Week 11: Hellenistic Poetry and STEM

Question 1

The title of the director of the Library of Alexandria was ___________

Answer 1

The Librarian

Question 2

Who was the first to write poems on astronomy and meteorology and scientific textbooks in verse?

Answer 2

Aratos

Question 3

Who wrote about poisons found in the wild and their antidotes?

Answer 3

Nikandros

Question 4

Who put his findings on the circumference of the earth into poetry?

Answer 4

Eratosthenes

Question 5

What did Apollodorus write?

Answer 5

• A history of the world in verse
• An encyclopedia of mythology is in prose

Question 6

True or False: In the Hellenistic era, rhyming is seen as lazy and stupid.

Answer 6

TRUE

Question 7

Instead of writing, what is praised in Hellenistic poetry?

Answer 7

Metrical Patterning

Question 8

Who wrote the “Alexandra”, about Cassandra’s prophecy of the fall of Troy?

Answer 8

Lycophron

Question 9

Which Hellenistic poet was known for his pederastic epigrams?

Answer 9

Strato

Question 10

Which Librarian wrote a gargantuan Homeric epic using only Homeric era diction just to anger his rival Callimachus?

Answer 10

Apollonius of Rhodes

Question 11

What was Apollonius of Rhodes’s great Homeric style masterpiece called?

Answer 11

Argonautica

Question 12

In what ways is Apollonius of Rhodes’s Homeric epic different from that of Homer?

Answer 12

• The hero Jason is immoral and unlikeable
• The narrative is loose
• Excessive Ekphrasis
• Aitia

Question 13

Define: Ekphrasis

Answer 13

When a writer pauses the narrative and takes several pages to describe in detail a work of art in verse

Question 14

Define: Aitia

Answer 14

Desire to know the reasons behind things (ex. why is this called that?)

Question 15

Define: Idylls

Answer 15

Happy, idealized and romanticized descriptions of places, notably Alexandria

Question 16

Who is credited with inventing pastoral poetry?

Answer 16

Theocritus of Syracuse

Question 17

What was Theocritus of Syracuse’s ideal landscape to write idylls about?

Answer 17

Arcadia

Question 18

Where did Theocritus of Syracuse get his characters from?

Answer 18

• From Athenian New Comedy

Question 19

Which mythical cannibalistic cyclops did Theocritus of Syracuse give humanity and compassion to in his poem?

Answer 19

Polyphemus

Question 20

Which erotic poet described the power of love in medical terms?

Answer 20

Sappho

Question 21

True or False: Hellenistic poetry typically has a twist ending

Answer 21

TRUE

Question 22

Who worked at the Library of Alexandra composing Library catalogues in verse?

Answer 22

Callimachus

Question 23

Who stated that “literature is the only thing that death cannot take away”?

Answer 23

Callimachus

Question 24

Who was famous for composing fake epitaphs?

Answer 24

Callimachus

Question 25

Which modern era writer is considered to be, in many ways, the last true Hellenistic poet?

Answer 25

Constantine Cavafy

Question 26

Who said that in owing to Alexander and the Romans, all regions have become approachable by sea or land?

Answer 26

Polybios

Question 27

What did Eratosthenes discover?

Answer 27

The circumference of the earth

Question 28

Who proposed the heliocentric universe and diurnal rotation of earth?

Answer 28

Aristarchus

Question 29

Who detected a slow 26 000-year wobble in Earth’s axis?

Answer 29

Hipparchus

Question 30

Where does the word Planet come from?

Answer 30

Greek word Planete meaning wandering star

Question 31

Who wrote a taxonomy (family tree) of plants?

Answer 31

Thephrastus

Question 32

What pair discovered the anatomy of the human circulatory system?

Answer 32

Herophilus and Erasistratus

Question 33

Which geocentric geographer invented epicycles?

Answer 33

Claudius Ptolemy

Question 34

Who was the famous heliocentrist of the Hellenistic era?

Answer 34

Aristarchus

Question 35

Who famously mapped the starts and predicted the precession of the equinoxes?

Answer 35

Hipparchus

Question 36

Who pioneered the idea of balancing the four humors?

Answer 36

Hippocrates of Kos

Question 37

When King Seleukos's son was ill, and he called in Erasistratus to cure the boy, what did the physician say? What was the cure?

Answer 37

- Erasistratus told Seleukos to agree to implement whatever cure he deems fit, unconditionally - Seleukos agreed - Erasistratus noticed that the boy seemed more ill when Seleukos's young wife was in the room, and thus, Erasistratus told Seleukos to give his wife in marriage to his son and remarry

Question 38

True or False: Cartography was an eastern invention.

Answer 38

TRUE

Question 39

How did Eratosthenes measure the earth?

Answer 39

He put a pole up at Aelxandria and Syene, and compared the shadow they made

Question 40

True or False: Archimedes considered himself more of a mathematician than an inventor

Answer 40

TRUE

Question 41

What did Archimedes think of inventors?

Answer 41

That they were banausia, and thus, low class

Question 42

Explain the solution of Archimedes's Golden Crown:

Answer 42

- One day, Hieron II of Syracuse gets a golden crown, that he suspects is not pure gold - Archimedes, sitting in a full bathtub, notices that the same amount of water as his weight poured out - So, he puts a pure stick of gold of the same dimensions as the crown in a bucket, then the crown in the other, and the water poured out by each was NOT equal - The crown was thus a fake

Question 43

From where do we get the term "Eureka"?

Answer 43

- After solving the golden crown mystery, Archimedes ran around Syracuse naked yelling "Eurekai!" (I found it)

Question 44

What was the purpose of Archimedes's "The Sand Reckoner" problem (trying to estimate how many grains of sand could fit on earth)?

Answer 44

- To create a notation system for really big numbers

Question 45

Who was perhaps most famous for adoring large numbers?

Answer 45

Archimedes

Question 46

What does Myriad mean?

Answer 46

Ten thousand

Question 47

True or False: Archimedes regarded the business of engineering as an ignoble activity

Answer 47

TRUE

Question 48

True or False: Archimedes published his mechanical inventions.

Answer 48

FALSE

Question 49

What was the main argument from Hellenistic era elites against technological innovation?

Answer 49

- They believed that since they already had slave labor to perform these tasks, technology was unnecessary

Question 50

Who famously created the water clock?

Answer 50

Ctesibius

Question 51

Who created an early heat driven piston machine?

Answer 51

Ctesibius

Question 52

What strange minor Hellenistic invention caught on, unlike the others?

Answer 52

The watermill

Question 53

Who shockingly published copies of Lucretius despite strict heresy laws in his context?

Answer 53

- John Dee, court mathematician/astronomer/agent of Elizabeth Ist

Question 54

Who said, “The quality of the poetry supersedes the heresy” ?

Answer 54

John Dee