Quiz Notes
On this page, I’ll be posting notes on each of the quizzes that we have. These quiz notes are not meant to be the “right answers” so much as information relevant to the arguments you might make in response to these questions.
PDFs:You can also find the Quiz Notes in PDF form on the Print/PDF page.
1. According to Pomeroy, Athena, the Greek goddess of war and wisdom, is “the most complex of the goddesses” because:
a. She has a complicated love life
b. She works all day and parties all night
c. She possesses both masculine and feminine qualities(true)
d. She has seven uturuses
The text draws attention how she’s presented as a “masculine woman”: female in appearance and in some aspects (olive fertility, handicrafts), but associated with traditionally “male” elements (warrior goddess, protector of the citadel, depicted with armor and weapons, patroness of particular warriors; goddess of industry and manufacture (but also spinning and weaving); also wisdom, later appropriated by Greek men as a male attribute). Disguising herself as a man is also unusual. She’s a virgin, born of man, not woman, and identifies the father as the true parent. Adding to her complexity is the fact that more stories and plays have survived depicting her, placing her in many diverse contexts.
2. A double standard seen in stories about the gods’ and goddesses’ relationships is:
a. Goddesses are expected to sleep only with other gods, but gods can sleep with whoever(true)
b. Goddesses can sleep with women but gods can never sleep with men
c. Gods can give fruit baskets and other gifts to their lovers, but goddesses can’t
d. Cursing your lover can only be done on Sundays
Pomeroy notes a double standard wherein goddesses are expected to have sex with individuals close to them in rank—male gods or demigods/heroes—but gods fornicate with all sorts. Gods’ relations with mortals (mostly Zeus and Apollo) tend to result in suffering, revealing the vulnerability of the women and the male gods’ tendency to exploitation.
3. The “virginal” Olympian goddesses (that is, those who are unmarried and nonmonogamous) include all of the following EXCEPT:
a. Athena
b. Artemis
c. Hestia
d. Hera(not true)
Athena, Artemis, and Hestia were all seen as “virginal”—i.e., they were not married or in a monogamous relationship. Hera, the goddess of marriage, had a husband, Zeus.
4. Mother goddesses in various cultures make a connection between female fertility and
a. architecture
b. agriculture(true)
c. archeology
d. astrophysics
Mother goddesses like Gaia or Ge represented a connection between the earth, fertility, and agriculture—that food is born of the fertile mother earth.
5. The pre-Olympian god Cronus is known for all of the following EXCEPT:
a. Castrating his father with a sickle
b. Swallowing his own children
c. Being defeated by Zeus with the help of his wife Rhea
d. Bathing weekly in pomegranate juice(not true)
The Titan Cronus was indeed known for castrating his father with a sickle, swallowing his own children to defy a prophecy his son would surpass him, and being defeated by Zeus with the help of his wife Rhea.
1. In heroic Greek society, marriage patterns between powerful families included
a. matrilocal marriage (a roving warrior marries a princess and settles in her kingdom)
b. patrilocal marriage (a suitor brings a bride back to his lands and family)
c. all mature women being expected to marry in order to ensure the city’s future defense
d. all of the above (true)
In the patrilocal pattern, a suitor brings back a bride to his own house, and this bridges the families of the husband and the bride’s father. Variant: Marriage by capture (e.g., Briseis). In the matrilocal pattern, a roving warrior marries a princess and settles down in her kingdom. Variant: Marriage by contest, in which the kingdom is a prize for the right suitor. Either way, marriage was expected of both genders in this warrior society, in order to produce future warriors.
2. The queen who, enraged by her husband sacrificing their daughter, cast him aside and married his cousin instead was
a. Iphigenia
b. Helen
c. Clytaemnestra(true)
d. Mary Tudor
When Agamemnon sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to the gods, Clytaemnestra was incensed. After Agamemnon left for the Trojan War, leaving a herald to watch over his wife, Clytaemnestra repudiated her marriage to Agamemnon and married his cousin, Aegisthus.
3. In Greek art, the exclusively female Amazons were often depicted as
a. fighting against centaurs, who were originally thought of as exclusively male(true)
b. ugly, representing their unfeminine nature
c. having a secret king
d. makers and sellers of books
There are a number of depictions of Amazons fighting centaurs, contrasting the centaurs’ masculine qualities (violent and lusty) with those of the Amazon women (strong but chaste).
4. Women were a larger proportion of which group in heroic Greek society?
a. Landholders
b. Slaves(true)
c. Actors
d. Stonemasons
Ready access to slave women resulted in part from the practice, when taking a city, of ransoming or killing the landholding men but enslaving the women of that class.
5. When Nausicaa meets Odysseus, she does all of the following EXCEPT:
a. Accompanies him boldly into town and into her father’s presence(not true)
b. Admires his beauty once he’s had a bath
c. Chastises her handmaidens for running away from him
d. Tells him he should ignore her father and try to win over her mother instead
Nausicaa cannot accompany Odysseus into the city, as she knows that doing so will affect her reputation as a maiden and future wife among the men and women of the town.
Optional Extra Credit
EC. According to Pomeroy, why might the matrilocal pattern of marriage be better for the bride?
Though the bride seldom had the choice of husbands in either pattern, the matrilocal scenario allowed the bride to remain within her support system of friends and family members.