“There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip.”
As a measure it was equivalent to six kyathi, or roughly half a pint, as already shown (p. [135]). The ἡμικοτύλιον there discussed is, however, a one-handled cup, and therefore to be called a κότυλος rather than a κοτύλη. The latter is a word constantly found in Greek literature from Homer downwards, as in the passage where Andromache describes the impending fate of her orphan child, to whom a pitying patron will hold out a cup, merely to taste, not to drain.[[643]]
From Athenaeus we learn that the κότυλος was like a deep washing-basin (λουτήριον), and that it was associated with Dionysos. Eratosthenes[[644]] calls it the most beautiful and the best for drinking of all cups. The diminutive form κοτύλισκος occurs in connection with the κέρνος], discussed below (p. [195]), which had many of these little cups attached to it. It has been customary to apply the name κοτύλη to a class of vase found at all periods, with flat base, slightly curved sides, and two flat handles level with the rim (Fig. [49]); it sometimes attains a considerable size for a drinking-cup, and is usually decorated with one or two figures each side. A notable exception is the beautiful vase in the British Museum (Plate [LI].), signed by Hieron, with its frieze of figures all round. This identification is of course at variance with Athenaeus' statement that the kotyle has no handle; but no other satisfactory name has been found for the form.
FIG. 49. KOTYLE.
Closely connected, it would seem, with the κοτύλη is the cup known as the σκύφος or σκύπφος, to which there are frequent references in the poets and elsewhere but not in Aristophanes. Homer[[645]] describes it as a rustic sort of bowl, which held milk; Simonides applies to it the epithet οὐατόεντα, or “handled.” Athenaeus connects the word with σκαφίς, a round wooden vessel which held milk or whey, and this seems to accord with the mention of it in Homer. It was always specially associated with Herakles,[[646]] who was said to have used it on his expeditions; hence certain varieties were known as σκύφοι Ἡρακλεωτικοί, but it is more probable that this word refers to Heraklea Trachinia in Northern Greece. Besides the Herakleotic, Athenaeus mentions specially Boeotian, Rhodian, and Syracusan skyphi. The ordinary shape of the vase may be inferred from the form of that which Herakles is often depicted holding on the monuments[[647]]; it is of the same type as the κοτύλη, but the body tapers below and has a higher foot, while the handles are placed lower down and bent upwards. Among the late black-glazed wares with opaque paintings (p. [488]) some examples occur of cups with handles twisted in a kind of knot, and it has been suggested that these represent the “Heraklean knot” described by Athenaeus[[648]] as to be seen on the handles of these: σκύφοι Ἡρακλεωτικοί.
The word is also frequently used by Roman authors, and there is a particularly interesting passage in Suetonius (cf. p. [134]) alluding to the Homerici scyphi adorned with chased designs from the Homeric poems[[649]] which Nero possessed; these were, of course, metal bowls with reliefs,[[650]] but they have their fictile counterparts in the so-called Megarian bowls (p. [499]).
Athenaeus[[651]] quotes from the philosopher Poseidonios a passage referring to drinking-cups called Παναθηναικά, which may be supposed to have some connection with the Panathenaic festival, and attempts have been made to identify them with a class of skyphi or kotylae of the R.F. period, the invariable subject on which is an owl between two olive-branches (p. [410]).[[652]] There is no doubt some reference to the Athenian goddess, but it is more likely that they represent some kind of official measure (see above, p. [135]).
It will be noted that the σκύφος appears to have been originally a wooden vessel used as a milking-pail, and it is further identified in Theocritus with the wooden κισσύβιον, to which we have already alluded. Two other words are given by Athenaeus to denote large wooden bowls of the type of the σκύφος, namely the ἄμφωτις and the πέλλα[[653]] both used as milking-pails. They were not strictly speaking drinking-cups. Among existing Greek vases this form, viz. a deep straight-sided bowl, such as a carved wooden vessel would naturally take, seems to be best represented by the examples discovered on the site of the Cabeiric temple at Thebes, which are of this shape and of considerable size (see Fig. [98], p. 392).[[654]]
The βρομίας is described by Athenaeus[[655]] as a cup resembling the taller skyphi, and the κιβώριον[[656]] (whence the ecclesiastical Latin ciborium[[657]]) was also a kind of skyphos. The name μαστός should also be included here, from the likeness of the cup to the skyphos. Its characteristic is that it has no foot but only a small knob, and therefore exactly resembles a woman’s breast with the nipple, whence its name. In Greek pottery the only known painted examples are of the B.F. period,[[658]] and these are usually modelled and painted with great care and delicacy. The so-called Megarian bowls (see p. [499]) should also be included under this heading, in reference to which it has been pointed out that μαστοί of metal were dedicated in temples at Oropos in Boeotia and at Paphos.[[659]]