At the height of the Classical age, this magnificent krater would have served to mix wine with water at banquets and drinking parties. At some point, it was buried with its owner to provide worldly pleasure in the afterlife. Painted in the vivid south Italian fashion, the krater depicts the meeting of two youthful travelers on one side, and Dionysiac rituals on the other. For the culture that created it, this superb vessel was much more than a functional object: it was a work of art. The passage of centuries has only enhanced its beauty and rarity. If only it could speak, what tales it might tell us about the glories of a vanished world.