Terracotta column-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water) ca. 550 B.C. Attributed to Lydos Obverse, Hephaistos on mule among satyrs and maenadsReverse, Dionysos among satyrs and maenadsThe symposium, conventionally interpreted as a drinking party, was a well-established feature of Greekparticularly Athenian society. For over a century, representations on vases document that wine, women, and song were central ingredients. Even more worthy of emphasis, however, is the importance of the symposium as an institution that permitted citizens to gather, to transact business, andas Plato's dialogue makes clearto engage in serious discussion. An essential piece of equipment for the symposium was the vase in which the wine was diluted with water and from which it was served. In black-figure vase-painting before the last quarter of the sixth century B.C., the decoration of large, elaborate kraters tended to be mythological. (On red-figure vases, the symposium itself was often depicted.) This k