Wolfgang Helbig (2 February 1839 – 6 October 1915) was a German classical archaeologist born in Dresden . He is known for his studies involving the wall paintings of Campania ( Pompeii ).
51-573: Kottabos ( Ancient Greek : κότταβος ) was a game of skill played at Ancient Greek and Etruscan symposia (drinking parties) , especially in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It involved flinging wine-lees (sediment) at a target in the middle of the room. The winner would receive a prize (κοττάβιον or " kottabion "), comprising cakes, sweetmeats, or kisses. Ancient writers, including Dionysius Chalcus , Alcaeus , Anacreon , Pindar , Bacchylides , Aeschylus , Sophocles , Euripides , Aristophanes , and Antiphanes , make frequent and familiar allusion to
102-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in
153-520: A servant attending the symposium with the players. The kottabos game seems to have originated in Sicily, or the land of the Sikels, but it spread through Greece, from Thessaly to Rhodes, becoming especially fashionable at Athens. Evidence of its origin can be found on an Attic red-figure psykter by Euphronios , depicting four hetairai . One of the hetairai on the vase, Smikra, is swinging her cup, as
204-531: A balance), the lecanis (λεκανίς, a large saucer), and the manes (μάνης, a bronze figurine). The discovery in Etruscan burial sites (by Wolfgang Helbig in 1886) of two sets of actual apparatus in Umbria , near Perugia , as well as various representations on Greek vases help explain the somewhat obscure accounts of how kottabos was played. The rhabdus (pole) had a flat base, and the main structure tapered towards
255-404: A drinking horn (or "rhytum"). According to Helbig, three games were played with this apparatus: The plastinx (small saucer) was fixed on top of the rhabdus (pole), with the lecanis (large saucer) below. The players tried to fill the plastinx with enough wine to tip it over (with a crash) onto the lecanis. Played exactly the same as method No. 1, except that the plastinx was supposed to hit
306-463: A kottabos player. The inscription beside her is Doric , the dialect used by the Sicilians. As Antiphanes wrote in his play: "the kottabos player puts the index finger of the right-hand through the handle of the drinking cup, palm upwards; and the remaining fingers are spread as playing a flute." The player reclines on the couch, leaning on the left elbow; and, moving only the right-forearm, throws
357-477: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and
408-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in
459-415: A pole and a bowl at the bottom. It combines the kottabos kataktos with the variation involving oxybapha. The lower was probably the lekane used to float the oxybapha, while the pole can be used to play the original form. Sunken kottabos (Κότταβος κατακτός) is not so simple. The apparatus (kottabeion, pl. kottabeia) were the rhabdus (ῥάβδος, a bronze pole), the plastinx (πλάστιγξ, a small saucer like that on
510-550: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment
561-883: A private scholar and art dealer , and served as a broker of numerous works of art for the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen . In 1887, he presented the for some time controversial Praeneste fibula . In 1892, he published the first edition of " Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom ", a very popular guide to classical antiquities in Rome. He married the Russian princess Nadezhda Shakhovskaya (later Nadine Helbig). Both founded and supported an important literary and artistic salon in Rome. He died in 1915 in Rome. This article about
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#1732780635502612-429: A regular foot, this cup has a conical-shaped projection at the bottom. It is said to be a cup customized for playing the kottabos. Wear on the handles accords with the way a kottabos player would employ the cup. With its special foot, it would be conveniently carried as a personal kottabos cup to symposiums. Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes
663-608: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek
714-630: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c. 300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as
765-412: A tripod which is placed on a flat pan. The pan is inscribed KOTABOS, so it is certain which game is played. This target is unique, and it emphasizes the erotic side of both the game and the symposium. Before the kottabos player throws the wine-lees, the turn is dedicated to a lover . The player's words can be a sort of toast or dedication to the person of affection. The toast can serve as a question about
816-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and
867-570: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of
918-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected
969-666: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to
1020-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in
1071-759: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect
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#17327806355021122-740: The University of Bonn , where he was a student of Otto Jahn , Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker and Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl . He received his doctorate at Bonn in 1861 with the thesis " Questiones scaenicae ". In 1862 he became a member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) to Rome . In 1865 he succeeded Heinrich Brunn as second secretary at the DAI, a position he kept until 1887. During his career he traveled extensively throughout Italy , Greece , Russia , France and North Africa. Beginning in 1887, he lived in Rome as
1173-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)
1224-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):
1275-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from
1326-613: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs, Wolfgang Helbig From 1856 to 1861 he studied philology and archaeology at the University of Göttingen , where he became member of Burschenschaft Hannovera (fraternity), and also at
1377-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has
1428-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in
1479-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West
1530-615: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of
1581-673: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c. 1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c. 1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c. 800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c. 500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been
