Translated by C.B. Gulick (1933).
See key to translations for an explanation of the format. The page numbers in the Greek text are shown in red. The chapter numbers in the translation are shown in green.
Several pages in this book are missing from the manuscript, but are available in an epitome. The pages in the epitome have a different series of numbers ( 781-784 ).
{1.} G [459] "Come now, what shall be the beginning of our recital" as the comic poet Cephisodorus puts it, friend Timocrates? For we had gathered early, spurred to eagerness for the cups; and while all the guests were still seated, and before conversation had begun, Ulpian said : "At the table of Adrastus, my friends, the nobles dine seated ; but Polyidus, when offering sacrifices on a highway, made Peteōs, who was walking by, stop and recline in the grass ; he then broke up some green twigs to serve as a table and placed before Peteōs some of the sacrificial meat. [460] Again, Autolycus once went 'to the rich land of Ithaca,' and the nurse (served him) while he was seated, of course, for that is the way in which the men of that time dined; and, says the poet, 'He found his daughter's son Odysseus a child new-born, and when he was making an end of supper, then Eurycleia placed the child on his knees'; she seated him, I say, on his knees and did not stand him beside his knees. However that may be, let us not dally, but recline forthwith, for I want Plutarchus to render to us the account of cups 
as he has promised, and drink the health of all in the cups filled to the brim.
{2.} G "The first mention of the word poteria (cups) that I know of occurs in the poet of Amorgos, Semonides ; he says, in his Iambic Verses : ' He took away the table, whither the cups . . . ' And the author of the Alcmaeonis also says: 'He laid out the dead bodies on a broad pallet strewn on the ground, and set before them a bountiful feast and cups as well, and placed crowns on their heads.' These cups {poteria} got their name from the word for drinking {posis} like the word ekpōma (cup) used by Attic writers ; 
for they speak of water-drinking {hydropotein} and wine-drinking {oinopotein} Aristophanes in The Knights { 198 } : 'In its bill the blood-drinking {haimatopotēn} booby-dragon.' And in the same play he has said { 124 } : 'Bacis certainly used the cup over much.' So Pherecrates in Tyranny : 'But this single cup is mightier than a thousand.' And Anacreon has said: 'I have been made a wine-drinker' {oinopotēs} This expression also occurs in the Poet ; for he says { Iliad, 20.84 }, 'When wine-drinking' {oinopotazōn} 
So Sappho, in the second book, said: 'Many cups without number, and ivory too.' And Alcaeus: 'Thou drinkest out the cup, seated by Deinomenes' side.' There is also a 'cup-bearing ' Demeter, worshipped in Achaea in the neighbourhood of Antheia, as Autocrates records in the second book of his Achaean History. {3.} G But there is another problem which I think worth your consideration before we have the catalogue of drinking-cups, of which the sideboard here {kylikeion} is full ; for this is the name given to the piece of furniture in which cups {kylikes} are kept, by Aristophanes in The Farmers : 
'Covered like a sideboard in front of which the linen curtain is drawn.' It occurs also in Anaxandrides' Melilot. Eubulus has it in Leda : ' Like one who, about to pour a libation, has smashed the cups in the sideboard.' And in The Harp-girl he said : 'He has also invented the sideboards for us.' So in Semelē or Dionysus : 'Hermes, Maia's son in stone, whom (we approach) with offerings as he stands in the sideboard, scoured to brightness.' 
Cratinus the Younger in Cheiron : 'After many a year I have come home out of the land of the enemy, and since I had difficulty finding the members of my family, brotherhood, and deme, I have had myself enrolled in the sideboard. That is my Zeus of the enclosure and of the brotherhood, and I pay my dues to it.'
