The Greek meal does not divide into starter-main-dessert. It is organized around the sitos — the cereal base, barley bread or flatbread — accompanied by the opson, the 'what-goes-with-it' (cheese, olives, vegetables, fish or meat). One eats seated or reclining, frugally. Then comes the symposion, the shared drinking moment, where wine always cut with water loosens tongues and the gods are honored with libations. At Thebes, the royal table follows this rhythm, but feasts and mourning add their own offerings.

Drinking undiluted wine was considered barbaric and dangerous among the Greeks. Civilization lay in the act of mixing (krasis), done in the krater: three or four parts water to one part wine. Moderating the drink meant moderating the passions — an ideal that precisely haunts the tragedy of Creon, the man of measure undone by excess.