A biography of Douris must not be expected. No classical writer has honoured one of these potters even so far as to mention his name. Ancient literature has only left some brief allusions to the craft, some inscriptions recalling their dedications in sanctuaries. The vases themselves and the inscriptions traced thereon form the clearest testimony we possess. Here again we must be guided by discretion and not drift into romance. A learned German assumes that Euthymides, a celebrated potter of the fifth century and a contemporary of Douris, must have died young, while his rival Euphronios, after a long career, died at an advanced age. He quite forgets that the number of signed vases to be attributed to any individual artist is liable to be diminished or increased by a chance discovery, and that we are still far from being able to survey at a glance the complete production of a manufacturer. Euthymides may have produced far more than Euphronios; we have, however, only recovered seven of his vases. An enquiry into the lives of vase painters must be confined to a consideration of the general conditions of their position. All inference as to special facts is necessarily conjectural and fictitious. Modern historians have made known to us this important fact: trade in Athens, as in other Greek cities, was chiefly in the hands of those called “Metics,” that is to say, strangers living in the city and given certain political rights regulated by special laws. Athens possessed laws most favourable to the metics, and from the time of Solon, according to Plutarch, strangers crowded into this generous city, which offered such obvious advantages to settlers.