{4.} G "I say then, it is worth considering whether the men of old drank from large cups. For Dicaearchus of Messenē, [461] the pupil of Aristotle, says in his book On Alcaeus that they used small cups and drank wine mixed with too much water. Chamaeleon of Heracleia, also, in the work On Drunkenness, says, if I remember his words : 'If those who enjoy power and wealth esteem this devotion to drunkenness above everything else, it is not to be wondered at. For having no other pleasure better than this, or more easily indulged, they naturally find refuge in wine, This is why the larger forms of drinking-cups grew to be the fashion among persons in power. But this is, in fact, not at all an ancient custom among the Greeks, but is a recent invention, imported from the barbarians. For they, being lost to all culture, betake themselves to quantities of wine and procure for themselves superfluous foods of all sorts. But in the regions of Greece we shall not find a cup that has been wrought to very great size either represented in art or in earlier times, except those in honour of heroic beings. For they assigned the cup called rhyton only to the heroes. This will seem puzzling to some, unless one explained, perhaps, that this custom was introduced because the demigods are so quick to show wrath when they appear. For people regard the heroes as harsh and ready to deal blows, and by night more than by day. In order, then, that the heroes may appear to be cruel, not because of their inborn character, but because they are drunk, the artists represent them as drinking from large cups. And for my part I think that they are quite right who say that the large cup is a "silver well." ' In all this it is plain that Chamaeleon ignores the fact that the bowl given to the Cyclops by Odysseus, in Homer, cannot be small. Otherwise the Cyclops, who was so huge, would not have been so completely overcome with intoxication after only three drinks. Hence cups must have been large even in those days, unless one is to put the blame on the potency of the wine, as to which Homer himself was explicit ; or on the unaccustomed nature of the drink taken by the Cyclops, since in most cases he was a milk-drinker. Or perhaps the cup, if it really was large, was of barbarian origin, taken from the spoil of the Ciconians. What, then, can we say about Nestor's cup, which a young man would scarcely have had the strength to lift, 'but Nestor, that old man, raised it easily'? Concerning this also Plutarchus will give us some information. It is time, therefore, to take our places on the couches."
{5.} G When we had lain down, Plutarchus said : "Well, as the poet Pratinas of Phlius says, 'Not ploughing land already furrowed, but exploring a field undigged,' I am going to give a cup-talk although I am not one of the inhabitants of Cup-ville, of whom the comic poet Hermippus in his Iambic Verses mockingly says : 'Proceeding on my way I came to the spongy soil of Cup-ville. I saw, therefore, Heracleia, and a very fine city it was.' Now the Heracleots here meant are those who live at the foot of Oeta, according to Nicander of Thyateira ; he asserts that they got their name from Cylix, a native of Lydia, one of those who accompanied Heracles in his expedition. They are mentioned also by Scythinus of Teos in the work entitled History, who says : ' Heracles captured and put to death Eurytus and his son when they exacted tribute from the Euboeans. [462] He also pillaged the Cylicranians, who lived by plunder, and built in that place Heracleia, which is called the Trachinian.' Polemon in the first book of his Address to Adaeus and Antigonus says : 'As for the Heracleia at the foot of Oeta and Trachis, some of their inhabitants, the Cylicranians, arrived with Heracles from Lydia, while others were Athamanians ; the regions continue (to be named) from both ; but the Heracleots, regarding them as of alien stock, allowed no share in the citizenship to them, though they dwelt with them. They are called Cylicranians because their shoulders have cups {cylices} tattooed on them.' {6.} G I am also aware that Hellanicus, in his Tribal Names, says that some of the Numidians, in Libya, own nothing else but a cup {cylix} a knife. and a water-jar, and that they have houses made of asphodel, quite small, just big enough to afford shade, which they carry about wherever they go. To many persons, also, the place in Illyria is well known which is called Cups, and near which is the tomb of Cadmus and Harmonia, as Phylarchus records in the twenty-second book of his Histories. Polemon, too, in his book On Morychus, says that at Syracuse there is an altar at the extreme end of the island near the shrine of Olympian Earth, and outside the wall, from which they take on shipboard the cup when they put out to sea, and carry it until the shield on the temple of Athena becomes invisible ; they then drop into the sea an earthenware cup, having put into it flowers, honeycomb, frankincense in lumps, and some other spices with them.
{7.} G "Since I see then, myself also, that your symposium, like that described by Xenophanes of Colophon, is full of every delight : ' Now, at last, floor is swept, and clean are the hands of all the guests, and their cups as well ; one slave puts plaited wreaths on their heads, another offers sweet-smelling perfume in a saucer ; the mixing-bowl stands full of good cheer ; and other wine is ready, which promises never to give out - mellow wine in jars, redolent of its bouquet ; and in the midst the frankincense sends forth its sacred fragrance ; and there is water, cool and fresh and pure. The yellow loaves lie ready at hand, and a lordly table groans with the weight of cheese and luscious honey ; an altar in the middle is banked all round with flowers, and singing and dancing and bounty pervade the house. But men of good cheer should first of all praise the god with pious stories and pure words ; they should pour libations and pray for power to do the right (for that is the duty closer to hand) ; 'tis no sin to drink as much as you can hold and still get home without an attendant, unless you be very old. Praise that man who even in his cups can show forth goodly thoughts, according as memory serves him and his zeal for virtue is at full stretch. In no wise is it good to relate the fights of Titans and Giants nor of Centaurs, the fictions of men aforetime, or their violent factions, in which there is nought that is wholesome ; [463] but it is good ever to have regard for the gods.'
