Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Scaphium

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. 

SCAPH'IUM (σκάφιον). A vessel of small dimensions and Greek invention, employed at the dinner table as a wine cup. It was sometimes made of silver (Phylarch. ap. Athen. iv. 21.), and elaborately ornamented as an object of luxury (Plaut. Stich. v. 4. 11. Cic. Verr. ii. 4. 17.); and appears to have belonged to the same class of utensils as the patera or phiala, since Plutarch (Agid. et Cleom. p. 811.) uses the latter term to designate the same vessel which is called scaphium by Phylarchus (Athen. l. c.). Perhaps the real distinction between these words consisted in this, that when the cup was a mere saucer without any handle, it was called a patera by the Romans, and phiala (φιάλη) by the Greeks; when furnished with a projecting handle, like the annexed example (Scaphium/1.1) from an original found at Pompeii, (which gives to the whole object a certain similitude to the boat scapha, after which it was named,) then it received the special name of scaphium and σκάφιον. The same article is also enumerated amongst the necessaries of a woman's dressing-room (Juv. vi. 263. Ulp. Dig. 34. 2. 28.), but for what particular purpose is not sufficiently ascertained.

2. A sun-dial, formed by a hollow circular vessel, within which the hour lines were drawn (Marc. Capell. vi. 194.), as in the example (Scaphium/2.1) from a statue formerly existing at Ravenna. It received the present name from its resemblance in form to the bowl of the preceding utensil, but was also termed hemisphaerium, from its affinity with that figure. Vitruv. ix. 8.

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  Scaphium/1.1
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  Scaphium/2.1