Greek mythology is everywhere, in blockbuster games, bestselling novels and superhero films. But how much do you know about the original stories?
Zeus, Athena, Hercules, the Trojan Horse... Greek mythology has inspired everything from God of War to Percy Jackson. This quiz goes back to the original stories.
Pick your level
Greek mythology has never really gone away. Percy Jackson brought the Olympians to a new generation. God of War gave Kratos a full pantheon to work through. Hades the game turned the Underworld into a bestseller. But behind all of it are the actual myths, and they are richer, stranger and more entertaining than the adaptations.
The normal quiz covers the gods and heroes everyone has met through those adaptations: Zeus and his brothers, Athena, Hermes, Aphrodite, Hercules and Odysseus. Hard mode goes back to the source texts, Homer, Hesiod and the Roman poet Ovid, and to the details the adaptations tend to skip. Five out of ten is a very respectable score.
English is full of Greek myth. People panic, suffer from narcissism, go on odysseys, find a mentor and tear an Achilles tendon. Each of those words has a story behind it, and a few of hard mode's questions start from one of them.
There was never an official Greek mythology. Homer, Hesiod, the Athenian playwrights and later Roman writers all told the same stories differently, and some of the most famous details turn up surprisingly late. The questions use the best-known version, and the explanations say so when there is another.
All ten easy level questions, with the answer and the reasoning behind it.
Correct answer: Horse
A horse, as white as the postcards suggest.
Correct answer: One
One, and Odysseus put it out to escape from Polyphemus's cave.
Correct answer: Icarus
Icarus, ignoring the advice of his father Daedalus.
Correct answer: A thunderbolt
A thunderbolt, forged for him by the Cyclopes.
Correct answer: Perseus
Perseus, using a polished shield to avoid looking straight at her.
Correct answer: A trident
A trident, three-pronged, with which he can raise storms and earthquakes.
Correct answer: Cerberus
Cerberus. Harry Potter's Fluffy owes him a good deal.
Correct answer: Music and light
Music and light, along with poetry, prophecy and healing. A busy god.
Correct answer: Helen
Helen of Sparta, taken to Troy by Paris. Hers is the face that launched a thousand ships.
Correct answer: Nike
Nike. The swoosh is said to evoke her wing.
Want to warm up before playing or double-check something? Open any question to reveal the correct answer and a short explanation.
Correct answer: Poseidon
Poseidon is the god of the sea, earthquakes and horses in Greek mythology. He is the brother of Zeus and Hades. His Roman equivalent is Neptune, and his attribute is the trident.
Correct answer: Athena
Athena is the goddess of wisdom, strategic warfare and the arts. She was born fully armed directly from Zeus's skull. Athens bears her name because she won a contest against Poseidon by offering the city an olive tree.
Correct answer: Hercules
Heracles (Hercules to the Romans) completed 12 labours to atone for a crime. These included slaying the Nemean Lion, capturing the Golden Hind, cleaning the Augean Stables and defeating the Lernaean Hydra.
Correct answer: Zeus
Zeus is the king of the Olympian gods and father to many gods and heroes. He rules from Mount Olympus wielding his main weapon, the thunderbolt. He overthrew his own father Cronus (a Titan) to claim the throne.
Correct answer: Hermes
Hermes is the messenger of the gods and the protector of travellers, merchants and thieves. He is recognisable by his winged sandals and caduceus. His Roman equivalent is Mercury.
Correct answer: Odysseus
Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin) came up with the cunning idea of the Trojan Horse. The Greeks built a giant wooden horse concealing soldiers inside. The Trojans brought it into the city, allowing the Greeks to take Troy from within.
Correct answer: Hades
Hades is the god of the Underworld and the dead. He rules the subterranean realm where souls of the departed go. His wife is Persephone. Contrary to popular belief, Hades is not a god of evil but simply the keeper of the dead.
Correct answer: Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the goddess of love, beauty and desire. According to mythology, she was born from the sea foam. Her Roman equivalent is Venus, and the planet Venus takes its name from this goddess.
Correct answer: Hephaestus
Hephaestus is the god of fire, the forge and craftsmen. He is the blacksmith of Olympus, forging the weapons and armour of the gods. He is often depicted as lame. His Roman equivalent is Vulcan.
Correct answer: Prometheus
Prometheus, who smuggled it out hidden in a fennel stalk. Zeus had him chained to a rock in the Caucasus, where an eagle ate his liver every day and it grew back every night, until Hercules finally set him free.
Stuck on one, or just curious how nasty it gets? Every hard mode question is here with its answer and the reasoning behind it.
Correct answer: Calliope
Calliope, traditionally ranked first among the Muses and the one epic poets called on. Clio is the Muse of history, Erato of love poetry and Thalia of comedy. All nine are daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory.
Correct answer: A large jar
A pithos, a large storage jar, in Hesiod. The "box" comes from the Renaissance scholar Erasmus, who rendered the word as pyxis, a small box, and the mistake stuck. Only Hope stayed inside when she closed the lid.
Correct answer: By unpicking a burial shroud every night
She promised to choose a husband once she finished weaving a shroud for her father-in-law Laertes, then unpicked each day's work by night. The trick held for three years until a maid gave her away.
Correct answer: A later Roman poem, Statius's Achilleid
Statius's unfinished Achilleid, from the first century AD, is the earliest surviving text to describe Thetis dipping her son in the Styx. In the Iliad, Achilles is simply a very great warrior with no magical protection at all.
Correct answer: Medusa
Medusa, which is why Perseus could kill her. Her sisters Stheno and Euryale were immortal. Echidna, half woman and half serpent, was a different monster altogether, the mother of Cerberus and the Hydra.
Correct answer: Oedipus
Oedipus, who answered that the creature walking on four legs in the morning, two at noon and three in the evening is man. The Sphinx threw herself to her death, and Thebes made Oedipus king, which is where his real troubles began.
Correct answer: Colchis
Colchis, on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, guarded by a dragon that never slept. Jason sailed there with the Argonauts and only got the fleece thanks to the king's daughter, the sorceress Medea.
Correct answer: Arachne
Arachne, a mortal weaver from Lydia whose tapestry mocked the gods' affairs. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the furious goddess turned her into a spider, condemned to weave forever. Spiders are still classed as arachnids.
Correct answer: Echo
Echo, punished by Hera for distracting her with chatter while Zeus slipped away. Rejected by Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection, she faded until only her voice remained.
Correct answer: Dionysus
Dionysus, god of wine, theatre and ecstasy. The great tragedies and comedies of Athens were first performed at festivals held in his honour. Pan, the goat-legged god of the wild, gave English the word panic.