Roman Republic
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50 free Roman Republic trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
For nearly five centuries Rome had no king and no emperor. It was run by elected magistrates, a council of former office-holders and assemblies of citizens, under a system built to stop any one man from holding too much power for too long. That system conquered the Mediterranean and then tore itself apart, and its vocabulary still shapes politics today. This quiz covers the whole story. There are questions on how the government worked: the offices, the checks and balances, the struggle between rich and poor. There are the legends of the early years, the long wars against rival powers in Italy and across the sea, and the generals and reformers of the last century, whose ambitions ended in civil war and one-man rule. It is pitched for students revising ancient history, fans of films and novels set in Rome, and anyone who has wondered where the words senate and republic come from. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Latin word senatus, which gave the Roman Senate its name, comes from a word meaning what?
Old man
Old man is what the Latin senex means, so the Senate was literally an assembly of elders. In the Republic a seat there was held for life.
Q 02Which birds, sacred to Juno, are said to have woken Rome's defenders during a Gallic night attack on the Capitol?
Geese
Geese raised the alarm after both the guards and the watchdogs had failed to hear the Gauls climbing the hill. The attackers had already sacked the rest of the city.
Q 03Which Roman farmer left his plough to take emergency command, beat the Aequi and resigned barely two weeks later?
Cincinnatus
Cincinnatus became a byword for civic virtue because he went straight back to his farm. The city of Cincinnati, Ohio, takes its name from a society of officers named in his honour.
Q 04Roman office-seekers campaigned in a toga chalked to a brilliant white, a custom that gave English which word?
Candidate
Candidate comes from candidus, Latin for shining white: men seeking office wore the bleached toga candida to speeches and public debates.
Q 05Which four letters, an emblem of the Roman Republic's government, still appear on the coat of arms of modern Rome?
SPQR
SPQR is short for Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Senate and People of Rome. Before the letters came into use, the state's name on its coins was simply ROMA.
Q 06Which crisis office of the Roman Republic did Julius Caesar hold for life just before his murder?
Dictator
Dictator was a temporary post, given to one man to solve one named problem. After Caesar's assassination the office was formally abolished and never revived.
Q 07Which mountain range did Hannibal cross in 218 BC to launch a surprise invasion of Italy from the north?
The Alps
The Alps cost Hannibal thousands of men, and most of his war elephants died of cold in the winter that followed. He still went on to occupy much of southern Italy for 15 years.
Q 08Which Thracian gladiator escaped from a training school near Capua and led a huge slave uprising against Rome?
Spartacus
Spartacus broke out in 73 BC with about 70 other gladiators, who armed themselves with kitchen utensils. His army grew into a force that defeated several Roman armies.
Q 09Which small river did Julius Caesar cross with a single legion in January 49 BC, igniting a civil war?
Rubicon
Rubicon was the boundary between Caesar's province and Italy proper, so leading troops over it was an act of war. He is said to have remarked that the die was cast.
Q 10Which two officials, elected together for a one-year term, headed the Roman Republic's government and led its armies?
Consuls
Consuls came in pairs so that the powers of the old kings were never again in one man's hands. Romans even named each year after the two men who opened it in office.
Q 11Which king, the seventh and last to rule Rome, was driven into exile before the Republic was founded?
Tarquin the Proud
Tarquin the Proud was said to have won the throne through a string of family murders. His expulsion is traditionally dated to 509 BC.
Q 12Which Greek king beat Rome at Heraclea and Asculum at such cost that ruinous wins now bear his name?
Pyrrhus
Pyrrhus is said to have remarked after Asculum in 279 BC that one more such victory would undo him. His casualties, unlike Rome's, could not be replaced.
Q 13Which Roman army punishment for cowardice saw one soldier in every ten, chosen by lot, killed by his own comrades?
Decimation
Q 21Which honorific, meaning 'the revered', did the Senate grant Octavian in 27 BC as the Republic ended?
Augustus
Augustus became the name by which Rome's first emperor is remembered. Historians call him Octavian only for the years between 44 and 27 BC.
Q 22Which family name links the semi-legendary founder of the Roman Republic with the most infamous of Caesar's killers?
