Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Rhytium

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

RHYT'IUM (τὸ ῥυτόν). Properly, the Greek name for a drinking-horn (Mart. ii. 35. 2.), out of which the liquor was allowed to flow (whence the name, ῥυτός, running, flowing) through an orifice in the point at bottom, into the mouth of the drinker, as exhibited by the annexed example (Rhytium/1.1) from a Pompeian painting. It is here shown in its simplest form of a mere horn; but vessels of the same character were made in many ornamental devices, especially imitating the heads of different animals, in which the narrow extremity formed by the nose and lips makes a point for the liquor to flow from. Several such have been discovered in the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and are engraved in the Museo Borbonico (v. 20. viii. 14.).

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