36. There is another kind of cup called the Ephebus. And Philemon the Athenian, in his treatise on Attic Nouns and Attic Dialects, says that this cup is also called the embasicoitas; but Stephanus the comic poet, in his Friend of the Lacedæmonians, says—
Sos. The king then pledged him in a certain village.
B. A wondrous thing. What can you mean? Is this
A kind of goblet?
Sos. No; I mean a village
Near Thyria.
B. Why, my whole thoughts were borne
Off to the Rhodian cups, O Sosia,
And to those heavy bowls they call ephebi.
37. There are also some cups which are called ἡδυποτίδες. "These," says Lynceus the Samian, "were made by the Rhodians in emulation of the Thericlean goblets which were in use at Athens. But as the Athenians, on account of the great weight of metal employed in them, only made this shape for the use of the richer classes, the Rhodians made theirs so light that they were able to put these ornaments within the reach even of the poor. And Epigenes mentions them, in his Heroine, in these words—
A psycter, and a cyathus, and cymbia,
Four rhyta, and three hedypotides,
A silver strainer, too.
And Semus, in the fifth book of his Delias, says that there is among the offerings at Delos a golden hedypotis, the gift of Echenica, a woman of the country, whom he mentions also, in his eighth book. And Cratinus the younger says, using the diminutive form,—
And Archephon had twelve ἡδυπότια.
38. There was another kind of cup called the Herculeum. Pisander, in the second book of his Herculead, says that the cup in which Hercules sailed across the ocean belonged to the Sun; and that Hercules received it from Oceanus for that purpose. But, perhaps, as the hero was fond of large cups, the poets and historians jesting because of the great size of this one, invented the fable of his having gone to sea in a cup. But Panyasis, in the first book of his Herculead, says that Hercules obtained the cup of the Sun from Nereus, and sailed even to Erythea in it. And we have said before that Hercules was one of the inordinate drinkers. And that the sun was borne on towards his setting in a cup, Stesichorus tells us, where he says—
And then the Sun, great Hyperion's offspring,
Embarked in his golden cup, that he
Might cross the ocean's wide expanse, and come
To the deep foundations of immortal Night;
To his fond mother, and his virgin bride,
And his dear children. And the son of Jove
Came to the grove
Shaded with laurels and with bays.
And Antimachus speaks thus—
And then the most illustrious Erythea
Sent the Sun forth in a convenient cup.