{8.} G And the graceful Anacreon says : ' I love him not who, when drinking his wine beside the brimming bowl, speaks of strifes and tearful battle, but rather him who, mingling the bright gifts of the Muses and of Aphrodite together, is ever mindful of welcome good cheer.' And Ion of Chios says : 'Long live our king, saviour and father ! For us let the wine-pouring henchmen mix the bowl from silver pitchers, while another, with a golden jar in his hands, sets it on its base. Let us reverently pour libations to Heracles and Alcmena, to Procles and the Perseidae, beginning with Zeus, and let us drink, let us play, let our song go through the night ; let everyone dance and gladly lead in the way of friendliness. And he for whom a fair female bedfellow waits shall drink more lustily than the others.' The so-called Seven Wise Men, also, composed for themselves dinner-conversations. 'Verily wine consoles even the despondency of old age,' says Theophrastus in the treatise On Drunkenness.
{9.} G "For this reason, when we also come together for these Dionysiac talks, nobody with any sense can find plausible excuse for blaming us, 'who,' in the words of The Tarentines of Alexis, 'are doing none of our neighbours any harm. Don't you know that what, to amuse ourselves, we call "life" is but a name, a coaxing flattery of our human lot ? Whether anybody will say that my judgement is good or bad I cannot tell you ; but this, at least, I have made up my mind to on careful study : that all the doings of men are out-and-out crazy, and that we who for the time being are alive are only getting an outing, as though let loose a from death and darkness to keep holiday, to amuse ourselves and to enjoy this light which we can see. And the man who laughs and drinks the most, and holds fast to Aphrodite, during the time he is set free, and to such gifts as Fortune offers, after he has had a most pleasant holiday can depart for home.' Therefore, as the fair Sappho also says : 'Come, goddess of Love, and daintily, from golden cups, pour out mingled nectar for our merry-making,' for these boon-companions, mine and thine.
{10.} G "In answer to those persons it should be said that there are special modes of drinking in different cities, as Critias explains in these words in his Constitution of the Lacedaemonians : 'The Chian and the Thasian drink a health out of large cups from left to right, the Athenian from small cups from left to right, while the Thessalian pledges in large cups to whomsoever he wishes. But the Lacedaemonians drink each his own cup separately, and the slave who pours the wine (fills up again) with the quantity he has drunk off.' The custom of drinking from left to right is mentioned by Anaxandrides in The Farmers thus : [464] '{A} In what way, then, are you prepared to drink on this occasion? Tell me ! {B} In what way, you ask ? We? In any way you please. {A} Of course, then, my father, you mean to say the " left-to-right manner " when a man drinks. {B} Say the " left-to-right manner " ? Apollo save us! As though for a dead man ! '
{11.} G "We must beg to be excused from earthenware cups. For Ctesias says that 'among the Persians any man who falls under the king's displeasure uses earthenware drinking-cups.' And the epic poet Choerilus says 'I hold in my hands the chipped sherd of a cup, broken on all sides, the shipwrecked remnant of feasters, such as gale from Dionysus often casts forth upon the shores of Wantonness.' And yet I am well aware that earthenware drinking-vessels are often very pleasant, like those we use, brought down the river from Coptos ; for the clay of which they are made is mingled and baked with spices. : Aristotle, too, in his work On Drunkenness, says : 'The pots called Rhodian are used in drinking-bouts because of their pleasant taste and also because, when heated, they cause the wine to be less intoxicating. For myrrh and aromatic rush and other similar spices are placed in water and the pots are set to boil ; when this liquid is added to the wine, it causes less drunkenness.' And in another part of his work he says : 'The Rhodian pots are prepared by steeping myrrh, aromatic rush, anise, saffron, costmary, cardamom, and cinnamon together; the liquor resulting from this, when added to the wine, arrests intoxication to such an extent that it even dispels erotic desires by softening the spirits.' {12.} G We, therefore, must not drink too madly as we gaze upon the large number of these beautiful cups, wrought with every variety of art. That word 'madness,' as Chrysippus says in his Introduction, the treatise On Good and Evil, is applied by the vulgar to the greatest number of things. There is, for example, the term 'woman-madness,' and the term 'quail-madness.' 'Some people even call fame-lovers "fame-mad," just as they call lovers of women "women-mad," and lovers of birds "bird mad," since these words signify the same thing. Hence it is not strange that other terms should be given in the same way. For the lover of fish and the fish-eater are in a way fish-mad, the lover of wine is wine-mad. and so on in similar cases ; it is not strange that the word "madness " is applied to them, since they err madly, and are too far removed from the truth.' {13.