The Ancient Greek Drinking Game Played with Wine Dregs
At ancient Greek symposia, drinking parties were not complete without a round of kottabos. Guests reclined on couches and hooked one finger through the handle of a wide, shallow wine cup called a kylix. With a flick of the wrist, players flung the remaining wine dregs across the room, aiming to sink floating bronze bowls or knock a balanced disc off a metal stand to predict romantic success.
The Setting of the Greek Symposion
The symposion was one of the defining social institutions of ancient Greek male aristocratic life. Far from a chaotic drinking bout, it was a carefully structured gathering held in the andron, the dedicated men's dining room of a private home. Guests, ranging from close friends and political allies to traveling philosophers, reclined on couches arranged along the room's perimeter. This layout ensured that every participant could make eye contact and take part in shared discussions, musical performances, poetry recitations, and entertainment.
Central to the evening was the consumption of wine, which was never drunk neat in polite Greek society. Instead, wine was mixed with water inside a large communal vessel called a krater, with the mixture ratio determined by the elected symposiarch, or master of ceremonies. Drinking unmixed wine was considered uncivilized and associated with barbarism. As the night unfolded and the krater emptied, conversation naturally mingled with competitive entertainment, setting the stage for the evening's favorite game: kottabos.
Flumping Dregs from the Kylix
Kottabos was played using the dregs left at the bottom of a wine cup. Ancient Greek wine was typically unfiltered and heavy with sediment, leaving a small reservoir of liquid sludge once the main drink was consumed. Rather than pouring this residue away, symposium guests weaponized it into a projectile. Players remained in their reclining positions on their left elbows, preserving the relaxed posture expected of a symposium attendee while attempting precise athletic feats with their free right hands.
The instrument for the throw was the kylix, a wide, shallow drinking vessel equipped with two looped horizontal handles. A player would hook an index finger through one handle, balance the cup, and swivel the wrist with a sharp, disciplined flick. This motion launched the wine residue, known as the latax, in a tight arc across the room. Success required a refined understanding of trajectory, wrist snap, and liquid weight, turning what could have been messy carelessness into a prized physical skill.
Targets, Balances, and Floating Bowls
Over the centuries, kottabos evolved into two primary variations, each requiring a different target. The first, often called kottabos kataktos, used a tall bronze stand resembling a candelabrum. Balanced delicately at the top was a small metal disc called a plastinx. The objective was to hit this disc with the wine stream with enough force to dislodge it. When knocked loose, the disc plummeted onto a larger bronze disc or figure situated lower on the stand, producing a sharp, resounding chime that confirmed a clean hit.
The second major variation was played with a basin of water placed in the middle of the room. Small, dry ceramic or bronze saucers floated on the surface of the water. Contestants took turns aiming their wine dregs at these delicate floating dishes. The goal was to land enough liquid inside a saucer to weigh it down and sink it beneath the surface. The player who successfully submerged the greatest number of floating vessels won the round, requiring careful aim to compensate for the moving targets on the water.
Love, Divination, and Evening Stakes
While kottabos was a test of motor skill, it carried heavy social and romantic significance. Before releasing the throw, a player was customary expected to call out the name of a beloved—whether an absent youth, an admired guest, or a courtesan present at the gathering. The flight and outcome of the wine spray were interpreted as a form of lighthearted divination. A direct hit and a loud metallic chime meant that the caller's romantic affection would be returned, while a miss suggested romantic disappointment.
Victories in kottabos were celebrated with modest but culturally meaningful prizes. Winners might receive ribbons, specialized cakes, sweetmeats, or a kiss from the person whose name had been invoked. The game thus blended athleticism, playful eroticism, and social rivalry, allowing guests to broadcast their romantic desires and demonstrate their physical grace before an audience of peers.
Vase Paintings and Literary Records
Much of modern knowledge about kottabos comes directly from surviving Greek art, especially painted red-figure and black-figure pottery produced in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Vases, including kylikes and wine jugs themselves, frequently depict symposiasts in the midst of a throw. Artists captured the dynamic, almost gymnastic poses of players twisting their bodies, arms cocked back with a finger looped through a cup handle, alongside the distinctive stands and floating basins used as targets.
Classical literature corroborates these visual scenes. Comic playwrights such as Aristophanes referenced kottabos to evoke the atmosphere of elite leisure, and later scholars, notably Athenaeus, compiled extensive fragments of lost poems and plays detailing the rules and cultural obsession surrounding the game. These texts suggest that skill at kottabos was once judged as seriously as skill at traditional athletic competitions like javelin throwing.
Sicilian Origins and the Game's Fading
Historical sources attribute the invention of kottabos to Greek colonies in Sicily, where it emerged before spreading rapidly across the Greek mainland. During the classical era, particularly in Athens, the game was considered indispensable to any properly organized symposium. Mastering the throw was seen as a marker of aristocratic refinement and physical composure, demonstrating that a gentleman could maintain control and flair even while consuming wine.
By the Hellenistic period and the subsequent rise of Roman dining traditions, kottabos began to disappear from social life. Roman banquets adopted different forms of entertainment, and the specific material culture of the Greek symposium—the kylix, the andron, and the precise social rituals of unmixed wine—gave way to new customs. Today, the surviving painted cups and bronze stands remain an enduring record of how ancient Greeks fused wine, competition, and romantic play into a single ritual.
Key takeaways
•Kottabos was a popular ancient Greek drinking game where guests hurled wine dregs across the room from a wide, shallow cup called a kylix.
•Players aimed either to knock down a delicately balanced bronze disc to produce a ringing chime or to sink small dishes floating in a basin of water.
•Throws were dedicated to a romantic interest, with a successful hit serving as an omen that the player's love would be reciprocated.
•Originated in Greek Sicily, the game peaked in classical Athens before declining in the Hellenistic era, leaving behind rich evidence in pottery paintings and comic plays.