MYSTRUM
MYSTRUM (
μύστρον),
a spoon (cf.
μυστίλη), a Greek liquid measure, strictly
a
spoonful, of which there were two sizes, called the large and small
mystrum, and these again also of various dimensions. The small, which was
the more common of the two, was 1/24 of the cotyla, and 1/4 of the cyathus,
and therefore contained about 1-50th of an English pint. [
CYATHUS] (Galen,
Frag, 100.15.) Galen adds that the smaller mystrum contained
21 drachms, that the larger was 1/18 of the cotyla, and contained 3 1/3
drachms; but that the most exact mystrum (
τὸ
δικαιότατον μύστρον) held 8 scruples, that is, 2 2/3
drachms. According to this, the small mystrum would be 3/4 of the larger.
But in the 13th chapter of the same fragment he makes the large mystrum =
1/3 of the cotyla, and the small mystrum 1/4 of the large. In 100.4 he makes
the large mystrum=3 oxybapha, and the small =1 1/3 . Cleopatra makes the
large=1/16 of the cotyla, the small=1/22. (Hultsch,
Metrologie, p. 636 ff.)
[
P.S]
