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 (καταβαυκαλίσαι) Cups of the juice by bees afforded, At early dawn, when parch'd by thirst, Caused by too much wine overnight. [Sidenote: DRINKING-CUPS.] 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 conceived the ambition of inventing some peculiar kind of utensil in earthenware, on account of the extraordinary quantity of Mendean wine which was exported from the city, took a great deal of pains with that study, and brought Cassander a great number of cups of every imaginable fashion, all made of earthenware, and taking a part of the pattern of each, thus made one goblet of a design of his own. 29. There is also a kind of cup called bicus. Xenophon, in the first book of his Anabasis, says:— "And Cyrus sent him a number of goblets (βίκους) of wine half full; and it is a cup of a flat shallow shape, like a φιάλη, according to the description given of it by Pollux the Parian. There is another kind of cup called the bombylius; a sort of Rhodian Thericlean cup; concerning the shape of which Socrates says,—"Those who drink out of the phiale as much as they please will very soon give over; but those who drink out of a bombylius drink by small drops." There is also an animal of the same name. There is also a kind of drinking-cup called the bromias, in form like the larger kind of scyphus. 30. There is another kind called the lettered cup, having writing engraved round it. Alexis says—