Deipnosophistae

Athenaeus of Naucratis

Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists or Banquet Of The Learned Of Athenaeus. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

And Sosicrates, in his Philadelphi, says—

A gentle breeze mocking the curling waves,
Sciron's fair daughter, gently on its course
Brought with a noiseless foot the cantharus;
here cantharus evidently means a boat.

And Phrynichus, in his Revellers, says–

And then Chærestratus, in his own abode,
Working with modest zeal, did weep each day
A hundred canthari well fill'd with wine.

And Nicostratus, in his Calumniator, says—

A. Is it a ship of twenty banks of oars,
Or a swan, or a cantharus? For when
I have learnt that, I then shall be prepared
Myself t' encounter everything.
B. It is
A cycnocantharus, an animal
Compounded carefully of each.

And Menander, in his Captain of a Ship, says—

A. Leaving the salt depths of the Aegean sea,
Theophilus has come to us, O Strato.
How seasonably now do I say your son
Is in a prosperous and good condition,
And so's that golden cantharus.
B. What cantharus?
A. Your vessel.

And a few lines afterwards he says—

B. You say my ship is safe?
A. Indeed I do,
That gallant ship which Callicles did build,
And which the Thurian Euphranor steer'd.

And Polemo, in his treatise on Painters, addressed to Antigonus, says—"At Athens, at the marriage of Pirithous,

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Hippeus made a wine jug and goblet of stone, inlaying its edges with gold. And he provided also couches of pinewood placed on the ground, adorned with coverlets of every sort, and for drinking cups there were canthari made of earthenware. And moreover, the lamp which was suspended from the roof, had a number of lights all kept distinct from one another. And that this kind of cup got its name originally from Cantharus a potter, who invented it, Philetærus tells us in his Achilles—

Peleus—but Peleus[*](There is a pun here on the name, as if Peleus were derived from πηλὸς, clay.) is a potter's name,
The name of some dry withered lamp-maker,
Known too as Cantharus, exceeding poor,
Far other than a king, by Jove.

And that cantharus is also the name of a piece of female ornament, we may gather from Antiphanes in his Bœotia.

There is also a kind of cup called carchesium. Callixenus the Rhodian, in' his History of the Affairs and Customs of Alexandria, says that it is a cup of an oblong shape, slightly contracted in the middle, having ears which reach down to the bottom. And indeed, the carchesium is a tolerably oblong cup, and perhaps it has its name from its being stretched upwards. But the carchesium is an extremely old description of cup; if at least it is true that Jupiter, when he had gained the affections of Alcmena, gave her one as a love gift, as Pherecydes relates in his second book, and Herodorus of Heraclea tells the same story. But Asclepiades the Myrlean says that this cup derives its name from some one of the parts of the equipment of a ship. For the lower part of the mast is called the pterna, which goes down into the socket; and the middle of the mast is called the neck; and towards the upper part it is called carchesium. And the carchesium has yards running out on each side, and in it there is placed what is called the breastplate, being four-cornered on all sides, except just at the bottom and at the top. Both of which extend a little outwards in a straight line. And above the breastplate is a part which is called the distaff, running up to a great height, and being sharp-pointed. And Sappho also speaks of the carchesia, where she says—

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And they all had well-fill'd carchesia,
And out of them they pour'd libations, wishing
All manner of good fortune to the bridegroom.

And Sophocles, in his Tyro, says—

And they were at the table in the middle,
Between the dishes and carchesia;

saying that the dragons came up to the table, and took up a position between the meats and the carchesia, or cups of wine. For it was the fashion among the ancients to place upon the table goblets containing mixed wine; as Homer also represents the tables in his time. And the carchesium was named so from having on it rough masses like millet (κεγχροειδὴς), and the α is by enallage instead of ε, καρχήσιον for κερχήσιον. On which account Homer calls those who are overcome by thirst καρ- χαλέους. And Charon of Lampsacus, in his Annals, says that among the Lacedæmonians there is still shown the very same cup which was given by Jupiter to Alcmena, when he took upon himself the likeness of Amphitryon.

There is another kind of cup called calpium, a sort of Erythræan goblet, as Pamphilus says; and I imagine it is the same as the one called scaphium.

There is another kind of cup called celebe. And this description of drinking-cup is mentioned by Anacreon, where he says—

Come, O boy, and bring me now
A celebe, that I may drink
A long deep draught, and draw no breath.
It will ten measures of water hold,
And five of mighty Chian wine.

