But as Cratinus has said, in his Female Runaways—
Receive from me these round-bottom'd phialæ,Eratosthenes, in the eleventh book of his treatise on Comedy, says that Lycophron did not understand the meaning of the word (βαλανειόμφαλος), for that the word ὀμφαλὸς, as applied to a phiale, and the word θόλος, as applied to a bath, were nearly similar in meaning; and that, in the word, allusion is neatly enough made to the umbilical form. But Apion and Diodorus say, “There are some kinds of phialæ of which the boss is similar to a strainer.” But Asclepiades the Myrlean, in his Essays on Cratinus, says—“βαλανειόμφαλοι are the Phialæ called, because their bosses and the vaulted roofs of the baths are much alike.” And Didymus, saying the same thing, cites the words of Lycophron, which run thus:— “From the bosses in the women's baths, out of which they ladle the water in small cups.” But Timarchus, in the fourth book of his Essay on the Mercury of Eratosthenes, says,—"Any one may suppose that this word contains a secret allusion in it, because most of the baths at Athens, being circular in their shape, and in all their furniture, have slight projections in the middle, on which a brazen boss is placed. Ion, in his Omphale, says—
Go quick, O damsels; hither bring the cups,and by μεσόμφαλοι here, he means the same things as those which Cratinus calls βαλανειόμφαλοι, where he says—
And the mesomphali;—
Receive from me these round-bottom'd phialæ.And Theopompus, in his Althæa, said—
She took a golden round-bottom'd (μεσόμφαλον) phiale,as Telestes had called the phiale an acatos, or boat. But Pherecrates, or whoever the poet was who composed the Persæ, which are attributed to him, says, in that play—
Brimful of wine; to which Telestes gave
The name of acatos;
Garlands to all, and well-boss'd chrysides (ὀμφαλωταὶ χρυσίδες).