} G As for ourselves, therefore, let us, as they used to do in Athens, sip our wine, while listening to the clowns and the mimes here, and all the other artists as well. Of the Athenian custom Philochorus speaks as follows : 'At the Dionysiac festivals the Athenians, after they had finished their luncheon and their drinking, would go to the spectacle and gaze at it with garlands on their heads, and throughout the entire festival wine was served to them and sweetmeats were passed among them ; when the choruses marched in they poured out drinks for them, and when they were marching out after the contest they poured again ; this is attested by the comic poet Pherecrates, who says that up to his time the spectators were not left unfed.' [465] Phanodemus says that at the temple of Dionysus in the Marshes the Athenians mix the must which they bring from their casks in honour of the god, and then drink it themselves ; hence Dionysus was called god of the marsh, because the must was mixed and drunk with water on that occasion for the first time. Hence, too, the Nymphs were called nurses of Dionysus, because water increases the wine a when mixed with it. Delighted, then, with the mixture, men celebrated Dionysus in song, dancing, and calling upon him with the names Flowery, Dithyrambus, Reveller, and Bromius. Theophrastus, also, in the treatise On Drunkenness, says that 'the Nymphs are in verv truth nurses of Dionysus. For the vines when pruned pour forth a great deal of moisture, and weep according to their nature.' Hence Euripides says that one of the horses of the Sun is 'Fiery, ripening the autumn vine-rows of the Bacchic god, who loves flowers ; because of this mortals call wine fiery.' And Odysseus gave 'honey-sweet red wine, filling one cup, and poured into it twenty measures of water ; and a sweet smell breathed from the mixing-bowl.' Timotheus in Cyclops : ' Into it he poured one ivy-wood cup of red drops ambrosial, bubbling with foam; then he poured in twenty measures' and mingled together the blood of the Bacchic god with fresh-flowing tears of the Nymphs.'
{14.} G "I know of some persons, fellow-members of our company, who took great pride not so much in their money as in the possession of many cups of silver and gold. One of these is Pytheas, the Arcadian from Phigaleia, who, even when he was dying, did not hesitate to admonish his relatives to write this epigram on his tomb : 'This is the tomb of Pytheas, a good and sober man, who acquired a boundless number of cups of silver, gold, and shining electrum, and came to own more than all others before him.' This is recorded by Harmodius of Lepreum in his book on the Customs of Phigaleia. Xenophon, speaking of the Persians in the eighth book of Cyropaedeia { 8.8.18 } , writes this : 'And what is more, if they own the greatest possible number of cups, they pride themselves on that ; and if they have openly contrived to get them by dishonest methods, they feel no shame at that. For dishonesty and avarice have grown to great proportions among them.' And it was on account of cups that Oedipus cursed his sons, according to the author of the Cyclic poem Thebaïs, because they had set before him a cup which he had forbidden ; the author says : 'But the divine hero, yellow-haired Polyneices, first set the beautiful silver table of godly Cadmus before Oedipus ; and then he filled a fair golden cup with sweet wine. But when Oedipus recognized the precious possessions of his own father set before him, mighty woe fell upon his spirit, [466] and swiftly he called down harsh curses upon both his sons - and it escaped not the avenging fury of the gods - that they should never divide his father's goods in loving-kindness, but that wars and fights should ever be upon them both . . . '
{15.} G " Caecilius, the orator from Calacte, says in his book On History that the tyrant Agathocles, while showing golden cups to his companions, remarked that he had made them by pottering in state affairs. Acrisius also, mentioned by Sophocles in The Men of Larisa, had a prodigious number of cups, as the tragic poet says : 'A mighty contest for all strangers he proclaimed, setting out as prizes to win cauldrons of beaten copper, and hollow cups inlaid with gold and all of silver, to the number of twice threescore.' And Poseidonius, in the sixteenth book of his Histories, says that Lysimachus of Babylon invited to dinner Himerus, who had been made ruler not only of the Babylonians but of the people of Seleuceia as well, in company with three hundred men ; after the tables had been removed he gave a silver cup weighing four pounds to every one of the three hundred, and after the libation he drank all their healths together ; and he gave the cups to be carried home. Anticleides of Athens, in the sixth book of his Returns, relates the story of Gras, who led the colony to Lesbos with other chieftains, and says that