Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 October 2009
page 263 note 1 Mr M. Maas writes in the Arch. f. Lat. Lex. vol. xi p. 419 ‘colocyntha = cucurbita sind nach Plinius xix 71 (ich verdanke W. v, Christ den Hinweis auf diese Stelle) in den Bädern wohl als pots de chambre benützt worden. Dann wäre colocyntha = matella.’ Pliny says no such thing: his words are ‘nuper in balnearum usum uenere urceolorum uice.’ urceoli are not matellae: Juvenal himself expressly distinguishes them, x 64, ‘fiunt urceoli pelues sartago matellae.’ The household arrangements of Codrus, iii 203 sq., with ‘urceoli sex, ornamentum abaci,’ must present a strange picture to the mind's eye of Mr Maas.