Deck 4: The Hellenistic World

Question 1

The best example of Hellenistic "New Comedy" was which Athenian playwright?

A)Aristophanes
B)Menander
C)Euripides

Answer 1

Menander

Question 2

Which of the following statements is UNTRUE concerning Hellenistic culture?

A)It was a great period of literature, especially in drama, history, and biography.
B)Artists remained social outcasts and were rarely patronized by the rich.
C)Sculptors and architects could very easily find work in the new Hellenistic cities.

Answer 2

Artists remained social outcasts and were rarely patronized by the rich.

Question 3

Which of the following statements best describes Hellenistic cities?

A)They were small and governed by a military elite.
B)They served as important centers of administration, most of which were dominated by Greeks and Greek culture.
C)Their inhabitants spoke only their native tongue.

Answer 3

They served as important centers of administration, most of which were dominated by Greeks and Greek culture.

Question 4

Among the most ill-treated of Hellenistic slaves were which of the following groups?

A)Those used in domestic service
B)Those who worked in Egyptian gold mines
C)Those who worked on the desert irrigation projects in Syria

Question 5

The greatest trade product in the Hellenistic world was which of the following?

A)Gold
B)Timber
C)Grain

Question 6

Which of the following Hellenistic kingdoms was the largest and controlled much of the old Persian Empire?

A)Antigonid
B)Ptolemaic
C)Seleucid

Question 7

What was the greatest difference between education during the Hellenistic period and education during the classical period?

A)Rather than being a private enterprise, Hellenistic education became a duty of cities and their governments.
B)Poor and middle-class Greeks alike were allowed to go to Hellenistic schools.
C)The core curriculum became music and art rather than history, rhetoric, and philosophy.

Question 8

How are the scientific foundations of medicine made by Alexandrian physicians best described?

A)They continued uninterrupted through Roman times.
B)They were made possible through the use of dissection and vivisection.
C)They included, most importantly, a new understanding of the circulation of blood through the body.

Question 9

Which of the following was NOT a major source of slaves in the Hellenistic world?

A)Citizens who could not pay their debts were sold into slavery.
B)Children were sold into slavery by their parents.
C)Prisoners of war became slaves of their captors.

Question 10

Which of the following was NOT one of Philip II's military reforms?

A)He abandoned the phalanx formation as too ineffective and inefficient.
B)He made use of cavalry contingents in breaking the opposing line of battle.
C)His warriors used a longer thrusting spear, double that of the Greek hoplite.

Question 11

The Hellenistic states in the centuries after Alexander the Great are best described how?

A)They became despotic monarchies.
B)They rarely fought amongst themselves.
C)They included large numbers of non-Greeks in leadership positions.

Question 12

Which Greek general took Egypt after Alexander's death and converted it into the longest lasting Hellenistic kingdom?

A)Ptolemy
B)Brassius
C)Seleucis

Question 13

By the first century B.C.E., which of the following was the largest city in the Mediterranean?

A)Alexandria
B)Rome
C)Athens

Question 14

The Antigonid Kingdom was located where?

A)Palestine
B)Egypt
C)Macedonia

Question 15

Who was the Greek god of healing, thought responsible for miraculous cures in the Hellenistic period?

A)Hippocrates
B)Asclepius
C)Herophilus

Question 16

Which of the following statements concerning the emergence of the Macedonians is CORRECT?

A)The early Macedonians were greatly admired by the Greeks for their cultural achievements.
B)The Macedonians were probably not Greek.
C)The Macedonians organized themselves in city-states like their southern Greek neighbors.

Question 17

Hellenistic education as embodied in the gymnasium is best described how?

A)It was opposed by Hellenistic rulers who saw education as a threat to their power.
B)It closely and widely followed classical Greek ideas about proper education.
C)It made no provision for physical education.

Question 18

Improvements in trade and commerce in the Hellenistic world were greatly aided by all EXCEPT which of the following?

