Dolium
（
πίθος). A large jar of earthenware into which new wine was
placed to ferment. Many of them were large enough to hold a man, and were shaped like a huge
caldron with globular bodies and wide mouths.
Diogenes (q.v.) the Cynic took up his abode in a dolium (not in a tub, as popularly
said), and in some ancient works of art he is depicted as lolling in one of these vessels
during his celebrated interview with Alexander the Great. See
Diog. Laert.
vi. 23;
Plin. Ep. 90, 14.
Dolia curta were urinals placed in the narrow streets between the
houses for the convenience of those who passed by (
Lucret. iv.
1026; Macrob. iii. 16.15;
Suet. Vesp.
23).
Dolia were also used as coffins. In the Crimea, near Sebastopol, sixteen
πίθοι were discovered, four feet four inches high, and two feet two
inches in diameter.
Makers of dolia were known as
doliarii.
