Iliad Trivia
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108 free Iliad trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Iliad trivia for anyone who read Homer at school, discovered him through The Song of Achilles or Emily Wilson's translation, or just wants to know how much of the Troy story is actually in the poem. (Less than you think: no Trojan Horse, no fall of the city, no heel.) The quiz walks through the plot as Homer tells it - the plague, the quarrel over Briseis, Thersites getting thrashed with a sceptre, the duel of Paris and Menelaus, Diomedes wounding two gods, Glaucus's terrible armour swap, the embassy Achilles refuses, Patroclus in borrowed armour, the shield, the river that fights back, the death of Hector and Priam's midnight visit. Then it steps back to the poem itself: 24 books, 15,693 lines, dactylic hexameter, the first word 'menis', the Catalogue of Ships and its Bronze Age geography, the 10th-century Venetus A manuscript, Milman Parry's oral-formulaic theory, and the English translators from George Chapman (and Keats's sonnet about him) through Pope, Lattimore and Fagles to the recent versions by women. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our Troy, Achilles, Trojan Horse and Greek mythology quizzes.
30 of 108 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Spartan queen, carried off to Troy by Paris, is the woman the armies fight over in the Iliad?
Helen
Helen first appears in the Iliad weaving a tapestry of the very battles being fought for her; even Troy's old men, watching her walk past, say they can see why men endure a war for her.
Q 02The Iliad is divided into how many books?
24
24 books, a division probably made centuries after the poem took shape and often credited to scholars at Alexandria; the Odyssey was split into the same number.
Q 03What is the Iliad's opening word in Greek, which announces the theme of the whole poem?
Menis (wrath)
Menis (wrath) is the first word: Achilles' anger at Agamemnon keeps him out of the fighting, and the opening lines say it sent the souls of countless Greek heroes down to Hades.
Q 04Which famous episode is told in the Odyssey and by Virgil but appears nowhere in the Iliad?
The Trojan Horse
The Trojan Horse is recalled only briefly in the Odyssey and told in full by Virgil; the Iliad stops at Hector's funeral, with Troy still standing.
Q 05Which god sends a plague on the Greek camp at the start of the Iliad?
Apollo
Apollo's arrows hit the mules and dogs first, then the men, and funeral pyres burn for nine days before Achilles calls the assembly that ends in his quarrel with Agamemnon.
Q 06Whose daughter does Agamemnon refuse to return in the Iliad, triggering the plague on the Greek camp?
Chryses, a priest
Chryses, a priest, arrives with a rich ransom and is sent away with threats; once the plague forces Agamemnon's hand, Odysseus sails the girl home to her father.
Q 07Which sea-nymph begs Zeus to let the Trojans win until the Greeks honour her son Achilles?
Thetis
Thetis has a claim on Zeus: when the other Olympians once tried to bind him in chains, she freed him by fetching the hundred-handed giant Briareus up to Olympus.
Q 08Which Greek, called the ugliest man at Troy, does Odysseus beat with a sceptre for railing against Agamemnon?
Thersites
Thersites complains that Agamemnon's tents are full of bronze and captive women while the men do the fighting; yet when the blow raises a bloody welt on his back, the whole army laughs at him.
Q 09The long list of Greek contingents in Book 2 of the Iliad is known by what name?
The Catalogue of Ships
The Catalogue of Ships opens with the poet begging the Muses for help: he could not name the whole host, he says, even with ten tongues and a heart of bronze.
Q 10In Book 3 of the Iliad, Paris agrees to settle the war by duelling whom?
Menelaus
Menelaus has Paris by the helmet and is dragging him away when Aphrodite snaps the chin-strap, hides Paris in a mist and sets him down in his own bedroom.
Q 11Which Trojan archer breaks the truce by shooting Helen's husband at Athena's prompting?
Pandarus
Pandarus is talked into the shot by Athena in disguise, and it is Athena who then flicks his arrow aside, as a mother brushes a fly from her sleeping child, so that it only wounds.
Q 12In Book 5 of the Iliad, Diomedes wounds Aphrodite and which other god?
Ares
Ares, the god of war himself, takes Diomedes' spear in the belly, bellows as loud as nine or ten thousand men and flees to Olympus to complain to Zeus.
Q 13In the Iliad, Diomedes and the Lycian Glaucus call off their duel after discovering what?
Their grandfathers were guest-friends
Q 21Which Trojan spears the dazed Patroclus in the back just before Hector delivers the killing blow?
