Q 01/05

Which monster guarded the road to Thebes and devoured every traveller who failed to solve her riddle?

A) The Chimera

B) The Sphinx

C) The Hydra

D) The Minotaur

Answer · why

B) The Sphinx

The Sphinx was a foreigner in Greek eyes: late lore had her sent from far-off Aethiopia, and she strangled anyone who failed her test.

Q 02/05

Sigmund Freud named a famous psychological complex after which mythical king of Thebes?

A) Agamemnon

B) Theseus

C) Odysseus

D) Oedipus

Answer · why

D) Oedipus

Oedipus unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, and Freud used the legend to explain the origin of certain childhood neuroses.

Q 03/05

Which conqueror razed Thebes to the ground in 335 BC after the city rose in revolt against him?

A) Alexander the Great

B) Julius Caesar

C) Pyrrhus of Epirus

D) Mithridates of Pontus

Answer · why

A) Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great destroyed the city and had its people sold into slavery, a fate that frightened Athens into submission.

Q 04/05

The elite 300-man corps of ancient Thebes was said to be made up of 150 pairs of what?

A) Twin brothers

B) Fathers and sons

C) Male lovers

D) Freed slaves

Answer · why

C) Male lovers

Male lovers filled the ranks, and Plutarch linked the corps to vows that lover and beloved exchanged at the Theban shrine of the hero Iolaus.

Q 05/05

Homer called the Greek Thebes "Seven-Gated" to tell it apart from a "Hundred-Gated" Thebes in which land?

A) Syria

B) Egypt

C) Libya

D) Crete

Answer · why

B) Egypt

Egypt had a Thebes of its own, which the Iliad calls Hundred-Gated, while the Greek city took its epithet from the gates in its legendary wall.