A)Improvements in harbors
B)Revolutionary innovations in agriculture
C)A money economy

Question 19

Which Indian ruler sent Buddhist missionaries to Greek rulers?

A)Akbar
B)Asoka
C)Chandragupta

Question 20

The economic life of the Hellenistic world was characterized by which of the following?

A)Tremendous innovations in labor-saving machinery, as with the "Archimedean screw"
B)A significant shift in industry and manufacturing from Greece to the East
C)Little variety in products used for trading

Question 21

The Alexandrian scholar Euclid's most famous achievement was which of the following?

A)Systematizing the study of geometry
B)Calculating the earth's circumference
C)Formulating and synthesizing the predominant elements in military science

Question 22

Why did Alexander's empire fragment upon his death?

Question 23

How did Greek religion change during the Hellenistic period?

A)It changed to various kinds of emperor worship.
B)Fertility gods took the place of the classical Greek gods.
C)The Greeks became very receptive to the eastern religious mystery cults.

Question 24

How did Alexander take control of Macedonia after Philip II's death?

Question 25

The mystery cults and religions of the Hellenistic world are best described how?

A)They were completely foreign and thus unacceptable to the Greeks.
B)They helped pave the way for the success of Christianity.
C)They never achieved widespread popularity due to their inability to fulfill people's spiritual needs.

Question 26

How did Greeks react to Philip II's conquests?

Question 27

In his Philippics, Demosthenes did which of the following?

A)He portrayed Philip II as a looming threat to Greek freedom.
B)He foresaw a revival of Athenian culture under the leadership of Philip II.
C)He glorified the Macedonian armies as the saviors of Greece.

Question 28

The most famous scientist of his era, Archimedes of Syracuse, was responsible for all of the following EXCEPT which?

A)Uniting the disciplines of science and philosophy
B)Designing military devices to thwart siege attackers
C)Creating the science of hydrostatics

Question 29

How did the results of the Peloponnesian War affect Philip II's campaigns?

Question 30

The widespread popularity of Stoicism and Epicureanism had what effect?

A)They demonstrated the renewed association of the happiness of individuals with the life of the polis.
B)They coincided with a growth of traditional Greek religious practices.
C)They suggested a new openness to thoughts of universality in the cosmopolitan Hellenistic states.

Question 31

Stoicism is best described as which of the following?

A)It was formed by Epicurus.
B)It later became very popular with the Celts and Germans.
C)It maintained that people could gain inner peace by seeking virtue and living according to nature.

Question 32

What dos the surviving works of the Greek historian Polybius demonstrate?

A)His following of Thucydides in seeking rational motives for historical events
B)His focus on the growth of the Greek city-states from their origins to their collapse
C)He continued failure of ancient historians to find accurate, firsthand sources

Question 33

All of these statements about the cult of Isis are true EXCEPT which one?

A)It originated in the eastern Persian empire, an outgrowth of Zoroastrianism.
B)It was one of the most popular of the mystery religions.
C)She was associated with the giver of laws and letters to humankind.

Question 34

Who maintained that the only things that exist are atoms moving through the void?

A)Isocrates
B)Plato
C)Epicurus

Question 35

Who was credited with having been the first to separate medicine from philosophy?

A)Hippocrates
B)Euclid
C)Aristotle

Question 36

At the Battle of Chaeronea (338 B.C.E.), Philip II experienced which of the following fates?

A)He was killed, leaving Alexander in control of Greece.
B)He defeated the Greek poleis, ending their independence.
C)He unified Macedon for the first time in its history.

Question 37

Which of the following is true of Jewish settlements in the Hellenistic period?

A)Jews used pagan temples as their places of worship.
B)Jews were numerous in cities in Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria.
C)Jews were always denied political rights and treated more harshly than other resident aliens.

Question 38

How did Alexander govern his empire?

Question 39

What was the primary difference between the philosophy of the Greek classical period and philosophy during the Hellenistic period?

