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70 free Hard Greek Mythology trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This is hard Greek mythology trivia. If you can name the twelve Olympians and the three-headed dog, you will not find those questions here. Instead the quiz asks who nursed the infant Heracles without knowing it, which two labours Eurystheus refused to count, what Talos's weak point was, which real strait Virgil gave to Scylla, and how many of Odysseus's ships the Laestrygonians sank. The questions range across the whole tradition: the labours of Heracles one by one, the islands and monsters of the Odyssey, the Theban and Trojan cycles, the great sinners of Tartarus, and the minor gods and personifications (the Charites, the Moirai, the Erinyes, the Hesperides). There are also questions on the genealogies that mythographers argued about, from Chiron's parents to the father of the Nemean lion. Warm up first with our main Greek mythology trivia quiz if you want the classics. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia article on that figure, which in turn cites Hesiod, Homer, Apollodorus, Ovid and the tragedians, and each explanation adds one further detail worth remembering.
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Q 01Whose charmed bridle allowed Bellerophon to capture and tame Pegasus?
Athena's
Bellerophon later overreached by trying to ride Pegasus up to Olympus and lost the gods' favour for it.
Q 02Exposed on Mount Parthenion as a baby, Atalanta was nursed by which animal?
A she-bear
The bear was a symbol of Artemis, the goddess Atalanta went on to model herself after.
Q 03According to Herodotus, Cadmus introduced what to the Greeks?
The Phoenician alphabet
Cadmus was a Phoenician prince sent to find his abducted sister Europa, and he founded Thebes instead of going home.
Q 04The acropolis of Thebes was originally named what, in honour of the city's founder?
Cadmeia
Cadmus is grouped with Perseus and Bellerophon as the great monster-slayers before Heracles.
Q 05Which astronomer named a moon of Jupiter after Zeus's lover Io in 1614?
Simon Marius
The Ionian Islands are also said to take their name from Io, not from the region of Ionia.
Q 06In most versions, Io was the daughter of which river god?
Inachus
That made her an Argive princess, and her descendants included Perseus, Heracles and Minos.
Q 07Which Cretan king was Europa's son?
Minos
The earliest vase painting securely identified as Europa dates from the mid-7th century BC.
Q 08The Latin form of Ganymede's name gave English which word?
Catamite
Ganymede was a Trojan prince, son of Tros, carried off to be Zeus's cup-bearer.
Q 09Besides receding water and fruit, what punishment for Tantalus is more common in early Greek sources?
A stone suspended above his head
Pindar and Archilochus used 'the rock of Tantalus' proverbially, much like the later Sword of Damocles.
Q 10After Apollo and Artemis killed her children, Niobe was turned to stone on which mountain?
Mount Sipylus
Her children lay unburied for nine days while she fasted, until the gods themselves interred them.
Q 11In Ovid, Arachne's father Idmon of Colophon practised what trade?
Dyer in Tyrian purple
Ovid also credits Arachne with inventing linen cloth and nets, and her son Closter with the spindle.
Q 12Who was the mother of King Midas of Phrygia?
Cybele
His father Gordias is the man credited with tying the Gordian Knot at Gordium.
Q 13Phaethon's grieving sisters, the Heliades, were transformed into which trees?
Black poplars
Their tears became amber, and Phaethon's body fell into the river Eridanus.
Deucalion, survivor of the Greek flood myth, was the son of which Titan?
Q 21The bronze guardian Talos was invulnerable except for a vein in which body part?
His ankle
Medea defeated him from the deck of the Argo by making him graze that spot and bleed out.
Q 22Which real body of water did Virgil's Aeneid identify as the home of Scylla and Charybdis?
The Strait of Messina
The Calabrian coastal town of Scilla still carries the monster's name.
Q 23The Byzantine encyclopedia Suda gave Scylla how many dog heads on each side?
Six
Below the waist, the Suda says, she had a serpent's body.
Later traditions fixed the Sirens' 'flowery' island under what name?
Prometheus
His wife Pyrrha's name derives from the Greek for flame-coloured.
Q 15Endymion, the sleeping lover of the moon goddess Selene, was said to lie on which mountain in Caria?
Mount Latmus
Pliny rationalised the myth by calling Endymion the first man to observe the movements of the moon.
Q 16Which instrument, discarded by a goddess, did the satyr Marsyas pick up and master?
The aulos
He then challenged Apollo to a music contest and paid for losing with his skin.
Q 17Through his mother Autonoë, the hunter Actaeon belonged to which royal family?
The House of Cadmus
Like Achilles later, Actaeon was trained by the centaur Chiron before Artemis turned him into a stag.
Q 18The Mycenaean-era cult of Hyacinth was centred on which town near Sparta?
Amyclae
Hyacinth chose Apollo over rival suitors including the west wind Zephyrus, who in some tellings caused his death.
Q 19Which of these was NOT one of the daughters of Asclepius?
Coronis
Coronis was Asclepius's mother; his daughters personified health, healing and universal remedy.
Q 20Chiron differed from the other centaurs because of his parentage. Who were his parents?
Cronus and Philyra
Cronus took the form of a horse to father him, which is why Chiron was civilised while his kin were brawlers.
Anthemoessa
Roman poets placed them instead on small islands called the Sirenum Scopuli.
Q 25Circe turned the Italian king Picus into which bird for resisting her advances?
A woodpecker
Circe was the daughter of Helios and the Oceanid Perse, and she also transformed the nymph Scylla out of jealousy.
Q 26Aeolus gave Odysseus a bag containing every wind except which one?
The gentle westerly
The crew opened it within sight of Ithaca, close enough to see Odysseus's mother waving from shore.
Q 27How many of Odysseus's twelve ships did the Laestrygonians destroy?
Eleven
Only Odysseus's own ship survived, because he had moored it in a cove outside the harbour.
Q 28The land of the Lotus-eaters is traditionally identified with which island?
Djerba
The lotus fruit, 'sweet as honey', made those who ate it forget home and refuse to leave.
Q 29Nausicaa, who helps the shipwrecked Odysseus, was the daughter of which king?
Alcinous
According to a later tradition she went on to marry Odysseus's son Telemachus.
Q 30Penelope was the daughter of which Spartan king?
Icarius
That made her a cousin of Helen, whom she was said to surpass in virtue if not in beauty.