The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 2 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
_Sos._ The king then pledged him in a certain village.
_B._ A wondrous thing. What can you mean? Is this
A kind of goblet?
_Sos._ No; I mean a village
Near Thyria.
_B._ Why, my whole thoughts were borne
Off to the Rhodian cups, O Sosia,
And to those heavy bowls they call ephebi.
37. There are also some cups which are called ἡδυποτίδες. "These," says
Lynceus the Samian, "were made by the Rhodians in emulation of the
Thericlean goblets which were in use at Athens. But as the Athenians,
on account of the great weight of metal employed in them, only made
this shape for the use of the richer classes, the Rhodians made theirs
so light that they were able to put these ornaments within the reach
even of the poor. And Epigenes mentions them, in his Heroine, in these
words—
A psycter, and a cyathus, and cymbia,
Four rhyta, and three hedypotides,
A silver strainer, too.
And Semus, in the fifth book of his Delias, says that there is among
the offerings at Delos a golden hedypotis, the gift of Echenica, a
woman of the country, whom he mentions also, in his eighth book. And
Cratinus the younger says, using the diminutive form,—
And Archephon had twelve ἡδυπότια.
38. There was another kind of cup called the Herculeum. Pisander, in
the second book of his Herculead, says that the cup in which Hercules
sailed across the ocean belonged to the Sun; and that Hercules received
it from Oceanus for that purpose. But, perhaps, as the hero was fond of
large cups, the poets and historians jesting because of the great size
of this one, invented the fable of his having gone to sea in a cup.
But Panyasis, in the first book of his Herculead, says that Hercules
obtained the cup of the Sun from Nereus, and sailed even to Erythea in
it. And we have said before that Hercules was one of the inordinate
drinkers. And that the sun was borne on towards his setting in a cup,
Stesichorus tells us, where he says—
And then the Sun, great Hyperion's offspring,
Embarked in his golden cup, that he
Might cross the ocean's wide expanse, and come
To the deep foundations of immortal Night;
To his fond mother, and his virgin bride,
And his dear children. And the son of Jove
Came to the grove
Shaded with laurels and with bays.
And Antimachus speaks thus—
And then the most illustrious Erythea
Sent the Sun forth in a convenient cup.
And Æschylus, in his Daughters of the Sun, says—
There in the west is found the golden cup,
Great Vulcan's work, your father's property,
In which he's borne along his rapid course
O'er the dark waters of the boundless sea.
When, his work done, he flies before dark Night,
Borne on her black-horsed chariot.
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