This article interprets two eyecups created in Athens at the end of the Late Archaic Period. Both would have been purchased by Athenian aristocrats and used at what were essentially exclusive drinking parties. Eyecups are a specific type of drinking cup used by aristocrats at these social gatherings. The cups are therefore an important source of information about how the Athenian elite expressed their self-identity during the period in which the cups were created and used. I will argue that eyecups indicate that aristocrats could only be equal among themselves if they stripped away what made them civilised and embraced ‘the Other’.