Even the loftiest and least worldly-minded of the Homeric heroes, Achilles, set great value on a favourite drinking-cup, which he preserved for his own particular use, and for pouring out libations to Zeus alone. Priam[450] was careful to include a rare goblet in the ransom of Hector’s body, and a similar gift aided in alluring Alcmena from the paths of virtue.[451] But the most famous bowl of antiquity was that of Heracles, which, more capacious than the barber’s basin in Don Quixote, served its illustrious owner in the double capacity of a drinking-cup and a canoe; for when he had quenched his thirst, he could set his bowl afloat, and, leaping into it, steer to any part of the world he pleased. Some, indeed, speak of it as a borrowed article, belonging originally to the Sun, and in which the god used nightly to traverse the ocean from West to East.[452] ----- Footnote 450: Iliad. ω. 234. Footnote 451: Athen. xi. 16. Footnote 452: Bentley, Dissert. on Phal. i. 175, sqq. ----- To pass, however, over the goblets of mythology. It was fashionable to possess plate of this kind finely sculptured with historical arguments; and history has preserved the names of Cimon and Athenocles, two artists who excelled in this style of engraving. These cups were sometimes of silver gilt, sometimes of massive gold crusted with jewels.[453] In addition to the two artists named above, we may enumerate Crates, Stratonicos, Myrmecides of Miletos, Callicrates the Lacedemonian, and Mys, whose “Cup of Heracles,” celebrated in antiquity, had represented upon it the storming of Ilion, with this inscription, Troy’s lofty towers by Grecians sacked behold! Parrhasios’ draught, by Mys engraved in gold.[454] The names by which the ancients distinguished their several kinds of goblets are too numerous to be here given. Some were curious—“Amalthea’s Horn,” “The Year,” &c. Rustics made use of two-handled wooden bowls in which, when thirsty, they drew fresh milk from the cow in the fields.[455] There was a big-bellied cup with a narrow neck which being shaped like a purse, participated with this very necessary article in the name of Aryballos.[456] ----- Footnote 453: Plin. xxxiii. 2. Juven. v. 42. Athen. iv. 29. Footnote 454: Athen. xi. 19. Footnote 455: Athen. xi. 25, states this from Philetas: but Kayser, in his edition of that author’s fragments, seems to have overlooked this passage. Footnote 456: Athen. xi. 36. On the Cantharos, see § 48. ----- Glass cups of much beauty were manufactured in great abundance at Alexandria. Among these was the _Baucalis_, mentioned by Sopater the parodist, who says:— ’Tis sweet in early morn to cool the lips With pure fresh water from the gushing fount, Mingled with honey in the Baucalis, When one o’er night has made too free with wine, And feels sharp thirst.[457] ----- Footnote 457: Athen. xi. 28. -----