Quiz 040

Episode 40 Quiz

Welcome to the quiz for Episode 40: Hellenism and the Birth of the Self. See what you can recall about the Hellenistic period and its religious evolutions by clicking “START” below!

1 / 10

In December of 335, Alexander jeopardized the stability of Macedonian control over mainland Greece. How did this happen?

Alexander leveled Thebes, butchered its male population and sold the rest of its citizens into slavery.

He had the Pythia of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi executed.

He openly colluded with Darius III in order to quell insurrections throughout the Lower Balkans.

He declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt, thus demonstrating the same infatuation with a foreign culture that would later do in Mark Anthony.

Alexander sought Carthaginian help in controlling the Peloponnese, catalyzing an unlikely alliance between Athens and Sparta.

2 / 10

In a discussion of Aristotle’s research at Lesbos in the 320s BCE, the close of Episode 40 proposes that:

Aristotle went to Lesbos to study nature as an emanation of the Platonic demiurge.

Hellenistic cult religions' focus on personal relationships with deities and posthumous existence ultimately caused an attrition in scientific curiosity that would persist through the Middle Ages.

Aristotle himself may have been enslaved during a conflict between Cassander and Antigonus.

Aristotelian philosophy shows pervasive influences of the Cult of Cybele, a feature that Catholic theologians who studied him later on never seemed to notice.

Aristotle became a part of the Orphic cult at the end of his long career.

3 / 10

The Seleucid emperor Antiochus IV imposed the worship of Dionysus on Jerusalem and the Second Temple of Jerusalem in the 160s BCE, an imposition which may have affected Jewish temple liturgy. Which book(s) of the Bible focus on the story of the Seleucid conflict with Jerusalem around this period?

Lamentations

Thessalonians

Esdras

Chronicles

Maccabees

4 / 10

More than a desire for asserting Greek culture against the Persian regime to the east, Alexander marched into Turkey in 334 BCE because:

He was trying to get Persia to fight the Illyrians.

He sought personal revenge on Darius III for killing his father.

He sought a fitting bride.

He was fleeing the Theban Sacred Band.

He needed money.

5 / 10

This ancient Persian religion, practiced by millions in the Hellenistic world, was part of the religious climate that later produced Christianity.

Sabianism

Zoroastrianism

Vedism

Kumarbism

Mandeism

6 / 10

Out of the choices below, the most consistent source of profit for Alexander and the rulers who succeeded him was:

Clearing out pirate camps for local kings.

Guarding trade routes.

Contracted wilderness expeditions.

Contracting soldiers to building projects in between battles.

Human trafficking.

7 / 10

The flood of silver into the Eurasian economy during the late 300s and 200s BCE enabled:

An unprecedented proliferation of mercenary armies.

The building of the Second Temple of Jerusalem.

The first historical appearance of slavery.

A recrudescence of lavish Sumerian religious practices.

The building of Plato's Academy north of Athens.

8 / 10

Life in the Hellenistic countryside was often nasty, brutish, and short, as Hellenistic peasants were the prey of foreign armies and overzealous tax collectors alike. In the 3rd-century BCE poet Theocritus’ work, the countryside is depicted as:

A cause for political reform.

Humorously out of touch.

Predominantly blasphemous.

Dreadful and enervating.

Idyllic and innocent.

9 / 10

Which of the following was not an ideology in circulation during the Hellenistic period

Arianism

The worship of Cybele

Dionysian worship

Pythagoreanism

The Isis cult

10 / 10

Epicureanism and Stoicism furnished the Hellenistic aristocracy with a sense that:

It was important to hold true to the old ways of life and geographical affiliations of their progenitors.

It was ethically imperative to stop the violence and enslavement caused by the greed of the successor kings.

The gods did not exist.

The seeming tumult of the Hellenistic period was a necessary series of events that would lead to a period of peace and prosperity for all classes.

The pursuit of different forms of virtue, and insulating oneself from worldly strife, were more important than an engaged civic life.

Your score is