The men who drank from Nestor's cup

By Fausto Zevi

This precious archaeological find, with its reference to the Homeric world, proves the cultivated nature of Pithecusan society and the high level of civilisation attained by the West's oldest Greek settlement.

The meticulously scientific excavations carried out in <%=ischia%>, in ancient times known as Pithekoussai, are linked to the solitary enterprise and tenacious will of a single individual, like in Romantic nineteenth-century archaeology. The discovery of the oldest Greek settlement in the Western world is perforce associated with the figure of Giorgio Buchner, son of a German scientist who retired to <%=ischia%> during the Nazi years - origins that explain the archaeologist's lively interest in the environment, the observation of <%=ischia%>'s volcanic phenomena and their interaction with human settlements. Princely tombs like those discovered in Etruria and Lazio and in the nearby Greek colony of Cumae have not yet come to light in <%=ischia%>. The people buried in the necropolis belong to the middle class, though there are differences between individual family plots, indicated by a greater abundance of pottery and above all personal ornaments in bronze or silver (gold leaf is very rare).
All the various techniques - rolling, filigree, granulation, embossing - are represented in <%=ischia%>, indicating the mastery of those technai with which the Greeks, in the course of centuries of navigation in the Mediterranean and trips to the Levant, became acquainted and borrowed from the great civilisations of the East.
The cultural reference to the aristocratic world of Homer's heroes is unavoidable even in the "middle-class" context, of Pithecusan society. Cheese and wine from Pramno: it is not the recipe of a refined gourmet, but the fortifying potion which Nestor, king of Pilo, drank from his heavy gold cup during pauses in battle to recover his strength.

The verses engraved on a ceramic cup found amidst the funeral furnishings in a tomb say: "Nestor's cup was certainly good for drinking; but he who drinks from this cup will immediately be seized by desire for Aphrodite of the beautiful crown", proving that the unknown poet from <%=ischia%> was well acquainted with this famous cup. The former was exquisitely precious, while the latter is made of humble terracotta; one is suited to the fatigue of battle, the other overflowing with promises of love.
This little epigram for a symposium is a veritable mine of information. First of all we must suppose that both the author and his audience were acquainted with Homer's poem - the reference to Nestor and his cup could only be understood by a listener familiar with the verses of the Iliad and this implies written texts and literacy and the acknowledgement of a common culture, whose model is the Homeric society of kings and heroes. It also implies the knowledge of poetic metre, on the part of the author, and of writing, on the part of the engraver of the verses. Finally, it testifies to the social custom of the symposium which evidently implies the "regulated" and almost ritualised use of wine as a collective activity: the cyclops Polyphemus, made drunk and blinded by Ulysses, is a brutish creature who has broken the sacred laws of hospitality and thus becomes the victim of his own incivility, because he ignores the correct use of wine. The world of archaic Greek society and its civilising influence takes shape under our eyes. Another interesting fact is that the cremation tomb where this cup was discovered also abounds in painted vases, including a magnificent symposium set with a series of painted bowls that are among the most beautiful Pithecusan products. The silver fibula is that of a man, but an anthropological analysis of the bones has revealed that the deceased was a boy not older than twelve. How then can we explain the references to symposiums and eros, certainly not appropriate for his age? And what of the fibula of an adult, the bowls for wine and the practice of cremation? We must deduce that, even though he could not yet avail himself of it, the boy's social class ensured the privileges expressed by his tomb. The drinking of wine in symposiums with its Homeric connections, the custom of reciting poems and singing, the knowledge of poetic metre and language and the art of writing are all distinctive traits of an aristocracy that identifies with Homer's heroes.

Pithecusan society takes on the aspect of a world that trades with far-off lands, with the land of the colonisers who came to <%=ischia%> from another Mediterranean island, Eubea, lying parallel to the coasts of Attica and Beotia. These daring navigators and colonisers were the first to establish trading posts in the East (Al Mina, at the mouth of the river Orontes, on the coast of ancient Syria) and colonies in the West, beginning with the ancient Sicilian cities of Messina (then called Zancle), Nasso, Catania and Lentini, and the equally splendid ones on the Tyrrhenian Sea, from <%=ischia%> to Cuma and their descendant, Naples. "Nestor's cup", as it is called, is not a local product but comes from Rhodes. Many of the more refined and exotic objects in the tombs of Pithecusae come from Rhodes and the coasts of Asia Minor.
The latest excavations have added even more to our knowledge. After the necropolis the houses of the living have come to light - first a district inhabited by goldsmiths and metalworkers, near the necropolis, then further down an area where the potters' kilns were located for centuries, a regular "Pottery Quarter" like the one in Athens, outside the town to prevent fires. However, the distinguishing feature of the Pithecusae settlement is the absence of a unified structure: the recent discovery of a little village at the opposite end of the island, at Punta Chiarito, in addition to other traces found elsewhere, prove that the strip of land at the foot of the mountain was entirely inhabited all along the coast and dotted with agricultural settlements.

A house with an oval plan dating back to the early 6th century BC, made of dry stones and covered with a double sloping roof of tiles and pantiles supported by poles is buried under a flow of mud, whereas a previous eruption destroyed an older house dating back to the second half of the 8th century BC, possibly with the same plan but a thatched roof. Fragments of domestic equipment lie on the floor, among them a considerable amount of fine ceramic crockery, while an area opposite the entrance was used as a larder and contained large local amphoras and pithoi, over a metre high, wine amphoras, both local and imported, Corinthian, Chiotan and Etruscan, wedged in the floor and sometimes even with lids of tuff and clay. On the walls shelves held fine and kitchen vases and two bronze graters were maybe used to prepare Nestor's fortifying concoction of cheese and wine.
The interpretation of the whole ensemble is doubtful: what is striking is the quantity of pottery objects of such varied provenance forming a composite and international set seemingly in contrast with the rustic context. Could it have been a place where goods and foodstuffs for trading were stored, also used as a dwelling-place by servants or an inferior class of craftsmen, considering the fishing hooks and the traces of objects in bone and horn found on the floor? These questions remain unanswered. Yet we are constantly increasing our knowledge of the oldest Greek colonial settlement in the western world, imaginatively described by an Anglo-Saxon scholar as the dawn of European civilisation.

Fausto Zevi, superintendent archaeologist of Naples