DRINKING-CUPS. the Thebaïs says), because they set before him a goblet which he had forbidden; speaking as follows:—
But the divine, the golden-hair'd hero,
Great Polynices, set before his father first
A silver table, beautifully wrought,
Whilome the property of th' immortal Cadmus;
And then he fill'd a beauteous golden cup
Up to the brim with sweet and fragrant wine;
But Œdipus, when with angry eyes he saw
The ornaments belonging to his sire
Now set before him, felt a mighty rage,
Which glow'd within his breast, and straightway pour'd
The bitterest curses forth on both his sons,
(Nor were they by the Fury all unheard,)
Praying that they might never share in peace
The treasures of their father, but for ever
With one another strive in arms and war.
15. And Cæcilius the orator who came from Cale Acte, in his treatise on History, says that Agathocles the Great, when displaying his golden drinking-cups to his companions, said that he had got all these from the earthenware cups which he had previously made. And in Sophocles, in the Larissæans, Acrisius had a great many drinking-cups; where the tragedian speaks as follows:—
And he proclaims to strangers from all quarters
A mighty contest, promising among them
Goblets well wrought in brass, and beauteous vases
Inlaid with gold, and silver drinking-cups,
Full twice threescore in number, fair to see.
And Posidonius, in the twenty-sixth book of his Histories, says that Lysimachus the Babylonian, having invited Himerus to a banquet (who was tyrant not only over the people of Babylon, but also over the citizens of Seleucia), with three hundred of his companions, after the tables were removed, gave every one of the three hundred a silver cup, weighing four minæ; and when he had made a libation, he pledged them all at once, and gave them the cups to carry away with them. And Anticlides the Athenian, in the sixteenth book of his Returns, speaking of Gra, who, with other kings, first led a colony into the island of Lesbos, and saying that those colonists had received an answer from the oracle, bidding them, while sailing, throw a virgin into the sea, as an offering to Neptune, proceeds as follows:—"And some people, who treat of the history and affairs of Methymna, relate a fable
