Terracotta hydria: kalpis (water jar)

Dikaios Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Flute player between two dancing youths in armor The Greeks always diluted their wine with water. It was the privilege of the symposiarch, who acted as master of ceremonies at a drinking party, to decide the proportion of wine to water in each krater (bowl for mixing wine and water) as the evening progressed. On this water jar, two armed youths perform a dance to flute music. Such dances imitating the motions of warfare were popular at festivals throughout Greece. The term kalpis refers to a hydria of this particular shape.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art