Book 11
26
There is also a kind of cup called aryballus. This kind of cup is wider at the bottom, and contracted at to like a purse when it is drawn together; and, indeed, some people call purses ἀρύβαλλοι, from their resemblance to this kind of cup. Aristophanes says, in his Knights— He pour'd upon his head Ambrosia from a holy cup (ἀρύβαλλος). And the aryballus is not very different from the arystichus, being derived from the verbs ἀρύτω and βάλλω; they also call a jug ἄρυστις. Sophocles says— You are most accursed of all women, Who come to supper with your ἀρύστεις. There is also a city of the Ionians called arystis.
26
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.
27
There is a cup used by the Alexandrians named bessa, wider in the lower parts, and narrow above.
