Episode 88 Quiz

Welcome to the quiz for Episode 88: Ancient Greek Sci-fi. See what you remember Lucian of Samosata and his novel A True Story by clicking “START” below!

1 / 15

In which century did fluency in Classical Greek begin to reemerge in Europe, largely through the efforts of scholar Manuel Chrysoloras?

2 / 15

Herodotus and Ctesias, the two historians who were Lucian’s central satirical targets in A True Story, were at work during roughly which century?

3 / 15

Lucian records seeing this fourth-century Greek ethnographer and geographer in the Island of the Cursed – a Greek version of hell.

4 / 15

In looking at Lucian’s use of words like hippomyrmekes, kolokynthopeiratai and karyonautai, we learned that one of his comedic tools was:

5 / 15

Lucian describes a mythological teller of tall tales in the preface to A True History. The fabricator of falsehoods he mentions is:

6 / 15

Rhadamanthus, in A True Story, is a figure whom Lucian meets on the Isle of the Blessed. What is Rhadamanthus’ job?

7 / 15

Lucian and his seafaring companions, at one point in A True Story, set a fire in order to escape:

8 / 15

In a passage in which Aristotle considers the ancient Greek historian Ctesias’ claims about elephant semen, Aristotle comes to the conclusion that Ctesias is:

9 / 15

On the beautiful and peaceful Island of the Blessed, Lucian meets which beloved Greek literary figure?

10 / 15

During his time there, Lucian discovers that on the moon, there are no:

11 / 15

This ancient historian claimed that giant ants lived in India and winged snakes inhabited the Arabian peninsula.

12 / 15

The final sustained episode in Lucian’s A True Story is a visit to the island of the Asslegs. The Asslegs are:

13 / 15

What does Lucian bring to Calypso in A True History?

14 / 15

The war between the moon and sun kingdoms in A True Story ends with:

15 / 15

Lucian’s novel A True History was likley written some time around:

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