COTTABUS, a game of skill for a long time in great vogue at Ancient Greek drinking parties, especially in the 4th and 5th centuries B.C. (Gr. KOTTaf3OI). It is frequently alluded to by the classical writers of the period, and not seldom depicted on ancient vases. The object of the player was to cast a portion of wine left in his drinking cup in such a way that, without breaking bulk in its passage through the air, it should reach a certain object set up as a mark, and there produce a distinct noise by its impact. Both the wine thrown and the noise made were called AaraE. The thrower, in the ordinary form of the game, was expected to retain the recumbent position that was usual at table, and, in flinging the cottabus, to make use of his right hand only. To suc ceed in the aim no small amount of dexterity was required.
Various modifications of the original principle of the game were gradually introduced, but for practical purposes we may reckon two varieties. (I) In the Korra/3os 8c' 6E 3auc,.,v shallow saucers (6v(3act)a) were floated in a basin or mixing-bowl filled with water; the object was to sink the saucers by throwing the wine into them, and the competitor who sank the greatest num ber was considered victorious, and received the prize, which consisted of cakes or sweetmeats. (2) K6rra(3os Kararcros, is not so easy to understand. (The epithet Karaeros [let down] may refer to the rod, which might be raised or lowered as re quired ; to the lower disk, which might be moved up and down the stem ; to the moving up and down of the scales, in the sup posed variety of the game mentioned below). There is little doubt as to the apparatus, which consisted of a or bronze rod; a 7rX6to•Try, a small disk or basin, resembling a scale-pan; a larger disk (Xecavis) ; and (in most cases) a small bronze figure called yavrls. The discovery (by Professor Helbig in 1886) of two sets of actual apparatus near Perugia, and various representations on vases help to elucidate the somewhat obscure ' accounts of the method of playing the game contained in the scholia and certain ancient authors who, it must not be forgot ten, wrote at a time when the game itself had become obsolete, but much still remained uncertain.
The game, so far as we know, seems to have been of Sicilian origin, but it spread through Greece from Thessaly to Rhodes, and was especially fashionable at Athens. Dionysius, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Pindar, Bacchylides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Antiphanes, make frequent and familiar allusion to the icorra(3os ; but in the writers of the Roman and Alexandrian period such references as occur show that the fashion had died out. In Latin literature it is almost entirely unknown.
See "Kottabos" in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire des anti quites, and L. Becq de Fouquieres, Les Jeux des anciens (1873) ; English readers may be referred to an article by A. Higgins on "Recent Discoveries of the Apparatus used in playing the Game of Kottabos" Archaeologia, li. (1888) . See also C. Sartori, Das Kottabos-Spiel der alten Griechen (1893) , in which a full bibliography of ancient and modern authorities is given.