an oracle told them to let down into the sea as they sailed across a maiden as offering to Poseidon ; he writes also the following : 'Some of the people in Methymna tell the story of the maiden who was dropped into the sea, and they declare that one of the leaders, whose name was Enalus, had fallen in love with her and dived off the ship to save the girl. At that moment they were both hidden by a wave and disappeared from sight, but some time after, when Methymna was already settled, Enalus appeared and related the manner of life he had led, and he said that the girl was staying with the Nereids, while he himself had fed the horses of Poseidon ; and finally, when a great wave came sweeping on [781] he plunged along with it and emerged with a cup made of gold so marvellous that the gold they had, when compared with it, was no better than copper. ' "
{16.} G The possession of drinking-cups was held in very high esteem in ancient times. Achilles, therefore, kept his cup as a special treasure, "and neither did any other man drink out of it, nor did he pour libation from it to any god excepting Zeus." And when Priam wanted to ransom his son with his most notable heirlooms, he offered also "a very beautiful cup." In fact, even Zeus himself thought that an adequate reward for bringing forth Heracles was to give Alcmena a cup, which, putting on the likeness of Amphitryon, he gave to her, "and she received it straightway and marvelled at the golden" cup. Stesichorus says that the Sun voyages over the Ocean in a cup, by means of which Heracles also made his way over when he set out to get the cattle of Geryonēs. We know also of the cup of the Arcadian Bathycles, which he left behind as a prize for wisdom to him who was adjudged the best among the Seven Wise Men, as they are called. As for Nestor's cup, many potter with that ; I mean that very many have written about it. The cup is a thing even loved by the gods ; at any rate, they welcome "one another with golden cups." It is even gentlemanly, Athenaeus says, to pass the time with wine, provided that one does it reasonably, not drinking too deeply, and not gulping it down in a single breath, Thracian fashion, but mingling discourse with the potion as a medicine for health.
{17.} G The ancients were very fond of having stories embossed on their cups. Cimon and Athenocles achieved fame in this art. People also made use of cups inlaid with precious stones. Menander speaks somewhere of "a cup turned on the lathe," and of "cups ornamented in relief." Antiphanes : "Others also drain, with jaws which never cease draining, a gold-inlaid cup filled with wine of ancient vintage, covered with foam - a cup skilfully turned on the lathe ; and the drinkers, when they twist it completely round, show the top at the bottom." Nicomachus says to someone : "O hail, you that vomit forth gold-washed cups and golden . . . " Philippides : "If you will glance at the cups set forth in readiness, they are all of gold, Trophimus, so help me Heaven, magnificent works of art ! I was in ecstasy when I saw them, mixing-bowls of silver, jars bigger than myself . . . "
Parmenion, summing up the booty taken from the Persians, in his Letters to Alexander, says : [782] " Gold cups, weight seventy-three Babylonian talents, fifty-two minas; cups inlaid with precious stones, weight fifty-six Babylonian talents, thirty-four minas."
{18.} G It was the custom to put water in the cup first, after that the wine. Thus Xenophanes : "And no one would mix wine by pouring it in first, but the water first, and on top of it wine." Anacreon : "Bring water, slave, bring wine, and bring me flowery wreaths, for I want to box with Eros. " And long before them Hesiod wrote : "And toward a spring ever-gushing and flowing and untroubled, and pour forth three parts of water, then put in the fourth part, of wine." Theophrastus : "For as regards the practices pertaining to the mixture of wine, antiquity was opposed to present-day usage among the Greeks They did not pour the water on the wine, but rather the wine on the water, in order that they might use a drink that was more diluted, and that, having obtained satisfaction with this, they might have less appetite for more. And besides, they used up most of the wine in playing cottabus-games."
{19.} G Famous workers in relief were Athenocles, Crates, Stratonicus, Myrmecides of Miletus, Callicrates of Laconia, and Mys, whose Heracleot bowl we have seen ; it has an artistic relief representing the sack of Troy, and bears the following inscription : "The design is by Parrhasius, the work by Mys. I am the representation of lofty Ilios, which the Aeacidae captured."
{20.} G Favourite boys among the Cretans are called "illustrious." Eager zeal possessed them to carry off boys ; and so, in the eyes of the fair among them, it is a disgrace not to get a lover. Those who have been carried off are said to be "won over." They give to the boy thus carried off a cloak, an ox, and a cup; they wear the cloak even when they have crown older, to show that they were once "illustrious."
