The inscription, written in the Euboean alphabet, functions as an ownership tag and includes a short humorous curse in iambic verse that warns drinkers against stealing the cup.
[7] The existence of pottery with Euboean script in Methone from this particular date appears to support Plutarch's accounts that the city was founded by Eretrian settlers in the first half of the eighth century BC.
[13] It consists of a short iambic dimeter ot trimeter, possibly the earliest recorded example of this kind, that follows the initial ownership tag in prose.
[15] The cup follows the conventional formula of a witty ownership tag, here taking the form of a good-humored curse, which became a common epigraphic trope in ancient Greek pottery, particularly on vessels meant to be used in a friendly circle of symposiasts.
[19] Comparative interpretation of sympotic inscriptions indicates that Acesander's cup is not an isolated example, but part of an epigraphic tradition with wide diffusion in space and time.
[b] Subsequently, based on the vocabulary of vessels with similar inscriptions, the text can be approximately reconstructed as: hΑκεσάνδρο ἐμ[ί - - μεδές - - (αν)κλε]ττέτο, [ὅς δ' ἄν] με κ[λέφσει, ὀμμ]άτων στερήσ[ετ]αι.