Euphorbos
Euphorbos strikes from behind, then runs back into the crowd rather than face even an unarmed Patroclus; the philosopher Pythagoras later claimed to have been him in a former life.
Q 22In the Iliad, who brings Achilles the news that Patroclus is dead?
Antilochus
Antilochus, the young son of Nestor, delivers it in tears and then holds Achilles' hands, afraid he will turn a blade on his own throat.
Q 23Homer's long description of Achilles' shield in the Iliad is the most famous early example of which literary device?
Ekphrasis
Ekphrasis is the vivid description of a work of art; W. H. Auden answered Homer's in 1952 with a shield that shows barbed wire and an execution in place of dancing and sacrifice.
Their grandfathers were guest-friends, a tie the two men treat as binding on them; they swap armour on the spot, and Glaucus hands over gold worth a hundred oxen for bronze worth nine.
Q 14What is the name of Hector's baby son, to whom he says farewell in Book 6 of the Iliad?
Astyanax
Astyanax shrinks back crying from his father's horsehair-crested helmet, so Hector laughs, lays it on the ground and kisses him.
Q 15Which Greek hero duels Hector to a draw in Book 7 of the Iliad until nightfall separates them?
Ajax
The two exchange gifts afterwards - Hector's sword and Ajax's belt - both later linked to their deaths.
Q 16Which three men make up the embassy sent to persuade Achilles to return in Book 9 of the Iliad?
Odysseus, Ajax and Phoenix
Odysseus, Ajax and Phoenix find Achilles singing to a lyre; he turns them down, saying he must choose between a long, obscure life and a short one whose fame never dies.
Q 17In the night raid of Book 10 of the Iliad, Odysseus and Diomedes kill which Trojan scout?
Dolon
Dolon had volunteered to spy on the Greek ships for the promise of Achilles' horses; caught in his wolf-skin, he tells all he knows and is beheaded in mid-plea.
Q 18Which god defies Zeus's ban and secretly rallies the Greeks in Book 13 of the Iliad?
Poseidon
Poseidon comes up out of the sea and takes the form and voice of the seer Calchas to put heart into the two Ajaxes, since he dare not help openly.
Q 19Which cautious Trojan, born the same night as Hector, twice urges him to pull back and is ignored?
Polydamas
Polydamas reads an eagle dropping a snake as a warning and is brushed aside; later, waiting alone for Achilles, Hector admits he should have taken his friend's advice to retreat.
Q 20Whose son, a leading Trojan ally, is killed by Patroclus in Book 16 of the Iliad?
Zeus's son Sarpedon
Zeus's son Sarpedon dies after his father thinks of snatching him to safety and is talked out of it; Zeus sheds a rain of blood, then has Sleep and Death carry the body home to Lycia.
Q 24What does Homer set around the outermost rim of the shield of Achilles in the Iliad?
The river Ocean
The river Ocean rings a shield that is mostly peace, not war: one city is under siege, but the other scenes show a wedding, a lawsuit, ploughing, a grape harvest and a dance.
Q 25In the Iliad, what does Achilles' horse Xanthos do as his master sets out to avenge Patroclus?
Speaks, prophesying his death
Speaks, prophesying his death: Hera lends Xanthos a human voice to warn Achilles that he will soon fall to a god and a mortal, and then the Furies strike the horse dumb again.
Q 26Which river god fights Achilles in the Iliad after he chokes the water with Trojan corpses?
Scamander
Scamander comes so close to drowning Achilles that the hero cries out he would rather have died by Hector's hand than be swept off like a swineherd's boy in a winter flood.
Q 27In the Iliad, Athena tricks Hector into ending his flight around the walls by taking the form of whom?
His brother Deiphobus
His brother Deiphobus seems to have come out to stand beside him; but when Hector's spear glances off Achilles' shield and he calls for another, nobody is there.
Q 28How does Achilles dishonour Hector's body after killing him in the Iliad?
Drags it behind his chariot
Drags it behind his chariot, with oxhide straps threaded through the ankles; Andromache, who has just ordered a hot bath for her husband's return, sees it from the wall and faints.
Q 29Which god guides Priam unseen through the Greek camp to Achilles' tent in the Iliad?
Hermes
Hermes meets the old king disguised as one of Achilles' own young soldiers, takes the reins of his chariot, puts the sentries into a deep sleep and draws back the bolts of the gate.
Q 30In the Iliad, what does Priam kiss when he begs Achilles for Hector's body?
His hands
His hands, the hands that slew so many of his sons: Priam then asks Achilles to think of his own ageing father, and the two enemies end up weeping together.