{21.} G "But you can see that when men drink, then are they rich, they succeed, they win law-suits, they are happy, they help their friends." { Aristophanes, Knights 92 } And it is a fact that the time passed in drinking-parties expands, nourishes, and enlarges the soul ; it rekindles and awakens, with the exercise of wisdom, every man's senses, as Pindar says : "When the wearisome cares of men have vanished from their bosoms, and as on a sea of golden wealth, we all swim together to the shore of illusion ; he that hath no wealth is then rich, while they that are wealthy . . ." He then continues : "Expand their hearts, overmastered by the arrows of the vine."
{22.} G Ankylē is a cup used in the game of cottabus. Cratinus : "It's death to drink wine if the water be on top. No, she drinks by preference two pitchers of strong wine, mixed half-and-half, and as she calls out his name she tosses the drops with a bend of the arm {ankylē} at the Corinthian - member. " And Bacchylides : "When, raising high her white arm, she makes the 'bend-toss' for the young chaps." Hence we can form a notion of what Aeschylus means by his "bended cottabi." But spears also are spoken of as " bent-arm" spears - or "mid-arm" spears ; but they are so called from the "bend," that is, the right arm. And so the cup, the ankylē, is so called because the right arm is bent in the toss. For the ancients were very careful to toss the cottabus nicely and in good form. In fact the vulgar were apt to take more pride in that than in the skilful throwing of the javelin. Hence the name " bent" arose from the proper position of the arm which they observed when they tossed wine in due form at the prize. What is more, they built rooms specially adapted for this game.
{23.} G The cylix is called Aiakis in Timachidas.
Akatos is a cup shaped like a boat. Epicrates : "Cast off the pinnaces, raise up the larger skiffs, drag the old lady straight to the schooner, man the young one and let the breezes blow, get the pole ready, let out the halyards and loosen the sheet."
[783] Aōton among the Cyprians means drinking-cup, according to Pamphilus. Philitas says that it is a cup without a handle.
Aroklon means the phialē in Nicander of Colophon.
{24.} G Aleison and Depas are identical. Homer in the Odyssey says of Peisistratus { 3.40, 50, 63 } : "He poured wine into a golden cup {depas.}" Then, proceeding a little further, he says of the same : "Therefore I will give thee the golden cup {aleison}." Still further on he again says of the same : "And she gave to Telemachus the beautiful double cup {depas}." Consequently Asclepiades of Myrlea says : "I think that the depas is a cup shaped like a phialē; for they pour libations with it. Homer, at any rate, speaks { Iliad, 16.225 } of the depas with which Achilles was wont to pour a libation to Zeus alone. And it is called depas either because it is given to all {didotai pasi} who wish to make libation or who wish to drink, or else because it had two faces {dyo ōpas} ; these must be the handles. But the word aleison comes either from its being very smooth {agan leion} or because the liquid is contained {alizetai} in it. And that it had two handles is plain { Odyssey, 22.9 } : 'Now he was just on the point of raising a fair two-handled cup {aleison} of gold.' In calling it 'double' he means nothing else than that it was doubly-convex." Silenus, too, says that a "double" cup was one that had no handles. Others declare that the preposition amphi (on both sides) is used for peri (round about) so as to be drunk frorn on both sides, or convenient for drinking in any way.But Parthenius says the name amphikypellon arises from the handles being formed in a convex shape ; for convexity is a curving round. Anicetus says that the kypellon is a shallow cup {phialē} whereas the amphikypellon is hyperphialon, that is, proud and beautiful. To be sure, one may understand by aleison whatever is ornamental in its design,d being a departure from utter smoothness {leiotēs} Peisander says that Heracles gave an aleison to Telamon as a prize of valour in the expedition against Ilios.
{25.} G Note that there is a cup called Amaltheia's Horn and The Year.
Amphoxis is a wooden cup which Philitas says is used by rustics, who do their milking into it and so drink.
Amystis. This, to be sure, is the name given to a sort of drinking which is to be accomplished without taking breath or closing the mouth. But the name also given to those cups which may be drunk out with dexterity. And the verb used for this is examystizein, which means drinking in one breath, as the comic poet Plato shows : "He broke open an ample jar of fragrant liquor and straightway tossed it into the hollow inside of the cup ; then, when it was all unmixed and unspoiled he began to drink, and quaffed it at a single draught." And they used to drink this "breathless" cup to the accompaniment of music, measured at a tempo that conduced to speed. So Ameipsias : "{A} Play me a tune on the pipes ; (to another girl) and you, sing to her music, and I will drink out a cup the while. Play now, you, and do you (to a companion) take the 'breathless' cup. {B -singing} Mortal man needs not much but to love and eat heartily ; but you are much too sparing."
{26.} G Antigonis is a cup named after King Antigonus, just as the seleukis was named after Seleucus, and the prusias after Prusias.
