The manufacture of the kylix--which was essentially the instrument of joy and gaiety, passing at banquets from hand to hand and admired by every one as it passed--received an impetus until then unknown. Hence it was in consequence of being in close connection with the export trade and with the two other great industries of wine and oil that the ceramic art of Athens developed so extraordinarily. The manufacturers must frequently have made large fortunes. Historians tell us that the great fortunes in Athens were in the hands of the metics. It is not astonishing to hear of rich offerings being made on the Acropolis by manufacturers, some of whom were potters. On the pedestal of an offering we read the name of the potter Euphronios. A votive stele, in a style of delicate archaism, represents in bas-relief a manufacturer of vases seated, holding two drinking cups in one hand. Unfortunately a great part of the inscription is effaced, but one can still distinguish the end of a name “IOS” which might be Euphronios. The style of the sculpture and the accepted date of the ceramist would agree. The most beautiful archaic statue found on the Acropolis is signed by one of the greatest sculptors of the fourth century, Antenor, and bears a dedication made by a certain Nearchos, who might be a maker of black-figured vases--one of which is preserved. This identification is unfortunately not certain, but is admitted by several archæologists, and implies nothing improbable. If one could definitely prove that the potter Nearchos had ordered, of a famous sculptor, an important work for an offering to the goddess Athene as a tithe of his gains, we should possess most important evidence as to the social and pecuniary condition of craftsmen. Another curious record of the mode of life led by certain potters is given on a vase in the Museum at Brussels. A painter has painted his own portrait in the features of a young man at a banquet leaning on a couch, feasting in the gay company of friends and hetairai (Fig. 3). He is a contemporary of Douris named Smikros. One day, his purse being well filled in consequence of good orders, he and some companions of the studio indulged in the pleasures the city yielded.