus wrote a book about the temple with a man named Carpion; the Roman architect Vitruvius lists it, but no copy survives.

Q 05/05

Which sculptor supervised the Parthenon's construction and its sculptural decoration?

A) Myron

B) Praxiteles

C) Phidias

D) Lysippos

Answer · why

C) Phidias

Phidias also made the huge statue of Athena inside; Plutarch says rivals of his patron later had him prosecuted, claiming he had stolen precious mater...