Abstract

The word κρατήρ, the great mixing vessel in which the wine was mixed with water and from which it was drawn, is not seldom used metaphorically in religious literature. To begin with, it may be useful to quote a few examples showing how the metaphor is used in secular literature. Pindar calls the messenger who brings his ode a sweet krater of loud-sounding songs and Aristophanes calls the sycophant a vessel of evils. Plutarch speaks of a krater, placed in the middle which contains myths and arguments mixed up. In Aeschylus Clytaemestra says of Agamemnon that, since he has filled a krater in the house with so many evils, having returned he has to drink it off himself. Philostratus speaks of krateres set up from which the thirsty ones drew. The metaphorical use of the word comes very near to the concrete facts: a storage vessel in which liquids are mixed and from which they are drawn.

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