Book 11
47
There is also the cantharus. Now, that this is the name of a kind of boat is well known. And that there is a kind of cup also called by this name we find from Ameipsias, in his Men Playing at the Cottabus, or Madness, where he says— Bring here the vinegar cruets, and canthari. And Alexis, in his Creation (the sentence refers to some one drinking in a wine-shop), says— And then I saw Hermaiscus turning over One of these mighty canthari, and near him There lay a blanket, and his well-fill'd wallet. And Eubulus, who often mentions this cup by name, in his Pamphilus, says— But I (for opposite the house there was A wine-shop recently establish'd) There watch'd the damsel's nurse; and bade the vintner Mix me a measure of wine worth an obol, And set before me a full-sized cantharus. And in another place he says— How dry and empty is this cantharus! And again, in another place- Soon as she took it, she did drink it up,— How much d'ye think? a most enormous draught; And drain'd the cantharus completely dry. And Xenarchus, in his Priapus, says this— Pour, boy, no longer in the silver tankard, But let us have again recourse to the deep. Pour, boy, I bid you, in the cantharus, Pour quick, by Jove, aye, by the Cantharus,The cantharus was also a kind of beetle worshipped in Egypt, and as such occasionally invoked in an oath. pour. And Epigenes, in his Heroine, says— But now they do no longer canthari make, At least not large ones; but small shallow cups Are come in fashion, and they call them neater, As if they drank the cups, and not the wine.
