FIG. 217. LAGENA FROM FRANCE, INSCRIBED.
The words in use for a ladle are cyathus, corresponding to the Greek κύαθος (Vol. I. p. [179]),[[3267]] in measure equivalent to one-twelfth of the sextarius or pint, and simpulum or simpuvium. The latter were chiefly associated with sacrifices, and will be dealt with later (p. [471]); the cyathus was regularly used at the table for measuring out the wine into the drinking-cups. We learn from Martial that in drinking a toast it was customary to use the number of cyathi that corresponded to the letters in the name of the recipient, as in the epigram
Laevia sex cyathis, septem Justina bibatur,
Quinque Lycas, Lyde quattuor, Ida tribus.[[3268]]
Of drinking-cups the Romans had almost as large a variety as the Greeks, the majority of the ornamented vases preserved to this day being apparently for this purpose; the number of names recorded in literature is, however, much less, as many of those given in the long list on pp. [181-183] of Vol. I. are mere nick-names for ordinary forms. The generic name for a drinking-cup was poculum,[[3269]] the Greek ποτήριον, just as vas was the generic name for a larger vessel; it occurs constantly in the poets, who, indeed, use it somewhat loosely, and has already been met with in the series of small bowls with Latin inscriptions described in Chapter XI. (p. [490]). Many forms of drinking-cups used by the Romans were only made in metal, such as the cantharus,[[3270]] carchesium,[[3271]] and scyphus[[3272]] (see Vol. I. pp. [184], [187]). All these were forms borrowed from the Greeks, as were the calix (kylix), the cotula (chiefly used as a measure = half-a-pint), and the scaphium[[3273]] and cymbium,[[3274]] which were boat-shaped vessels. The ciborium (a rare word, but used by Horace[[3275]]) was supposed to be made in the form of the leaves or pods of the colocasia, or Egyptian bean.[[3276]] Its later ecclesiastical use is well known. Other names of which we hear are the batioca,[[3277]] the gaulus,[[3278]] the scutella (see below),[[3279]] and the amystis, or cup drained at one draught (see Vol. I. p. [181]).[[3280]] Like the Greek kylix, the calix appears to have been of all these the one most commonly in use, and is constantly referred to by poets and prose writers. Those of terracotta could often be purchased at a very low price, and formed, it is evident, the ordinary drinking-cups of the Roman citizen; they were also frequently of glass. Juvenal speaks of “plebeian cups purchased for a few asses”[[3281]]; and Martial describes a man buying two calices for an as and taking them home with him.[[3282]] We have no exact information as to its form, but it must have been something like the Greek kylix, only probably without handles; it was also used for solid food such as herbs.[[3283]] Seneca speaks of calices Tiburtinae, which seem from the context to have been of earthenware.[[3284]] Varieties of the calix are probably represented by the typical Gaulish forms illustrated in Chapter XXIII., Figs. [221]-223.
Of dishes and other utensils employed for food at the table, the largest were the lanx and the patina. The former is described by Horace and Juvenal as large enough to hold a whole boar,[[3285]] and was probably of metal; the patina is described as a dish for holding fish, crabs, or lobsters,[[3286]] but that it was not necessarily limited in size is shown by the stories already alluded to of Domitian and Vitellius (p. [456]). The latter, when dragged to his death, was insulted by the epithet of patinarius, or dish-maker.[[3287]] The patina was flat, and made of clay, and is also described as a wide and shallow vessel for cooking.[[3288]] It is contrasted with the lagena in the well-known fable of the fox and the stork.[[3289]] Smaller dishes for sweetmeats and other dainties were the catinum and catillum, and the patella.[[3290]] The discus and paropsis[[3291]] appear to have been, like the lanx, principally of metal; the former was like a shield (whence scutula and scutella); the latter is mentioned by Isidorus, who describes it as quadrangular, and by Martial, together with some obscurely-named dishes[[3292]]:
Sic implet gabatas paropsidesque
Et leves scutulas cavasque lances.
Martial speaks of the patella as a dish for a turbot, and also as a vessel of black ware which was used to hold vegetables[[3293]]; the catinus (a fictile dish) was large enough to hold a good-sized fish, such as a tunny,[[3294]] and the catillus appears to have been a sort of porringer. Sauces were placed in small dishes or cups, known as acetabula (the Greek ὀξύβαφον), which were evidently of earthenware[[3295]]; the catellus held pepper,[[3296]] and the concha or shell was used for a salt-cellar, also for unguents.[[3297]] The latter was probably a real shell, not of earthenware. Another kind of dish which is only once mentioned, in Horace’s account of Nasidienus’ banquet, was the mazonomum, probably a kind of lanx, in metal, which held on that occasion a sort of ragoût of game.[[3298]] His own table, however, he boasts, was adorned only by a cyathus and two cups, an echinus or rinsing-bowl, a guttus, and a patera or libation bowl.[[3299]] The guttus seems to have corresponded to the Greek lekythos or askos, and is the general name for an oil-flask or cruet.[[3300]] It was either a small, long-necked bottle or a squat flask with a narrow spout, which allowed the oil to pour slowly. Roach-Smith published a relief dedicated by Egnatius, a physician, to the Deae Matres, on which small vases of the first-named form appear, indicating that he consecrated his medicine bottles to these divinities.[[3301]]