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XVII.—Recent discoveries of the apparatus used in playing the game of Κότταβος

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

Alfred Higgins
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Extract

The game of Kottabos, to which the Greeks—more particularly the Athenians—were passionately attached during a period of at least a hundred years, and which is known to have been in vogue as early as the middle of the fifth century B.C., has been a puzzle to the learned, from the time of the ancient grammarians and scholiasts down to the present day.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , 1888 , pp. 383 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1888

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References

page 383 note a Kottabos is an essential element of life in the old comedy, and disappears from literature with it. There is no trace of it in the fragments of the new comedy, or in Roman representations or writers. It comes up again as an object of learned investigation with the grammarians. No representations of it are found on the vases with black figures; but perhaps too much importance should not be attached to this fact in considering the question of its origin, as the game would hardly be within the range of subjects commonly found on vases of the earlier period. In the vases of late date (Apulian and Lucanian) it no longer appears as an accompaniment of the symposium, and had evidently disappeared from social life. According to Athenaeus, who wrote in the third century of our era, it was imported into Greece from Sicily. (Jahn, , Philologus, xxvi. p. 204Google Scholar, etc.)

page 383 note b Ann. dell' Inst. 1868, p. 223.

page 383 note c Bull. Inst. Arch. Germ. vol. i. 1886, p. 220—5, and 234—242Google Scholar.

page 384 note a This is no longer the case. See postscript.

page 384 note b It has since been presented to the British Museum by the Committee.

page 386 note a A kottabos very like a trumpet with a stick stuck into it is figured in the Mon. Ined. vol. viii. 51Google Scholar.

page 386 note b See Becker's Charicles, p. 350, English edition, 1866.

page 388 note a This and the illustration on the preceding page have been reproduced from Plate XIIs of the Bullettino dell' Imperiale Institute Archeologico Germanico, vol. i., in illustration of Prof. Helbig's paper.

page 388 note b Cf. tazza found near Montepulciano {Ann. dell Insi. 1868, tav. Agg. B 226). Similar vases have been found at Vulci.

page 389 note b See Bull. Inst. Arch. Germ. I. Plate XII.b

page 389 note b Monumenti di Perugia, &c. I. Plate xiv. 5.

page 389 note c The Monte Luce kottaboi are described in the postscript.

page 389 note d Since this paper was read, I have ascertained by personal examination that the rod of the more imperfect specimen from the excavations near the nunnery of Monte Luce is solid.

page 390 note b In the museum at Perugia is preserved a manes in the form of a nude female figure holding up a rani's head, evidently a bacchante.

page 390 note b See, however, the further example mentioned in the postscript.

page 391 note a No. 100 F, Ariadne and Silenus (a krater), and. a krater from Ruvo with the subject of Dionysos, two maenads and a satyr.

page 392 note a See a rhyton in the British Museum, terminating in a ram's head, No. 1465.

page 392 note b Loc. cit. p. 237.

page 393 note a Mon. Ined. vol. viii. pl. 51Google Scholar.

page 394 note a Heydemann, l. c. p. 220.

page 394 note b Philologus, l. c. p. 213.

page 394 note c Heydemann, Ann. delf Inst. 1868, p. 219.