kottabos
Where did kottabos originate?
How is the game kottabos played?
What were the rewards for winning kottabos?
kottabos, one of the earliest known drinking games, a staple at aristocratic banquets (called symposia) of the ancient Greeks, especially in the 5th and 4th centuries bce. The most common version of the game involves flinging wine lees, or dregs, at a target in an attempt to dislodge it from its resting spot atop a pole. It was typically played at the end of these parties, mostly by men from high society, though courtesans (hetairai) may have occasionally taken part. The roots of the game are commonly traced to the Greek colonies of Sicily, though some historians question whether it was invented there. Nevertheless, kottabos gained wide popularity in Athens and parts of Italy.
Rules of the game and variants
Much of what is known about kottabos and its rules has been reconstructed from ancient literary writings, vase paintings, and other archaeological evidence. The most well-known version of the game was called kottabos kataktos (kottabos with a pole), in which players hurled wine dregs from shallow, circular vessels (kylix) at a small bronze disk (plastinx) perched high on top of a long pole. In one of his plays the poet Antiphanes explains that a player gripped the kylix by delicately hooking one’s fingers through its handles, palm angled upward, and with a flick of the wrist, sent the wine high into the air. The game likely demanded a fair amount of dexterity, and some have compared its technique to that of throwing a javelin.
The objective of the game was to strike the disk with a splash of wine, knock it off balance, and cause it to drop into the large dish or bowl farther down the pole, producing a loud noise. The target was usually placed in the center and participants reclined on couches around it, forming a circle or square. The rules demanded that they rest their weight on their left elbow and throw with their right hand. The setup used for kottabos kataktos sometimes included a small bronze figurine, which either held the bronze disk precariously in its outstretched limbs or itself became the target to be toppled.
A known variant also involved tossing wine sediment but with a different objective. In this form of the game, small, empty saucers (oxybapha) were set afloat in a basin of water. Participants then shot wine dregs at these saucers until they sank into the water. The player who sank the most saucers would be declared the victor.
The stakes were usually low—winners took home eggs, sweets, or confectionery—though some literary texts mention kisses and sexual favors as rewards. It was common for a player to call out the name of a lover before a throw, and a successful shot was seen as a good omen for their romantic prospects.
Kottabos in literature
References to kottabos are littered across the works of Greek poets and playwrights, including Dionysius, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Pindar, Bacchylides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Antiphanes. For instance, the Greek hero Heracles is depicted playing the game in Plato’s Zeus Ill-treated, as recorded by Athenaeus. In Aeschylus’s Ostologoi (The Bone Collectors), Odysseus recounts how Eurymachus, one of Penelope’s suitors, uses a game of kottabos to humiliate him by deliberately flinging wine at Odysseus’s head instead of the plastinx. In Aristophanes’ comedy Acharnians, a drunken game of kottabos becomes the trigger for the Peloponnesian War.
- Also spelled:
- cottabus or cottabos
- Related Topics:
- game
Rare references in Roman and Alexandrian periods indicate that the game had largely disappeared by their time. In Latin literature, it is almost entirely absent.
