But that is also called manes which stands upon the cottabus, on which they throw the drops of wine in that game, which Sophocles, in his Salmoneus, called the brazen head, saying—
This is a contest, and a noise of kisses;
I give a prize to him who gains the victory
In elegantly throwing the cottabus,
And striking with just aim the brazen head.
And Antiphanes, in his Birthday of Venus, says—
A. I then will show you how: whoever throws
The cottabus direct against the scale ([Greek: plastinx]),
So as to make it fall
B. What scale? Do you
Mean this small dish which here is placed above?
A. That is the scale—he is the conqueror.
B. How shall a man know this?
A. Why, if he throw
So as to reach it barely, it will fall
Upon the manes,[1] and there'll be great noise.
B. Does manes, then, watch o'er the cottabus,
As if he were a slave?
And Hermippus says in his Fates—
You'll see, says he, a cottabus rod,
Wallowing round among the chaff;
But the manes hears no drops,—
And you the wretched scale may see
Lying by the garden gate,
And thrown away among the rubbish.
76. There is the Nestoris also. Now concerning the shape of the cup of Nestor, the poet speaks thus—
Next her white hand a spacious goblet brings,
A goblet sacred to the Pylian kings
From eldest times; the massy, sculptured vase,
Glittering with golden studs, four handles grace,
And curling vines, around each handle roll'd,
Support two turtle-doves emboss'd in gold.
On two firm bases stood the mighty bowl,
Lest the topweight should make it loosely roll:
A massy weight, yet heaved with ease by him,
Though all too great for men of lesser limb.
Now with reference to this passage a question is raised, what is the meaning of "glittering with golden studs:"—and again, what is meant by "the massy, sculptured vase four handles grace." For Asclepiades the Myrlean, in his treatise on the Nestoris, says that the other cups have two handles.
- ↑ The manes was a small brazen figure.