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1632-561: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from
1683-476: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to
1734-427: The manes (figurine) on the way down to the lecanis. Played exactly the same as method No. 1, except that the manes (instead of the plastinx) was fixed on top of the rhabdus, and it was at this that the wine was thrown. Another variation of the kottabos involves a different kind of target. On a red-figure cup by Apollodoros, it shows some symposiasts aiming at a target with a phallus-headed bird balancing on top of
1785-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which
1836-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c. 1450 BC ) are in
1887-470: The plastinx fall to the manes, causing a bell-like sound. Both the wine thrown, and the noise made, were called latax (λάταξ). Kottabos kataktos was the traditional and correct way of playing, but there were various modifications that were acceptable: In Kottabos with an oxybaphon (Κότταβος δι᾽ ὀξυβάφων), or kottabos in a bowl, the target of the throw is a bowl, or lekane. The lekane is filled with water, and empty shallow saucers (ὀξύβαφα or oxybapha) float on
1938-474: The plastinx falls, or the oxybapha are sunk. This break in equilibrium symbolizes the uncertainty a person may feel when a lover is present. So when balance is broken, the sound of the plastinx falling onto the manes, and the sunk of the oxybapha , serves as a good omen, indicating that the love of the player is assured. The successful play of the kottabos game would represent success when pursuing love or being loved by young men and women. Women were not usually
1989-403: The players might easily be arranged around the target, and follow each other in rapid succession. Like all games in which the element of chance found a place, it was regarded as more or less ominous of the future success of the players, especially in matters of love – and the excitement was sometimes further augmented by some object of value being staked on the event. The stake in the game was often
2040-448: The possibility of success in love, which would be answered by the outcome of the throw. It emphasizes the love nature of this game, and the core idea of bonding at the symposium. One of the most famous inscriptions is on the red-figure psykter of the four hetairai by Euphronios . On this psykter , Smikra is dedicating her turn to Leagros. The inscription says: " Tin tande latasso leagre (I am throwing this for you, Leagros)." Leagros
2091-588: The practice; and it is depicted on contemporaneous red-figure vases. References to the practice by the writers of the Roman and Alexandrian periods show that the fashion had died out. In Latin literature, it is almost entirely unknown. Dexterity was required to succeed in the game, and unusual ability was rated as highly as corresponding excellence in throwing the javelin . Kottabos was customary, and, at least in Sicily , special circular buildings were established, so
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2142-406: The recipient of the kottabos toast, so a scene depicting women kottabos players, like the four hetairai by Euphronios , naming a popular youth as the subject of the toast, might be a joke. Another interpretation of the four hetairai is that these female symposiasts are Spartans. This would account for the Doric dialect used on the inscription and also the absence of couches, which is consistent with
2193-436: The sentence: " lykoi (for Lykos)", who was a youth popular at the time, and known from other inscriptions. Apparently, the god is used as a mouthpiece for a human to speak of his affection. On another red-figure cup, the inscription, " ho pais kalos (the youth is beautiful)", seems to spring out from the player's cup, and follow the trajectory of the wine that is being thrown. Kottabos involves disruption of equilibrium when
2244-537: The stereotypes about Sparta held by the Athenians. The use of female symposiasts as a humorous trope is consistent with several black-figure vases with figures that are interpreted as Etruscan women. As with Spartan women, they were considered to be uncivilized. Most of the cups being used to play the kottabos game were regular kylikes as shown on painted pots. But there is a unique kottabos cup in Oxford: instead of
2295-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies
2346-414: The top, with a blunt end (on which the plastinx or manes was balanced). The plastinx (small saucer) had a hole near the edge and was slightly concave in the middle. About two-thirds of the way down, the rhabdus was encircled by the lecanis (large saucer). A socket near the top of the rhabdus held the manes (figurine). The manes was in the shape of a man, with his right arm and leg uplifted, sometimes holding
2397-453: The water. The object is to throw the wine-lees onto the oxybapha, to sink them, which is easier than the kottabos kataktos. The player who sank the most was the winner. This form of playing is rarely found on vases, presumably because it would be difficult to paint the interior of the lekane, with oxybapha floating in it, on a vase. There is a special kottabos stand found in Italy, Etruscan with
2448-407: The wine-lees. When playing kottabos kataktos, also called kottabos with a pole, the target is the plastinx (πλάστιγξ), a small disc, balanced horizontally atop a bronze lamp stand. Halfway down the stand is a larger disc called the manes (μάνης). Sometimes a bronze statuette is used, with the plastinx balanced on its extended arms, or on its head. Some refer to this statuette as the manes, since Manes
2499-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,
2550-427: Was a Phrygian slave name; and it would make sense to connect that name with this small figure. But according to Antiphanes, the plastinx should fall onto the manes with a loud noise, which seems unlikely if the manes is the statuette. The player is expected to throw the wine-lees found in the drinking cup, in such a way that it does not break bulk in its passage through the air, towards the plastinx. Success entails making
2601-470: Was a popular youth frequently named in kalos inscriptions on sympotic vases around this period. Sometimes painters would use gods as representations of a kottabos player when giving a kottabos toast. On a red-figure stamnos by the Copenhagen painter, Dionysus is painted as one of these representations. The inscription beside his arm says: " tot tende (this is for you)." On the left, a satyr completes
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