CALIX
CALIX
κύλιξ). Though not found in Homer or
Hesiod, this was the most common kind of drinking cup among the Athenians
(Ar.
Lys. 841): cf.
ἐπὶ τῇ κύλικι
λέγειν (Plat.
Symp. 214 B) and
κυλικεῖα (
Ath. 480b),
sideboards for exhibiting cups (we should say, “plate” ). It
was of earthenware and round, hence its name, according to Athenaeus (
480b),
ἀπὸ τοῦ κυλίεσθαι
τῷ τροχῷ. It had a broad top (Pherecr. ap.
Ath. 481b), as is evidenced from its comparison to a
shield (
Ath. 472c) and to a woman's breast (
Plin. Nat. 33.81). It had feet (Soph.
Frag. 541) and horizontal handles (
Ath. 470e). It is mainly in having vertical handles
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Early Calix. (Birch.)
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and in its greater size that
CANTHARUS differed from
calix. The
calices, however, varied
to some extent in size, just as our tumblers, and there is some slight
evidence (Plat.
Lys. 219 E)
[p. 1.347]that an
average one held three cotylae (= 1<*>3 pints). The archaic
form of the calix is depicted by Birch (
Ancient Pottery, p.
180); but the ordinary forms are here given from Birch and Dennis. Those of
the early period are distinguished by their deeper bowl and taller stem.
Those of a later period are of a more elegant shape, have a shallow bowl,
and a stem not so
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Later Calix. (Birch and Dennis.)
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high. Cups of this shape are generally painted inside as well as
out. In banqueting scenes depicted upon vases, they are often represented as
twirled round upon the finger. See the drawing given in
SYMPOSIUM In the latest period
the bowl of the calix is without a stem, and has only a moulded base.
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Latest Calix. (Birch.)
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Athenaeus tells us that these cups were made at various places: Argos (480
d), Attica (480 c), Chios (480 e), Lacedaemon (484 f), Naucratis (480 e),
Rhodes (497 f), Teos (481 a). In Martial we hear of Surrentine (14.102) and
Saguntine
calices (14.108). These places gave
their humes to different kinds of cups, all more or less agreeing with the
general description above. The
κύλιξ made
at Naucratis, however, was very flat, like a
phiala, as if made with the hand, with a broad bottom and four
handles (
ὦτα). (See
Ath. 480e). Panofka (Plate iv., No. 34
a, b) professes to give a representation; but it agrees in nothing
except in having four handles.
But cups were called after individuals as well as after places: e. g. the
much-discussed
Θηρίκλειοι, sc.
κύλικες. The principal examination of these
vessels is by Welcker in
Rhein. Museum,
6.404-420. But we must not suppose with him that they were called from the
figures of animals which were on them, but rather with
Ath. 470f and Bentley (
Diss. on Phalaris, ed.
Dyce, i. p. 169 ff.), from their maker, Thericles of Corinth. But though
their maker was a Corinthian, yet they were genuine Attic cups, properly of
earthenware, though sometimes of other material: e.g. wood (
C. I.
G. 139, 8, 9), brass (
Ath. 469b), silver
(Jos.
Ant. 11.1), gold (
Ath. 199b),
sometimes only gilt (
Ath. 478a; cf.
C. I.
G. l.c.); also apparently of glass (
θηρίκλειον: ποτήριον ὑέλινον, Photius, s. v.). Further
they were made of terebinth (
τέρμινθος),
which was blacker than ebony, yet such that they could not be distinguished
from earthenware (Theophrast.
Hist. Plaut. 5.4, 2;
Plin. Nat. 16.205). Other authors say that
these cups were black and very bright (
καθαρός), e. g. Eubulus in
Ath. 471d;
and it is this black polish that Schwenck thinks (
Philologus, 24.3, 1866, pp. 552-554) is the distinctive
feature of these vessels. The oldest Thericlean vessel we know of is that
referred to in
C. I. G. 139, 8, 9, which belongs to 425 B.C.
A
κύλιξ Θηρίκλειος had a broad top, and
is compared to a shield (Aristoph. ap.
Ath. 472c).
It was rather large, holding three or four cotylae, and sometimes even as
much as seven. (
Ath. 472b, d, e.) The figure of
one as given by Panofka (Plate iv., No. 34) is also represented by Krause
(No. 26); but this does not agree with Eubulus ap.
Ath.
471d, who calls it
ὀξυπύνδακα,
i. e. with bottom coming to a point. The Schol. on Clem. Alex.
Paed. 2.3, who says it was round at the bottom, with the
upper part like a funnel (
χωνοειδές), so
that it was easy to drink from, does not agree with the previously mentioned
and more reliable statements. Possibly the figure given by Lau (
Die
Griechischen Vasen, Plate xix. fig. 4) may represent the kind,
though it is very like a woman's breast (
Plin.
Nat. 33.81). Birch (p. 381) gives as a specimen of a Thericlean
cup, one with a deep bowl and a long stem. (See cut below.)
These Thericlean cups were heavy in weight and expensive, and in competition
the Rhodians (
Ath. 469b) made a similar kind of
cup of lighter
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Thericleau Calix of early form, with black figures.
(Birch.)
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material and sufficiently cheap for persons of humble means to
acquire. These were called
ἡδυποτίδες.
Further we hear of
Ἀντιγονίδες, which,
according to the Schol. on Clem. Alex., were like the
Θηρίκλειοι in some points, but they had not the spherical
bottom, and ended in a narrow aperture. Also of
Σελευκίδες, whose
[p. 1.348]handles were
not closed, but consisted of four rods. Each two of these rods were close
together at their junction with the cup, but diverged widely at the other
extremity (
Ath. 488e).
In Juvenal, 5.48, we read of
calices called
after a shoemaker of Beneventum, which had four nozzles. This was Vatinius
(
Mart. 14.96), who was afterwards a buffoon
in the court of Nero (
Tac. Ann. 15.34), and
the cups were called
Vatinii (
Mart. 10.3,
4).
For the cups used in the Christian Church, see Smith's
Dictionary of
Christian Antiquities, art.
Chalice.
Of somewhat different meaning to that of
κύλιξ are the cognates
κυλίχνη,
κυλιχνίς, κυλίχνιον, which were covered vessels, and used as
soup-tureens (if we may so infer from Aristoph. ap. Pollux, 10.88), but more
specially as pots for medicines (Galen,
Lex. Hippocr.; Poll.
6.98; Suidas, s. v.
κυλίχνιον: cf. also
Aristoph. Kn. 906;
Ath. 480d, where Ussing rightly reads
κυλιχνίδα).
Calices are also
found mentioned as covered vessels for cooking (
Plin. Nat. 35.193), or serving up (Ovid.
Fast. 5.509) food in. Varro (
L. L. 5.127)
derives it from
calidus.
The chief works on the subject of Greek and Roman cups are Th. Panofka,
Recherches sur les véritables noms des Vases
Grecs, Paris, 1829; J. L. Ussing,
De nominibus
vasorum Graecorum, Copenhagen, 1844; J. H. Krause,
Angeiologie, Halle, 1854; Birch,
History of
Ancient Pottery, London, 1873; Marquardt,
Röm.
Alterth. vii. p. 632 ff.
[
L.C.P]
