For Thales,—honestest of all the citizens,
And, as they say, by far the best of men
Who at that time were living upon earth,—
Took up a golden pellis.
And in another part he says—
And with one hand he pours from out the pellis,
Weak as he was in all his limbs and fingers,
A sharp libation of sour vinegar,
Trembling, like age, by Boreas much shaken.
But Clitarchus, in his Dialects, says that the Thessalians and Æolians call the milk-pail pelleter; but that it is a drinking-cup which they call pella. But Philetas, in his Miscellanies, says that the Bœotians give the name of pelleter to a culix.
92. There is also the pentaploa. Philochorus mentions this, in the second book of his treatise on Attic Affairs. But Aristodemus, in the third book of his Commentary on Pindar, says. that on the third day of the Scira, games are celebrated at Athens, in which the young men run races; and that they run, holding in their hands a branch of the vine loaded with fruit, which is called oschus. And they run from the temple of Bacchus to the temple of Minerva Sciras; and he who has gained the victory takes a cup of the species called pentaplous, and feasts with the rest of the runners. But the cup is called pentaplous, as containing five ([Greek: pente]) ingredients; inasmuch as it has in it wine, and honey, and cheese, and meal, and a little oil.
There is the petachnum. This is a cup of a flat shape, which is mentioned by Alexis, in his Dropidas; and the passage has been already cited. And Aristophanes also mentions it in his Dramas, where he says—
And every one in-doors drinks out of petachna.
93. There is the plemochoe, too. This is an earthenware vessel, shaped like a top, not very steady; and some people call it the cotyliscus, as Pamphilus tells us. But they use it at Eleusis on the last day of the Mysteries, which day they call Plemochoai, from the cups. And on this day they fill two plemochoæ, and place one looking towards the east, and the other looking towards the west, saying over them a mystic form of words; and the author of the Pirithous names them (whoever he was, whether Critias the tyrant, or Euripides), saying,—
That with well-omen'd words we now may pour
These plemochoæ into the gulf below.
