And as for the word κεραννύω (to mix), that is used by Plato in his Philebus—“Let us, O Protarchus, pray to the gods, and mingle cups (κεραννύωμεν) to pour libations to them.” And Alcæus, in his Sacred Marriage, says—
They mix the cups (κεραννύουσιν) and drink them.
And Hyperides, in his Delian Oration, says—“And the Greeks mix (κεραννύουσι) the Panionian goblet all together."
And among the ancients they were the most nobly born youths who acted as cupbearers; as, for instance, the son of Menelaus:—
And the king's noble son pour'd out the wine.
And Euripides the poet, when he was a boy, acted as cupbearer. Accordingly, Theophrastus, in his treatise on Drinking, says—"But I hear that Euripides the poet also acted as a cupbearer at Athens, among those who are called the dancers: and these men were they who used to dance around the temple of the Delian Apollo, being some of the noblest of the Athenians, and they were clothed in garments of the Theræans. And this is that Apollo in whose honour they celebrate the Thargelian festival; and a writing concerning them is kept at Phylæ, in the Daphnephorium." And Hieronymus the Rhodian gives the same account, who was a disciple of Aristotle, and that too in a book of his entitled a Treatise on Drunkenness. And the beautiful Sappho often praises her brother Larichus, as having acted as cupbearer to the Mitylenæans in the Prytaneum. And among the Romans, the most nobly born of the youths perform this office in the public sacrifices, imitating the Æolians in everything, as even in the tones of their voices.
25. And so great was the luxury of the ancients in respect of their sumptuous meals, that they not only had cupbearers, but also men whom they called œnoptæ (inspectors of wines). At all events, the office of œnoptæ is a regular office among the Athenians; and it is mentioned by Eupolis, in his play called The Cities, in the following lines—
And men whom heretofore you'd not have thought
Fit e'en to make œnoptæ of, we now
See made commanders. But oh, city, city!
How much your fortune does out-run your sense.
And these œnoptæ superintended the arrangement of banquets, taking care that the guests should drink on equal terms. But it was an office of no great dignity, as Philinus the orator tells us, in his debate on the Croconidæ. And he tells us, too, that the œnoptæ were three in number, and that they also provided the guests with lamps and wicks. And some people called them "eyes;" but among the Ephesians, the youths who acted as cupbearers at the festival of Neptune were called "bulls," as Amerias tells us. And the people of the Hellespont call the cupbearer ἐπεγχύτης, or the pourer out; and they call carving, which we call κρεωνομία, κρεωδαισία, as Demetrius of Scepsis tells us, in the twenty-sixth book of his Arrangement of the Trojan Forces. And some say that the nymph Harmonia acted as cupbearer to the gods; as Capito the epic poet relates (and he was a native of Alexandria by birth), in the second book of his Love Poems. But Alcæus also represents Mercury as their cupbearer; as also does Sappho, who says—
And with ambrosia was a goblet mix'd,
And Mercury pour'd it out to all the gods.