Greek Mythology Quiz
Words like panic, echo and tantalise began as characters in Greek myths.
A Greek mythology quiz with answers about gods, heroes and monsters, and about the details that later retellings changed. It treats the myths as stories and looks at what they left behind in our languages.
Did you know?
- The sportswear company Nike is named after the Greek goddess of victory, who was shown with wings. The name was suggested in 1971 by one of the firm's first employees, who said it came to him in a dream the night before the shoe boxes had to be printed.
- The continent of Europe takes its name from a myth. Europa was a princess from the eastern Mediterranean who was carried across the sea to Crete by Zeus, disguised as a white bull. The scene appears on Greek coins, including a modern two-euro piece.
- The staff with two snakes and wings, often used as a medical sign, belonged to Hermes, the messenger god and patron of traders. The true symbol of medicine is the rod of Asclepius, the god of healing, which has a single snake and no wings.
Where the Greek myths come from
The Greek myths were never a single book. They were told aloud for centuries before anyone wrote them down, and every region had its own versions. The oldest surviving sources are the long poems attributed to Homer and the works of Hesiod, composed around 700 BC. Later playwrights and poets felt free to change the stories, which is why the same hero can have several different parents, adventures or deaths.
Gods with human faults
The twelve main gods were imagined as a quarrelsome family living on Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece. They were immortal and powerful but also jealous, vain and easily offended. The stories used them to explain the world: thunder, the seasons, the rising of the sun, why spiders spin webs. Beneath the Olympians were countless lesser spirits of rivers, trees, winds and the sea.
Heroes and monsters
Heroes stood between gods and ordinary people. Most had one divine parent and were sent on tasks that seemed impossible, usually involving a monster: a many-headed water snake, a woman whose gaze turned people to stone, a bull-headed man at the centre of a maze. The stories rarely end happily. Pride, called hubris, is punished again and again, and even the greatest heroes pay for their mistakes.
A legacy in words and stars
The Romans adopted the Greek gods under Latin names, and those names were later given to the planets. Many constellations are characters from the myths, placed in the sky as a reward or a warning. Everyday language is full of them too: a weak point is an Achilles heel, a long journey is an odyssey, and someone who turns everything into money has the Midas touch.