offerings--as on the Athenian _lekythoi_. But by far the greater portion
of the subjects are taken from daily life, many of these being of a
purely fanciful and meaningless character like the designs on Sevres or
Meissen china; the commonest type is that of a young man and a woman
exchanging presents, the presence of Eros implying that they are scenes
of courtship.

The vases of this period are usually grouped in three or four different
types, corresponding to the ancient districts of Lucania, Campania and
Apulia, each with its special features of technique, drawing and
subjects. In Lucanian vases the drawing is bold and restrained, more
akin to that of the Attic vases; in Campania a fondness for polychromy
is combined with careless execution. In Apulia a tendency to
magnificence exemplified in the great funeral and theatrical vases is
followed by a period of decadence characterized by small vases of
fantastic form with purely decorative subjects. Besides these we have
the school of Paestum, represented by two artists who have left their
names on their vases, Assteas and Python. A well-known example of the
work of the former is a _krater_ in Madrid with Heracles destroying his
children, a theatrical and quasi-grotesque composition, and there is a
fine example of Python's work in a _krater_ in the British Museum, with
Alkmena, the mother of Heracles, placed on the funeral pyre by her
husband Amphitryon, and rain-nymphs quenching the flames (Plate I. fig.
55).

[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Cup with exploits of Theseus.]

About the end of the 3rd century B.C. the manufacture of painted vases
would seem to have been rapidly dying out in Italy, as had long been the
case elsewhere, and their place is taken by unpainted vases modelled in
the form of animals and human figures, or ornamented with stamped and
moulded reliefs. These in their turn gave way to the Arretine and
so-called "Samian" red wares of the Roman period. In all these wares we
see a tendency to the imitation of metal vases, which, with the growth
of luxury in the Hellenistic age, had entirely replaced painted pottery
both for use and ornament; the pottery of the period is reduced to a
subordinate and utilitarian position, merely supplying the demands of
those in the humbler spheres of life.

_Collections_.--The majority of the painted vases now in existence are
to be found in the various public museums and collections of Europe,
of which the largest and m