Anaphaia is the name of the cup used for hot drinks among the Cretans.
Aryballos is a cup that is wider at bottom, but contracted at the top, like those purses which can be drawn together (at the top), and which some persons actually call aryballi on account of their likeness in shape. Aristophanes in The Knights { 1094 } : "To pour over the head an aryballos of ambrosia." The aryballos is not much different from the arystichos, its name being derived from arytein (draw) and ballein (pour). They also speak of a pitcher as arystis. Sophocles : "Miserable woman, miserably shall you perish at the hands of the gods [784] for revelling in such a condition with the pitchers." There is also a city in Ionia named Arystis.
Argyris is a kind of cup, not always made of silver {argyros} Anaxilas : " "And to drink from golden argyrides."
{27.} G Batiakion, labronios, tragelaphos, and pristis are names of cups. The batiakē is a Persian saucer. In the collection of Letters of King Alexander addressed to the satraps in Asia there is contained a letter in which the following is written : "Three silver batiakai, gilded. Silver kondya 176 ; of these thirty-three are gilded. One silver tisigitēs. Silver spoons, gilded, thirty-two. One silver flask-castor. One ornamented silver wine-container of native manufacture. Other small cups of every variety, twenty-nine ; drinking-horns, gilded batiakai made in Lycia, censers, and bowls."
Bēssa, name of a cup among the Alexandrians ; it is broader at the lower parts, narrowed above.
{28.} G Baukalis. This vessel also is so named in Alexandria, as Sopater the parodist says : "A baukalis is the cup containing four kotylai" and again : "Pleasant it is, for those in the grip of a mighty thirst that is fed by the morning-headache, to drink down {katabaukalisai} at dawn the flood that gushes from the bees." Athenaeus further says that the men of Alexandria make glass, working it into many varied shapes of cups, and copying the shape of every kind of pottery that is imported among them from everywhere. They say that in order to gratify Cassander at the time when he founded the metropolis of Cassandreia, he being fond of glory and desirous of appropriating to himself a special kind of vessel because Mendaean wine was exported from his city in large quantities, the sculptor Lysippus exerted his best efforts and, after comparing many pieces of earthenware of every description, copied something from each and so invented a special model.
{29.} G Bikos. Xenophon in the first book of his Anabasis { 1.9.25 } : "Cyrus used to send half-filled jars of wine." But according to Polydeuces of Parium the bikos is a cup shaped like a phialē.
Bombylios, a Rhodian cup made by Thericles, concerning the shape of which Socrates says : "Those who drink all they want from a phialē will quit soonest, whereas those who drink from a bombylios, which drips little by little . . . " The bombylios is also a kind of animal.
Bromiades, a drinking-cup similar to the larger sorts of bowl.
{30.} G A Lettered cup is that which has letters inscribed on it. Alexis : "{A} Let me tell you first of all the shape of the cup. [466] It was round, very small, old, its handles terribly chipped, and it had letters all about it. {B} There were eleven, weren't there, in gold, dedicating it to Saviour Zeus ? {A} To no other, be sure." A lettered cup of that sort we have seen, dedicated to Artemis in Capua, in Campania ; it was made of silver according to the pattern described in the Homeric poems, and had the verses stamped on it in letters of gold, and was said to be the cup which belonged to Nestor. The tragic poet Achaeus, in Omphalē, also mentions a lettered cup and represents the satyrs saying this about it : "The cup of the god has long been inviting me, showing plainly its inscription - D, I, and third O ; N and Y are also there ; and after that san (S) and O proclaim their presence." In this last syllable the letter U is wanting, because all the ancients not only used the letter O with the value now attached to it, [467] but even when it denotes the diphthong (OU) they wrote O simply. In similar fashion, also, they wrote the letter E both when it was pronounced by itself alone and when I was combined with it. And so in the lines above quoted the satyrs have made it plain that the final syllable of the word Dionysou, since only the O was incised upon it, as though it were a short syllable, must have the U understood therein. As for the letter san, they constantly use that Doric name instead of sigma. Musicians, indeed, as Aristoxenus often says, advised against the use of S because it is harsh-sounding and unfitted to the flute ; but they often adopt the sound R because of its nimble quality. Horses which had the letter san branded on them were called "san-bearers." Aristophanes in The Clouds { 122 } : '"Neither yourself nor your cart-horse nor your san-bearer (racer)." Pindar says : "Erstwhile there came the long-drawn-out lay, and san (S), which has a false ring on the lips of men." The lettered drinking-cup is mentioned under this name by Eubulus in The Chick thus : "{A} I've always hated worst of all a lettered cup. And yet how like this one is the little phialē which my son took with him when he disappeared. {B} But a lot of things look alike."
