Legend, which in this period found its brilliant expression in the Epics of Homer and Hesiod, is still very much in the background in these vase-paintings. Centaurs only begin to be represented on late Geometric vases. Scenes such as the embarkation on the bowl from Thebes (Fig. 21) cannot be interpreted otherwise than mythically, as the rape of Helen by Paris or of Ariadne by Theseus, since on Geometric bronze fibulæ from Boeotia it is certain that legendary scenes are intended. The battle scenes too, with their duellists surrounded by spectators and their fights on a large scale by land and sea, must be inspired by the Heroic Saga. But far more numerous are the scenes of daily life, which are connected with the sepulchral purpose of the vases. We see the dead man lying on the bed of state, covered with a big cloth; men, women, and children, with arms raised to their heads in token of grief, are standing, sitting and kneeling around him; we see the bier placed on the hearse, and amid loud lamentation of the populace driven to the cemetery, while, in honour of the deceased, chariot-races and mimic battles are represented and dances are performed to the sound of flutes and lyres. As the human form is rendered without any feeling for bodily shape, so all the representations are without any spatial sense. Chariot floors and table surfaces are not fore-shortened, the breast of the dead man lying on the bier [Illustration: PLATE XI. Fig. 20. UPPER HALF OF A DIPYLON GRAVE-VASE. Fig. 21. ‘THE RAPE OF HELEN,’ ON A BOWL FROM THEBES.] is represented in front view, the covering of the corpse is visible in its complete extent, as if it hung down upon it; in the case of pairs of horses the off horse is simply moved forward and represented smaller; masses of men are rendered by files of similar figures; figures to be thought of as in the background, _e.g._ the hinder rows in the Helen bowl (Fig. 21) are placed high up. The space, which contains the figures, is an ideal tectonic space, the surface of the vase to be adorned. Where the figures do not suffice to fill this space, the Geometric artist regards it as a gap in the decoration of the vase and fills the void with dots, rows of zig-zags, hooked crosses, rosettes with a central point, and actually paints birds or fishes between the legs of horses or between the chariot and the bier which rests upon it (Fig. 20).