Brutus
Brutus the founder, Lucius Junius, was claimed as an ancestor by Marcus Junius more than four centuries later. Tradition says his own two sons were condemned to death for plotting to restore the king.
Q 23Which Mediterranean island, won from Carthage in the First Punic War, became the Roman Republic's first province?
Sicily
Decimation takes its name from the Latin decimatio, the destruction of a tenth. It was the most extreme penalty the Roman army could impose on a unit.
Q 14Which open space in the heart of Rome, originally a marketplace, hosted the Republic's public speeches and trials?
The Forum
The Forum was for centuries the centre of day-to-day life in Rome, the route of victory processions and even a venue for gladiator fights.
Q 15Julius Caesar was stabbed to death at a Senate meeting in 44 BC on which date in the Roman calendar?
The Ides of March
The Ides of March fell on the 15th, and a seer is said to have warned Caesar about the date. Around 60 conspirators took part, and he was stabbed some 23 times.
Q 16Which queen of Egypt had a son said to be Julius Caesar's and later sided with Mark Antony against Octavian?
Cleopatra
Cleopatra named the boy Caesarion and made him her co-ruler. When her kingdom fell after her defeat, Egypt became a Roman province.
Q 17Which hereditary class of ruling families held every priesthood and high office when the Roman Republic began?
Patricians
Patricians took their name from patres, the fathers: the first hundred senators said to have been chosen by Romulus. Everyone outside those families was a plebeian.
Q 18Which orator was hailed as father of the fatherland for crushing Catiline's plot, then killed on Mark Antony's orders?
Cicero
Cicero paid dearly for his speeches against Antony: his severed head and hands were put on show on the Rostra, the speakers' platform in the middle of Rome.
Q 19Which general, nicknamed 'the Great', was handed sweeping powers in 67 BC to clear the Mediterranean of pirates?
Pompey
Pompey spread his fleets across the whole sea at once, so that the pirates could not escape one squadron by sailing somewhere else.
Q 20How was Octavian, the heir named in Julius Caesar's will, related by blood to the man who adopted him?
Great-nephew
Great-nephew is the link, since his mother, Atia, was Caesar's niece. He inherited the estate and took Caesar's name after the assassination.
Sicily began to come under Roman control in 241 BC and went on to be the city of Rome's main supplier of grain throughout the Republic.
Q 24Which law code, formally issued in 449 BC after plebeian agitation, stood at the foundation of all later Roman law?
The Twelve Tables
The Twelve Tables set out the rights and duties of every Roman citizen. They were won by plebeians who had until then been shut out of the higher benefits of the Republic.
Q 25Which bundle of wooden rods bound around an axe was carried by lictors before a Roman magistrate as a sign of power?
Fasces
Fasces were the origin of the name of Mussolini's National Fascist Party, and so of the word fascism. The symbol also appeared on the American Mercury dime.
Q 26Which Latin word meaning 'I forbid' names the power by which one Roman magistrate could block another's action?
Veto
Veto began in the Roman Republic, where each of the two chief magistrates could block the other's military or civil actions. Presidents and monarchs later inherited the idea.
Q 27Which Roman magistrate kept the roll of citizens and policed public morals, giving English a word for banning speech?
Censor
Censor was the most dignified of the regular offices, reserved with rare exceptions for men who had already held the top elected office. Two of them served together.
Q 28Which sacrosanct officials were created in the 490s BC to protect Rome's plebeians from the magistrates?
Tribunes
Tribunes could not be touched: anyone who laid a finger on one was outlawed and could be killed without penalty. Only plebeians were eligible for the office.
Q 29What Latin name is given to the sequence of public offices, starting with quaestor, that Roman politicians climbed?
Cursus honorum
Cursus honorum means course of honours, or more loosely ladder of offices. Its rules were altered and flagrantly ignored during the Republic's last century.
Q 30Which tactic did Rome's plebeians use in 494 BC, much like a general strike, to win officials of their own?
Walking out of the city
Walking out of the city en masse shut its shops and workshops and left the ruling families to fend for themselves. The plebeians came back only when given protectors of their own.