{31.} G Gyalas. Philitas in Irregular Words says that the Megarians give this term to cups, gyalai. But Parthenius, the disciple of Dionysius, in the first book On Words found in the Historians, says : " The gyalas is a kind of cup, as Marsyas, the priest of Heracles, writes : 'Whenever the king enters the capital, he is met by someone with a gyalas full of wine ; taking it, he pours a libation (from it).' "
{32.} G Deinos. This also is the name of a cup. Dionysius of Sinope, when giving a list of names for cups in The Woman who Saved, mentions this also, and says : "{A} And every sort of lovely Thericleian vessels, my lady ; double cups, triple cups, a large deinos holding ten gallons, a little sauce-boat, bowls, and drinking-horns. {B} The old woman has an eye for cups, but for nothing else whatsoever." Now the philosopher Cleanthes, in his book On Substitution of Terms, says that the Thericleian cylix and the Deinias were named from their respective makers. Seleucus, after saying that the deinos is a kind of cup, quotes from the Medea of Strattis : "Do you know, Creon, what your head looks like? I know myself; a deinos turned upside down." And Archedicus, in The Man who went Wrong, bringing on a slave who is talking about some joy-girls, says : "{A} The other night I brought a girl Nicostratē, with a terribly hooked nose, who was nicknamed Vertigo {Skotodinē} because she had once lifted a silver deinos in the darkness {skotos} {B} Vertigo converting a vase, ye gods! " The deinos is also a kind of dance, as Apollophanes shows in The Bride : " This here is a wonderful deinos (whirl), and the other here is the basket-dance." But the Argive poetess Telesilla calls even the threshing-floor a dinos (whirl). The people of Cyrene give the name of deinos to the foot basin, as Philitas says in Irregular Words.
{33.} G [468] Depastron. Silenus and Cleitarchus in their Glossaries say that this is a general term for drinking-cups among the people of Cleitoria. Antimachus of Colophon says, in the fifth book of the Thebaïs : "Verily all things, whatsoever Adrastus bade them do, they did with busy motion ; water they poured, and virgin honey, into a silver mixing-bowl, mixing them very carefully ; then they quickly dispensed the cups {depastra} to the princes of the Achaeans as they stood in a row, and for the libation they straightway poured (wine) from a silver pitcher." And again : "Let others, too, fetch the mixing bowl all of silver, and the golden cups {depastra} which are stored in my chambers." And in the succeeding verses Antimachus says : "Golden cups, too, and a jar full of virgin honey, whatever may be his more precious sort."
{34.} G Daktyloton is a cup called by this name in Ion's Agamemnon : "And you shall win a gift worthy of your speed in running, a dactylote cup, unsullied by the fire, the prize that Pelias cherished, the work of art won by Castor's feet." Now Epigenes understands here the cup with two handles {amphoton} into which it is possible to insert the fingers {dactyloi} on both sides ; but others interpret as the cup which has figures like fingers all round it, or which has projections like those on the Sidonian cups ; others define as "smooth" (to the touch). The phrase "unsullied by fire" imitates the Homeric { Iliad, 23.267 } "he offered as prize a cauldron untouched by fire," that is, one adapted to the receiving of cold water, or convenient for cold drinks. But some sav it is the drinking-horn. Now in the Molossian country it is recorded that the cattle have extraordinarily large horns ; Theopompus gives an account of their constuction. From these it is probable that Pelias also had obtained his. For Iolcus is near the Molossian country, and there the games were established in honour of Pelias. "It is better to say," Didymus declares in his Commentary on this play, "that Ion misunderstood Homer when he said { Iliad, 23.270 } : 'And for the fifth (in the contest) he set up a two-handled phialē untouched by the fire.' For Ion thought that the phialē was a drinking-cup ; but in Homer it is a spreading cauldron-like vessel of bronze, adapted for the receiving of cold water. And the phialē is called daktyloton because it has hollows round it on the inside, as though made by fingers, or because it is grasped by the fingers of the drinkers. Yet some understand 'phialē untouched by fire ' as meaning the drinking-horn ; for that is not made by firing. However, Ion might perhaps call the phialē a drinking-cup by a trope." Philemon in Attic Words or Glosses, under the heading kalpis, says : "A dactylote cup also is the one with two handles, into which is it possible to insert the fingers on both sides. But others say that it is one which has certain figures all about it, shaped like fingers."
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