A)Hellenistic philosophy dealt more with human happiness disassociated from the life of the polis.
B)Hellenistic philosophy was more political than classical philosophy.
C)Classical philosophy dealt primarily with ethics and human behavior.

Question 40

Why did Alexander win such quick, decisive victories?

Question 41

What effects did political fragmentation have on the relations between Hellenistic successor kingdoms?

Question 42

How did the Peloponnesian Wars make the rise of Macedonia possible?

Question 43

What was the importance of cities in the Hellenistic world?

Question 44

What contributions did Hippocrates and Herophilus make to our knowledge of the human body?

Question 45

Describe Greek approaches to religion in the Hellenistic world.

Question 46

How did Alexander's governance follow Greek principles? How did it differ? Why?

Question 47

How did men's and women's lives differ in the Hellenistic world?

Question 48

Why did Alexandria become a cultural capital of the Hellenistic world?

Question 49

How was the Hellenistic world "cosmopolitan"?

Question 50

Describe the rise and fall of the Seleucid Kingdom.

Question 51

Describe Epicurus's key ideas.

Question 52

Describe Hellenistic practices of education.

Question 53

Describe the rise and fall of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.

Question 54

Describe the rise and fall of the Antigonid Kingdom.

Question 55

How were mystery religions different to Greek public religion?

Question 56

To what was Alexander's military success against the Persians in part attributable?

A)The chronic weakness of the Persian Empire
B)Numerically superior force
C)The role of Alexander's cavalry as a strike force

Question 57

To what extent did the Greek language unify the Hellenistic world?

Question 58

To what extent is it appropriate to refer to the creation of a "Hellenistic world" after Alexander's death?

Question 59

What contributions did Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, and Euclid make to our knowledge of the world?

Question 60

Which of the following occurred at the Battle of Gaugamela?

A)Alexander's men heavily outnumbered the Persian forces.
B)Alexander broke through the center of the Persian line with his heavy cavalry, followed by the infantry.
C)The Persians were unable to use their war chariots because the narrow battlefield limited their maneuverability.

Question 61

Describe the similarities and differences between Greek religion, mystery religions, and Judaism.

Question 62

Describe the differences between Homo erectus and Homo habilis.

Question 63

How did Hellenistic kingdoms' focus on political stability affect economic, social, and cultural life in these kingdoms?

Question 64

The Hellenistic era is best described by which development?

A)The extension and imitation of Greek culture throughout the ancient Near East
B)The absence of autocratic power for nearly three centuries
C)The disappearance of a Greek cultural legacy until Roman times

Question 65

Was the Hellenistic world more Greek, Persian, or Egyptian? Why?

Question 66

Describe the differences between Hellenistic Kingdom's responses to various religions in the Hellenistic world.

Question 67

What role did the city of Alexandria itself have in the development of Hellenistic thought about the world, the body, or life itself?

Question 68

Alexander the Great's troops rebelled when he made the decision to invade which country?

A)Arabia
B)Pergamum
C)India

Question 69

What literary and intellectual traditions were imported from the Greek world into the Hellenistic world? What effect did they have on our knowledge of that world?

Question 70

Alexander the Great's conquests in Asia occurred despite which of the following?

A)His eventual difficulties in convincing his troops to fight so far from home
B)The Persian king Darius III's refusal to make any peace settlements and resort to guerilla warfare
C)The lack of a strong cavalry and inability to capture Egypt

Question 71

How were the major Hellenistic kingdoms similar? In what ways were they different?

Question 72

On what points do Epicurus and Zeno agree? On what points do they differ?

Question 73

Scholarship on the legacy of Alexander the Great has suggested he sought to do what?

A)Emulate the Homeric warrior-hero Achilles.
B)Create a new ruling class in which only Greeks would attain positions of political authority.
C)Refuse divine status, despite requests by his subjects to vote him a living god.