Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/322

 He pour'd upon his head Ambrosia from a holy cup ([Greek: aryballos]).

And the aryballus is not very different from the arystichus, being derived from the verbs [Greek: arytô] and [Greek: ballô]; they also call a jug [Greek: arystis]. Sophocles says—

You are most accursed of all women, Who come to supper with your [Greek: arysteis].

There is also a city of the Ionians called arystis.

There is another kind of cup called argyris, which is not necessarily made of silver. Anaxilas says—

And drinking out of golden argyrides.

27. Then batiacium, labronius, tragelaphus, pristis, are all names of different kinds of cups. The batiaca is a Persian goblet. And among the letters of the great Alexander to the Satraps of Asia there is inserted one letter in which the following passage occurs:—"There are three batiacæ of silver gilt, and a hundred and seventy-six silver condya; and of these last thirty-three are gilt. There is also one silver tigisites, and thirty-two silver-gilt mystri. There is one silver vegetable dish, and one highly wrought wine-stand of silver ornamented in a barbaric style. There are other small cups from every country, and of every kind of fashion, to the number of twenty-nine: and other small-sized cups called rhyta, adbatia, and Lycurgi, all gilt, and incense-burners and spoons."

There is a cup used by the Alexandrians named bessa, wider in the lower parts, and narrow above.

28. There is also a kind of cup called baucalis: and this, too, is chiefly used in Alexandria, as Sopater the parodist says—

A baucalis, with four rings mark'd on it.

And in another passage he says—

'Tis sweet for men to drink ([Greek: katabaukalisai]) Cups of the juice by bees afforded, At early dawn, when parch'd by thirst, Caused by too much wine overnight.

And the men in Alexandria, it is said, have a way of working crystal, forming it often into various shapes of goblets, and imitating in this material every sort of earthenware cup which is imported from any possible country. And they say that Lysippus the statuary, wishing to gratify Cassander, when he was founding the colony of Cassandria, and when he