But it is uncertain what description of cup it is, or whether every cup is not called celebe, because one pours libations into it (ἀπὸ τοῦ χέειν λοιβὴν),or from one's pouring libations (λείβειν). And the verb λείβω is applied habitually to every sort of liquid, from which also the word λέβης is derived. But Silenus and Clitarchus say that celebe is a name given to drinking-cups by the Aeolians. But Pamphilus says that the celebe is the same cup which is also called thermopotis, a cup to drink warm water from. And Nicander the Colophonian, in his Dialects, says that the celebe is a vessel used by the shepherds in which they preserve honey. For Anti- machus the Colophonian, in the fifth book of his Thebais, says—

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He bade the heralds bear to them a bladder
Fill'd with dark wine, and the most choice of all,
The celebea in his house which lay,
Fill'd with pure honey.

And in a subsequent passage he says—

But taking up a mighty celebeum
In both his hands, well filled with richest honey,
Which in great store he had most excellent.

And again he says—

And golden cups of wine, and then besides,
A celebeum yet untouch'd by man,
Full of pure honey, his most choice of treasures.

And in this passage he very evidently speaks of the celebeum as some kind of vessel distinct from a drinking-cup, since he has already mentioned drinking-cups under the title of δέπαστρα. And Theocritus the Syracusan, in his Female Witches, says—

And crown this celebeum with the wool,
Well dyed in scarlet, of the fleecy sheep.

And Euphorion says—

Or whether you from any other stream
Have fill'd your celebe with limpid water.

And Anacreon says—

And the attendant pour'd forth luscious wile,
Holding a celebe of goodly size.

But Dionysius, surnamed the Slender, explaining the poem of Theodoridas, which is addressed to Love, says that celebe is a name given to a kind of upstanding cup, something like the prusias and the thericleum.

There is also the horn. It is said that the first men drank out of the horns of oxen; from which circumstance Bacchus often figured with horns on his head, and is moreover called a bull by many of the poets. And at Cyzicus there is a statue of him with a bull's head. But that men drank out of horns (κέρατα) is plain from the fact that to this very day, when men mix water with wine, they say that they κερᾶσαι (mix it). And the vessel in which the wine is mixed is called κρατὴρ, from the fact of the water being mingled (συγκιρνᾶσθαι) in it, as if the word were κερατὴρ, from the drink being poured εἰς τὸ κέρας (into the horn); and even to this day the fashion of making horns into cups con- tinues: but some people call these cups rhyta. And many

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of the poets represent the ancients as drinking out of horns. Pindar, speaking of the Centaurs, says—

After those monsters fierce
Learnt the invincible strength of luscious wine;
Then with a sudden fury,
With mighty hands they threw the snow-white milk
Down from the board,
And of their own accord
Drank away their senses in the silver-mounted horns.

And Xenophon, in the seventh book of his Anabasis, giving an account of the banquet which was given by the Thracian Seuthes, writes thus:

But when Xenophon, with his companions, arrived at Seuthes's palace, first of all they embraced one another, and then, according to the Thracian fashion, they were presented with horns of wine.

And in his sixth book he says, when he is speaking of the Paphlagonians,

And they supped lying on couches made of leaves, and they drank out of cups made of horn.

And Aeschylus, in his Perrhæbi, represents the Perrhæbi as using horns for cups, in the following lines:—

With silver-mounted horns,
Fitted with mouthpieces of rich-wrought gold.

And Sophocles, in his Pandora, says—

And when a man has drain'd the golden cup,
She, pressing it beneath her tender arm,
Returns it to him full.

And Hermippus, in his Fates, says—

Do you now know the thing you ought to do?
Give not that cup to me; but from this horn
Give me but once more now to drink a draught.

And Lycurgus the orator, in his Oration against Demades, says that Philip the king pledged those men whom he loved in a horn. And Theopompus, in the second book of his history of the Affairs and Actions of Philip, says that the kings of the Pæonians, as the oxen in their countries have enormous horns, so large as to contain three or four choes of wine, make drinking-cups of them, covering over the brims with silver or with gold. And Philoxenus of Cythera, in his poem entitled The Supper, says—

He then the sacred drink of nectar quaff'd
From the gold-mounted brims of th' ample horns,
And then they all did drink awhile.

And the Athenians made also silver goblets in the shape of

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horns, and drank out of them. And one may ascertain that by seeing the articles mentioned in writing among the list of confiscated goods on the pillar which lies in the Acropolis, which contains the sacred offerings—

There is also a silver horn drinking-cup, very solid.

