15. The Philosopher Who Couldn’t Stand Greedy Drinkers
One fun activity that Pythagoras enjoyed was to imbibe wine. For that matter, so did most of ancient Greeks. However, Pythagoras had a pet peeve when it came to drinking: he did not like wine hogs. Specifically, he did not like it when greedy friends filled their cups to the brim, and took more than their fair share of the booze. So he decided to do something about that, and invented a special cup that came to be named after him.
At first glance, the Pythagorean cup looks like a run-of-the-mill traditional ancient Greek goblet. Inside, however, it contains a column that sticks up the middle. You can drink from it like any other goblet, so long as you don’t try to fill it to the maximum. Pythagoras designed the cup so that if a drinker got greedy and tried to fill it to the brim, it would instead drain all the wine and spill it out the bottom. Presumably, with wine spilled all over him, and faced with the hassle of wine stain removal, the greedy friend would learn a lesson about moderation.