A.Hermon, what is the matter? Where are we?
B.Nothing's the matter, only that your father
Has just dropt down into the well to cool himself,
As men cool wine in summer.

And Diphilus says, in his Little Monument—

Cool the wine quick, O Doris.

And Protagoras in the second book of his Comic Histories, relating the voyage of king Antiochus down the river, says something about the contrivances for procuring cold water, in these terms:—"For during the day they expose it to the sun, and then at night they skim off the thickest part which rises to the surface, and expose the rest to the air, in large earthen ewers, on the highest parts of the house, and two slaves are kept sprinkling the vessels with water the whole night. And at daybreak they bring them down, and again they skim off the sediment, making the water very thin, and exceedingly wholesome, and then they immerse the ewers in straw, and after that they use the water, which has become so cold as not to require snow to cool it." And Anaxilas speaks of water from cisterns, in his Flute Player, using the following expressions:—

A. I want some water from a cistern now.

B. I have some here, and you are welcome to it.

[[206]] And, in a subsequent passage, he says—

Perhaps the cistern water is all lost.

But Apollodorus of Gela mentions the cistern itself, λακκος, as we call it, in his Female Deserter, saying—

In haste I loosed the bucket of the cistern,
And then that of the well; and took good care
To have the ropes all ready to let down.