There is also the cernus. This is a vessel made of earthenware, having many little cup-like figures fastened to it, in which are white poppies, wheat-ears, grains of barley, peas, pulse, vetches, and lentils. And he who carries it, like the man who carries the mystic fan, eats of these things, as Ammonius relates in the third book of his treatise on Altars and Sacrifices.

There is also the cup called the cissybium. This is a cup with but one handle, as Philemon says. And Neoptolemus the Parian, in the third book of his Dialects, says that this word is used by Euripides in the Andromache, to signify a cup made of ivy (κίσσινον)—

And all the crowd of shepherds flock'd together,
One bearing a huge ivy bowl of milk,
Refreshing medicine of weary toil;
Another brought the juice o' the purple vine.

For, says he, the cissybium is mentioned in a rustic assembly, where it is most natural that the cups should be made of wood. But Clitarchus says that the Aeolians called the cup which is elsewhere called scyphus, cissybium. And Marsyas says that it is a wooden cup, the same as the κύπελλον. But Eumolpus says that it is a species of cup which perhaps (says he) was originally made of the wood of the ivy. But Nicander the Colophonian, in the first book of his History of Aetolia, writes thus:—"In the sacred festival of Jupiter Didymæus they pour libations from leaves of ivy (κισσοῦ), from which circumstance the ancient cups are called cissybia. Homer says—

Holding a cup (κισσύβιον) of dark rich-colour'd wine.

And Asclepiades the Myrlean, in his essay on the cup called Nestoris, says,

No one of the men in the city or of the men of moderate fortune used to use the σκύφος or the κισσύβιον, but only the swineherds and the shepherds, and the men in the fields. Polyphemus used the cissybium, and Eumæus the other kind.

But Callimachus seems to make a blunder in the use of these names, speaking of an intimate friend of his

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who was entertained with him at a banquet by Pollis the Athenian, for he says—

For he abhorr'd to drink at one long draught
Th' amystis loved in Thrace, not drawing breath:
And soberly preferr'd a small cissybium:
And when for the third time the cup (ἄλεισον) went round,
I thus addressed him . . . . . .

For, as he here calls the same cup both κισσύβιον and ἄλεισον, he does not preserve the accurate distinction between the names. And any one may conjecture that the κισσύβιον was originally made by the shepherds out of the wood of the ivy (κισσός). But some derive it from the verb χεύμαι, used in the same sense as χωρέω, to contain; as it occurs in the fol- lowing line:—

This threshold shall contain (χείσεται) them both.

And the hole of the serpent is also called χείη, as containing the animal; and they also give the name of κήθιον, that is, χήτιον, to the box which holds the dice. And Dionysius of Samos, in his treatise on the Cyclic Poets, calls the cup which Homer calls κισσύβιον, κύμβιον, writing thus—

And Ulysses, when he saw him acting thus, having filled a κύμβιον with wine, gave it to him to drink.

There is also the ciborium. Hegesander the Delphian says that Euphorion the poet, when supping with the Prytanis, when the Prytanis exhibited to him some ciboria, which appeared to be made in a most exquisite and costly manner, . . . . . . . . And when the cup had gone round pretty often, he, having drunk very hard and being intoxicated, took one of the ciboria and defiled it. And Didymus says that it is a kind of drinking-cup; and perhaps it may be the same as that which is called scyphium, which derives its name from being contracted to a narrow space at the bottom, like the Egyptian ciboria.

There is also the condu, an Asiatic cup. (Menander, in his play entitled the Flatterer, says—

Then, too, there is in Cappadocia,
O Struthion, a noble golden cup,
Called condu, holding ten full cotyle.

And Hipparchus says, in his Men Saved,—

A. Why do you so attend to this one soldier?
He has no silver anywhere, I know well;
But at the most one small embroider'd carpet,
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(And that is quite enough for him,) on which
Some Persian figures and preposterous shapes
Of Persian griffins, and such beasts, are work'd.
B Away with you, you wretch.
A. And then he has
A condu, a wine-cooler, and a cymbium.

And Nicomachus, in the first book of his treatise on the Egyptian Festivals, says—

But the condu is a Persian cup; and it was first introduced by Hermippus the astrologer.[*](This quotation from Nicomachus is hopelessly corrupt.). . . . . . . . . . . . on which account libations are poured out of it.

But Pancrates, in the first book of his Conchoreis, says—

But he first pour'd libations to the gods
From a large silver condu; then he rose,
And straight departed by another road.

There is also the cononius. Ister, the pupil of Callimachus, in the first book of his History of Ptolemais, the city in Egypt, writes thus:—"A pair of cups, called cononii, and a pair of therielean cups with golden covers.