Chapter XI

. (p. 490). Many forms of drinking-cups used by the Romans were only made in metal, such as the _cantharus_,[3270] _carchesium_,[3271] and _scyphus_[3272] (see Vol. I. pp. 184, 187). All these were forms borrowed from the Greeks, as were the _calix_ (_kylix_), the _cotula_ (chiefly used as a measure = half-a-pint), and the _scaphium_[3273] and _cymbium_,[3274] which were boat-shaped vessels. The _ciborium_ (a rare word, but used by Horace[3275]) was supposed to be made in the form of the leaves or pods of the _colocasia_, or Egyptian bean.[3276] Its later ecclesiastical use is well known. Other names of which we hear are the _batioca_,[3277] the _gaulus_,[3278] the _scutella_ (see below),[3279] and the _amystis_, or cup drained at one draught (see Vol. I. p. 181).[3280] Like the Greek _kylix_, the _calix_ appears to have been of all these the one most commonly in use, and is constantly referred to by poets and prose writers. Those of terracotta could often be purchased at a very low price, and formed, it is evident, the ordinary drinking-cups of the Roman citizen; they were also frequently of glass. Juvenal speaks of “plebeian cups purchased for a few _asses_”[3281]; and Martial describes a man buying two _calices_ for an _as_ and taking them home with him.[3282] We have no exact information as to its form, but it must have been something like the Greek _kylix_, only probably without handles; it was also used for solid food such as herbs.[3283] Seneca speaks of _calices Tiburtinae_, which seem from the context to have been of earthenware.[3284] Varieties of the _calix_ are probably represented by the typical Gaulish forms illustrated in