Kottavus was a game of skill played by drunken players that always involved a target, although there were several versions as players could make up their own rules each time.
Kottavus had two basic versions, although the most popular, the one we read about in plays and see on vases, involved a bronze rod. A small metal tray, the plate, was balanced on a beam and the purpose was to deflect it from its position by throwing wine and hitting it on a larger metal tray below, at 2/3 the height of the beam.
Sometimes, instead of the plate, a metal statue representing a man with his right leg and arm raised was placed on it. Three games were played in Kottavus. In the first, the players tried to fill the plate with so much wine that it tipped over and fell into the basin. In the second, exactly the same thing was done, except that the plate had to hit the statuette that was attached to the pole in front of the basin.
In the third, they simply replaced the plate with the metal statuette and it was played as in the other versions.
The second version of the Kottavus did not have a plate, but a large basin of water in which floated smaller clay pots that the ancient Greeks had to dip with their wine. The winner here was the one who could sink the most vessels with a balanced splash of wine. And since the clapping or statue clicking on the metal disk was missing here, this version was considered more civilized because it was quieter.
The winner in both versions received pre-arranged prizes, usually edible items (apples and eggs), sandals, or even the same plate.
These were the basic rules, although the ancient Greeks, lovers of perfection, sought not only the successful outcome but also the grace of the shot, the well-formed trajectory of the movement and, of course, accuracy. Among the "pluses" was that the wine should not be poured on you. The greater the curve of the trajectory of the wine, the nobler the throw, similar to the javelin throw in war.
Despite the grace and elegance that the Symposium players sought in their throws, the Kottavus made the room feel like a battlefield. And it was this dirty nature of the game that made it suitable for the advanced hours of the symposiums when the frenzy and the wine left no room for philosophical discussion and political conflicts.
Kottavus came from Greater Greece as early as the 6th century BC and was popular in Sicily before coming to Greece and spreading throughout Greece in the 5th and 4th centuries, from Thessaly to Rhodes. Its greatest fame, of course, came in classical Athens.
While only men played Kottavus, it was not at all uncommon for female hetairas to participate as well. The prize was sometimes a kiss from a hetaira. The comedian Kratinos the Athenian also tells us in one of his poems that a female hetaira dedicated her shot to the genitals of her Corinthian friend!
And since luck always played a good part, which the ancients accepted, the Kottavus necessarily had an omen dimension to the future success of the participants in their lives, especially in matters of love. That was why the prizes were of such great value so that higher bets were made and more risks than a few apples or sexual favors were taken.
How do we know about the game
Critias, the Athenian politician, philosopher and poet of the 5th century BC, tells us about the "glorious invention" that came from Sicily and established itself at the ends of the Greek world. And he is not the only one, of course, for the game appears in the writings of many, such as the great Alcaeus, the lyric poet Anacreon, Pindar, Bacchylides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and the Athenian comedian Antiphanes.
All speak in the best terms of the Kottavus, who also appears in a number of red vessels of that time. It must have died sooner than the Greeks of classical times would have liked, for the writers of Roman and Hellenistic times speak of the Kottavus as a game of the past that was no longer played. In fact, it was something completely unknown to Latin literature.
