mystrum

• the fourth part of a cyathus, Rhem. Fan. de Pond. et Mens. 77.

MYSTRUM(μύστρον), a spoon (cf. μυστίλη), a Greek liquid measure, strictly a spoonful, of which there were two sizes, called the large and small mystrum, and these again also of various dimensions. The small, which was the more common of the two, was 1/24 of the cotyla, and 1/4 of the cyathus, and therefore contained about 1-50th of an English pint. [CYATHUS] (Galen, Frag, 100.15.) Galen adds that the smaller mystrum contained 21 drachms, that the larger was 1/18 of the cotyla, and contained 3 1/3 drachms; but that the most exact mystrum (τὸ δικαιότατον μύστρον) held 8 scruples, that is, 2 2/3 drachms. According to this, the small mystrum would be 3/4 of the larger. But in the 13th chapter of the same fragment he makes the large mystrum = 1/3 of the cotyla, and the small mystrum 1/4 of the large. In 100.4 he makes the large mystrum=3 oxybapha, and the small =1 1/3 . Cleopatra makes the large=1/16 of the cotyla, the small=1/22. (Hultsch, Metrologie, p. 636 ff.)

(μύστρον, “a spoonful”). A Greek liquid measure of two sizes—the small=1/50 of an English pint, the large being variable, but usually about 1/4 more than the small one.