The ancient Greek meal is not divided into starter-main-dessert but into two poles: the sîtos (the grain base—barley cake or bread, which 'nourishes') and the ópson (what is placed on top to accompany it: cheese, olives, figs, honey). Drinks and especially offerings (thysía, aparkhaí, first fruits) deposited for the gods are kept separate. For a Pleiad like Maia, daughter of the Titan Atlas and mother of Hermes, the pastoral Arcadian table (barley, milk, mountain honey, goat cheese) joins the sacred table of cakes and libations offered on altars.

The thyme and heather honey of the Arcadian mountains is Maia's golden thread: it is the mortal analogue of the gods' ambrosia and nectar, it perfumes offering cakes, it forms the libation drink (melíkraton), and it seals birth confections. Sweet, resinous, fragrant with mountain herbs, it is the liquid gold of the slopes of Cyllene.