The kylix of Eos and Memnon (Figs. 8, 9, 10), well known to visitors of the Louvre, is not only the oldest but the one which best illustrates the first period of Douris, and deserves the closest attention from lovers of art. It is a masterpiece of Greek ceramic art, at a time when the painting of red figures, while still retaining the stiff, archaic forms, finds means to move the feelings by purity of line and a deep sense of life. The vase, by the potter Kalliades, in itself reveals an old shape (Fig. 1 right) with the foot short and squat, the sides heavy, a deep bowl and short handles, following the models of Nikosthenes and Pamphaios of the sixth century. Later Douris made a kylix of far more graceful outline, with a shallower bowl, a higher stem made slender in the middle, and lighter handles, such as one sees in the workshops of Euphronios, Hieron and Brygos (Fig. 1 left). On this kylix there are a great number of inscriptions: nearly every person is designated by name. Besides the signatures of the potter and painter we can read the name of the handsome Hermogenes (Fig. 8), and with it a fragment of a phrase, the meaning of which remains doubtful. Seventeen or eighteen words in all are scattered in fine red letters over the inner surface and the reverse of the cup. This profusion of writing is in itself archaic; men were communicative in early times, and delighted in labelling their figures like our old illuminators of the Middle Ages. More recent works of Douris have lost this useless mode of expression. Painting is its own interpreter, and has no further need of this awkward assistance. [Illustration: Fig. 12. THESEUS AND KERKYON, AND THE STRUGGLE WITH THE MARATHONIAN BULL. Kylix by Euphronios. Louvre Museum.] The composition is synthetic. It contains three events in the Trojan war. On the reverse are the combats of Menelaos and Paris, Ajax and Hector; on the inner side the Ethiopian King Memnon lies dead in the arms of his mother, the goddess Eos (the Dawn). Some archæologists who have studied these paintings have tried to find here a strong and learned unity, a kind of drama in three acts, even at the expense of the inscriptions. Brunn even maintained that the latter were faulty, as he conceived therein an Achilleid, celebrating three different feats of the great hero. Others have refused to see any reference to the Epics, and have noted the differences which distinguished the text of Homer from these paintings. For instance, Douris has placed behind Menelaos the goddess Aphrodite, protectress of Troy, which seems inconsistent; behind Paris we see Artemis carrying her bow; behind Ajax is the goddess Athene. These divinities do not figure in the Homeric account. As regards the death of Memnon, it appears to belong to an epic by another cyclic poet, Arktinos of Miletos. It is the imagination of the poet that collected at random, as it were, these scattered subjects, and united them according to his fancy.