DRINKING-CUPS. 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 ([Greek: aleison]) went round,
I thus address'd him. . . .
For, as he here calls the same cup both [Greek: kissybion] and [Greek: aleison], he does not preserve the accurate distinction between the names. And any one may conjecture that the [Greek: kissybion] was originally made by the shepherds out of the wood of the ivy ([Greek: kissos]). But some derive it from the verb [Greek: cheumai], used in the same sense as [Greek: chôreô], to contain; as it occurs in the following line:—
This threshold shall contain ([Greek: cheisetai]) them both.
And the hole of the serpent is also called [Greek: cheiê], as containing the animal; and they also give the name of [Greek: kêthion], that is, [Greek: chêtion], to the box which holds the dice. And Dionysius of Samos, in his treatise on the Cyclic Poets, calls the cup which Homer calls [Greek: kissybion], [Greek: kymbion], writing thus—"And Ulysses, when he saw him acting thus, having filled a [Greek: kymbion] with wine, gave it to him to drink."
54. 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.
55. 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,
Call'd condu, holding ten full cotylæ.
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,
